Keep Knox Smart!

The state legislature has been chipping away at library support statewide since 1991, costing Ohio libraries nearly a billion dollars. That loss continues to accumulate. Our share of that loss has been $3.3 million and counting. Our annual revenue has eroded by nearly $600,000 from where it would have been, had the legislature not tampered with it.
The erosion of library support made public libraries particularly vulnerable to the ravages of the recession. Our library’s staffing has been reduced by nearly a third. Hours of operation at the branches and main library have been severely cut back. Purchases of books, periodicals, CDs, DVDs and other materials have dropped to a mere trickle. Essential maintenance has been postponed or cancelled. The outlook for 2010 and beyond is even bleaker. Without additional support, the library will not recover from this disaster for decades.
The library levy that will appear on the ballot on November 3 will be a long-term solution to the library support crisis. It will provide about $1 million annually to rebuild the library’s materials collections, return hours of operation to their former, normal schedules and re-establish programs, services and resources that have been cut. It will provide a buffer against future economic shocks.
The levy proceeds will be used to benefit every part of the Knox County Library District: Fredericktown Community Library, Danville Public Library, Gambier Community Library, Extension Services Department and Mount Vernon Public Library.
The levy will cost the owner of a $100,000 property $35 a year—less than $3 a month, less than a dime a day. The levy also carries its own built-in freeze. The amount of money collected on a given property will never increase, even as the property’s value rises

The Levy: The Library Board has placed a levy on the November 3, 2009, ballot, seeking a 1-mill continuing period levy for the purpose of meeting current operating expenses. The Knox County Auditor’s estimate of the annual yield of this levy is $1,024,000. However, this does not take into account likely downward revisions of property values or delinquencies, so it is reasonable to assume that the actual yield would be less. On a property valued at $100,000, the cost to the taxpayer would be $35 a year, or $2.92 per month, less than the cost of a Happy Meal or a Starbuck’s latte. It should be noted that, since this is a continuing period levy, if passed, the millage would erode year by year. The amount collected on a given property would never increase.
The Need, Part One, Background: From 1933 through 1985, public libraries in the state of Ohio were funded through the Classified Personal Property Tax, also referred to as the Intangibles Tax, a local tax on investments collected and distributed by county auditors on a county-by-county basis. For over 50 years, this was the primary source of funding for all public libraries in the state. It was stable and progressive, but had a critical flaw in that poorer counties collected very little of the tax and, therefore, had poor library service. In 1985, the General Assembly abolished the Intangibles Tax and replaced that form of library support by creating the Library and Local Government Support Fund (LLGSF) which was to receive 6.3% of state income tax receipts. It was calculated that this would be a direct, dollar-for-dollar replacement of library funding. (It should be noted that elimination of the intangibles tax actually increased tax revenues to the state treasury, since income formerly taxed at 5% and exempt from state income tax became liable to state income tax at a top rate of 10%. Thus, the state treasury received a much bigger boost than the 6.3% of state income tax that was pledged to the LLGSF.) In 1992-93, Gov. Voinovich persuaded the legislature to enact an 18-month freeze on the LLGSF, after which its share of state income tax revenues was reduced to 5.7%, a reduction of nearly 10%. In 2002, the legislature enacted another freeze on the LLGSF which was renewed for two succeeding fiscal biennia, after which the LLGSF was eliminated (under Gov. Strickland) and replaced with the Public Libraries Fund (PLF), which was to receive 2.2% of all state tax revenues. The dollar amount this generated was virtually identical to the six-year-long freeze. By the end of 2008, PLF revenues had begun dropping and finished the year short of projections by $38,514. In 2009, PLF revenues continued to drop, falling short of certified estimates by as much as 25%. Revised projections for the year estimated a total drop in revenues of about 21%.

In June Gov. Strickland proposed a further 31% reduction in public library funding, which touched off a firestorm of protest and a public reaction that actually crashed the phone lines at the statehouse. When the furor was over, the actual reduction to library funding was set at 11%, bringing the total drop for the year to 32% (still preferable to a 52% drop). The sum total of legislative tampering with the LLGSF and PLF since 1991 has cost public libraries in Ohio about $950 million. The share of that absorbed by the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County is $3.3 million. Whereas our General Fund operating budget had peaked in 2002 at $2.3 million, it began 2009 at $1.8 million, which the fall-off in revenues will effectively reduce, by year’s end, to about $1.4 million. Projections for 2010 and beyond are equally dismal.
The Need, Part Two: Why Continuing Period? It has been asked why the Library needs one mill and why it needs to be for a “continuing period”? One mill will enable us to bring the Library back to the level of operations, services and purchases of materials (i.e., books, periodicals, audiovisuals, etc.) enjoyed by our citizens five or six years ago. It will enable us to rehire staff who have been laid off and restore hours of operation that were severely cut, especially in the branches in Fredericktown, Danville and Gambier. It will also, we hope, provide some measure of buffering against the continuing effects of the economic downturn (though the recession has ended, employment and tax revenues will lag behind) and further legislative tampering. In other words, it will allow us to run a decent library system for the foreseeable future. Absent this infusion of revenue, it’s a given that further reductions in the Library budget—and, therefore, additional layoffs, reductions in hours of operation, and the near elimination of new materials purchases—will have to be made. The levy needs to be continuing period because there will never be a time when this support will not be needed. The history of Ohio library funding for the past 20 years demonstrates that what the legislature and governor(s) take away, they never give back, and they seem unable to resist the temptation to take still more away.