FAYETTEVILLE -- After years of budget cuts and frustrated plans, the public library will make its plea to city voters this year to raise their property taxes for a bigger and better library.
The Fayetteville Public Library board Monday took the first step in the months-long process to get a millage increase on the ballot, voting unanimously to create an election committee of residents who will recommend how much of a tax increase to ask for and other details. The board could decide the committee's membership at its next meeting in April, library director David Johnson said.
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After that comes a petition drive, a series of public meetings, City Council approval and other steps that board members hope will lead to a vote on a millage increase and bond issue in August or September. Property owners pay 1 mill to the library each year on top of city, school district and county taxes. The mill costs $30 for the owner of a $150,000 home and raises more than $1 million annually for the facility.
Johnson said Monday's vote declared the library wouldn't go through another year of cutting programs or books and wouldn't wait for the purchase of an adjacent piece of land that has been mired in court for more than a year.
"We've done everything within our power on our side," he told the board. "The community is expecting us to do something, and they can't wait. And we can't wait."
The library has struggled for the past two years with the problem of too much popularity and not enough money. A steadily growing number of patrons have put demands on the library's space, material and resources that have outpaced its revenue, officials have said.
The idea of a millage increase came up early on in those discussions, but board members first tried to trim spending as much as possible. They've cut about $300,000 from the facility's roughly $4 million budget in the past two years, meaning fewer new material, fewer summer and education programs for kids and adults, cleaning and maintaining walls and carpets and furniture less often and letting some landscaping shrubs and trees die. They also raised several fees.
At the same time, library leaders hoped to buy the old City Hospital land next door for an expansion that might double the library's space and draw in even more people. The descendants of the lands' original owners have protested the purchase in court, and the case is waiting for Arkansas Court of Appeals review.
"We had great momentum and we were ready to go when things didn't go our way," Johnson said.
Now the library will go back to the drawing board and plan to expand on the facility's current land, he said. A millage increase could help cover such an expansion and shore up the deferred maintenance and other needs.
The election committee must be separate from the board because the library can't spend money on an election campaign, Johnson said.
"You need an outside group of private citizens to sort of carry the banner forward," he said.
The millage hasn't been raised in decades, Johnson said, adding the library has seen much more use than expected when it was built a decade ago. The board welcomed the proposal.
"I just think this is the next logical step for our library and the city's library," said Maylon Rice, the board's treasurer.
NW News on 02/16/2016