B&ECPL Budget Overview

The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library (B&ECPL) is a federated library system uniting 23 New York State chartered public library service areas within Erie County.  The Erie County Library Tax is the principal funding source supporting OPERATING EXPENSES and LIBRARY MATERIALS.  The library buildings themselves are not owned by the B&ECPL, but in most cases by the city, town or village in which they reside.  As each facility owner pays for, builds and owns the building, the size, features and amenities of an individual library are locally determined.

B&ECPL Central Library Also Houses Library System Functions

Library Systems serve individual libraries in a role similar to that performed by the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) for school districts.  At the B&ECPL those functions, housed at the Central Library, serve every library in the System. System services include managing the online catalog, circulation system, telephone and email reference, electronic databases, automation, acquisition, cataloging, library material processing, repair damaged materials, program development, interlibrary loan and shipment of requested books and other library materials among the 37 libraries and a bookmobile.

B&ECPL charges no fees to the individual libraries within the System for services.  Further, these libraries do not have to pay for their books, audio and video materials, which are purchased and paid for centrally.  Other library systems in the State charge individual libraries fees depending upon the service levels received (for example, an individual library might pay a fee for online catalog/request service or elect not to offer the online features to their users). For the individual libraries in those systems, this is on top of having to fund the purchase of computers and most of their books and audio and video materials.