OLEAN — Voters OK’d the Olean Public Library’s 2025-26 budget on Thursday, and also approved a $7.9 million capital project.

The library’s $2.06 million budget passed, library Director Michelle La Voie reported, 333-91. A bond issuance to borrow funds for a $7.9 million overhaul of the library and expansion project passed, 307-86. Voters also chose Mike Morgan, who was unopposed, for a term on the library’s board of trustees with 355 votes to five write-ins.

“Needless to say, we are thrilled,” La Voie said, moving forward on plans that had been in work for almost a decade.

The budget included a 40.25% spending increase due to capital improvements and staffing costs, with a 28.9% tax increase — over $325,000, or about $42 extra on a property assessed at $75,000. The budget also ended several years of using existing money in the bank to avoid tax hikes, like the $208,000 used in the current budget.

Library officials began planning the expansion project on the site in 2017, first attempting to access the city’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative funding for a partial second floor. That effort was unsuccessful, leading the library’s leadership to look at alternatives on the current site or elsewhere in the community. Plans crystalized this spring around the expansion at the current site.

The project plans include renovating a third of the existing library and adding 25% to the site’s footprint with basement, ground floor and second floor additions. Officials had previously looked at moving to a new site in the city, but instead chose to focus on expanding the current structure the library has occupied for over 50 years. The library board proposes to finance the project with a bond sale through the New York State Dormitory Authority, with the issue to be paid off within 30 years.

Officials said in May that if the vote passed, groundbreaking would be planned for June 2026 and the ribbon would be cut by fall 2027.

According to the library’s 2024 annual report, it saw 95,213 in-person visits — an increase of more than 4,000 over the previous year — and more than 98,000 physical items and more than 10,000 digital items checked out. There were nearly 200 children’s programs attended by more than 3,600 children, more than 100 teen programs attended by more than 900 teens, and nearly 170 adult programs attended by more than 5,000 people.