The Palliser Regional Library held its fall board meeting in the South Meeting Room of the Moose Jaw Public Library on Friday.

Agenda topics included the 2019 Proposed Rural and Headquarter Budget and the 2019 Proposed Rural Levy. The library says the Saskatchewan Information Library Services, or SILS, levy will cover $23, 575 of the $60,602 SILS bill.

Palliser Regional Library Director, Jan Smith, said the levy will, "...[give] us the ability to keep the branches open the same number of hours they had been open in the past. It also allows us to maintain the money that we give the branches to buy additional materials, and run the programming. It also affords us the opportunity to keep many of the online programs available to the public.”

Palliser Regional Library’s proposed rural base levy per person in 2019 is $14.60. For towns with a library levy rate, the proposed total per person is $21.60. Assiniboia comes in with the highest proposed levy, at $28.60 per person.

This is the first time since the SILS levy was introduced in 2011 that the library has had to increase the amount to cover SILS membership cost increases.

Also a topic of discussion was the previously named Organization Audit, now called the Public Library Sector Engagement. Smith said, “[What the Engagement panel] is looking at now...the Library Act itself was written in 1995 or 1996. They’re looking to see if there are any changes needed in it. And where do we want to take libraries in the future so that they can modify the Act so that we can accommodate the future. And that’s what the discussions are about.”

Smith said the panel goes and talks to the regions about the Library Act. Each region has one meeting with the panel to put forward their comments.

Nineteen rural libraries and the Moose Jaw Public Library fall under the umbrella of the Palliser Regional Library, with headquarters at the Coteau Street library location.