Link to July 31 Florida Times-Union article, "Jacksonville Public Library has spent $93k on travel since 2008".
Excerpt: No, the Jacksonville Public Library does not have a branch in Chicago. That, however, did not stop the library from spending nearly $20,000 to send 17 employees there in 2009.
That travel - among the $93,000 in trips library staffers have taken since 2008 - was for an American Library Association Conference, which included "over 300 educational programs covering a wide variety of hot topics," according to the association's website.
By comparison, that is more than the $85,279 that the City Council and the Mayor's Office spent on travel combined over that same time frame, records indicate.
Library director Barbara Gubbin says within the context of the library's roughly 150 librarians, sending 17 to a conference is not a lot. And along with keeping up on the latest industry trends, there are important reasons for librarians to travel to conferences.
As you might expect, reporter Matt Dixon is too lazy to tell us that the proposed library budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year is $41,939,848. Let's see now....$93,000 in travel expenses since 2008. Seems to Retiring Guy that travel expenses are an extremely small percentage of the library's overall budget. Oh, but it's much more fun getting people all riled up about out-of-state travel....or attendance at a state library conference at Disney World, of all places. (Oh no, FLA is meeting there again next year! Expect Matt to get all worked up again.)
No comments:
Post a Comment