With the Thompson-Nicola Regional District saving money in this year’s budget compared to 2018, more money is being put aside to expand library service in the future.

Director of finance Doug Rae says $425,000 has been put into a reserve fund specifically for library service. He says the regional district cut $1.025 million in solid waste management costs because of a new contract with RecycleBC.

“It’s saving for long-term planning. I’m not sure that I’m positioned to necessarily detail what those long-term plans may be at this point. But we know that when the time comes it will cost some money,” Rae says.

“We’ll be looking at grants, we’ll be looking at various opportunities to fund facilities expansion or upgrades. And having some money set aside in reserves, usually you need that in order to leverage government grants.”

There are currently 13 Thompson-Nicola Regional Library branches and a mobile branch within the regional district.