Library system cuts
This article was originally published January 7, 2010 at 12:28 p.m. Updated January 7, 2010 at 3:55 p.m.
A public meeting next week will feature discussion on an array of Central Arkansas Library System service reductions aimed at recouping property taxes collected as part of a 2008 rate increase recently deemed illegal by the Arkansas Supreme Court.
The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Jan. 14 at the Main Library's Darragh Center, library officials announced today in a news release.
The exact amount CALS must reimburse taxpayers is not yet known, but officials estimate it at $1.5 million. That figure is about 10 percent of the 2010 budget.
The proposed changes to fund the reimbursement include reducing service hours at all Little Rock libraries, reducing the Children’s Library programming, delaying opening the new Rooker Library, closing Aerospace Library, reducing the books and audio/visual materials budget, reducing reserve funds, eliminating staff raises, soliciting voluntary pay cuts from senior staff and freezing all open positions, according to the release.
The CALS Board of Trustees must approve the reductions at its Jan. 28 meeting before any action is taken on them.
None of the cuts would interfere with the expansion of the Main Library or the construction of the Children's Library Initiative, CALS officials said. The cuts are also expected to be temporary.
“We expect services to be restored in 2011," CALS Director Bobby Roberts said in the release. "Our customer service will remain at its current excellent level, and we will do the best we can with money we have.”
Central Arkansas Library planned to hold an election Nov. 13, 2007, to ask Little Rock residents to approve a temporary 1-mill increase to back $32 million in bond issues for two new libraries and other projects. Little Rock city directors approved the Nov. 13 election date, but the city failed to publish the notice in time to meet a 60-day notice requirement for special elections.
City directors then approved an election for Dec. 11, 2007.
The tax increase was approved, but the special election occurred two weeks after the Pulaski County Quorum Court set 2007 tax rates that were to be paid in 2008.
The Quorum Court didn’t pass another property-tax ordinance within 30 days of the certification of the vote, as state law allows after residents approve a new tax. Instead, Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines signed a county order on Jan. 14 amending the library’s tax rate, following the actions of Little Rock city directors who approved an ordinance on Jan. 8, 2008, with the new library millage rate.
When it got to the State Supreme Court, justices said Villines had no authority to retroactively apply the tax increase to 2007 bills.
Information for this article was contributed by Kristin Netterstrom of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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