Officials from the Central Arkansas Library System will get an opportunity to secure city approval for a November referendum on whether to increase the rate that determines the library system's revenue from property taxes at a meeting of the Little Rock Board of Directors on Tuesday.
If the board gives approval, Little Rock voters will get to decide whether to authorize an increase of 0.5 mill, bringing the local rate that supports the library system's maintenance and operating costs from 3.3 mills to 3.8 mills.
The ordinance before the city board would call a Nov. 9 special election.
Proposed ballot language contained in the ordinance would present voters with a for-or-against decision on whether to enact the tax increase "to be used for maintenance and operation of the public libraries of the City of Little Rock operated by [the] Central Arkansas Library System."
Little Rock city directors did not discuss the library system's special-election ordinance when they had the opportunity during a meeting last Tuesday meant to set the agenda for the Aug. 3 meeting.
If city directors vote to call the election, the referendum will take place approximately two months after Little Rock residents go to the polls on whether to authorize a 1 percentage-point sales-tax increase championed by Mayor Frank Scott Jr.
That election is set for Sept. 14. The city board voted in June to call the referendum on whether to raise the overall local sales-tax rate in Little Rock to 9.625% and thereby generate an estimated $530 million in new revenue over the 10-year lifetime of the tax.
The millage rate functions as a tax on every $1,000 of the tax-assessed value of a piece of property.
Nate Coulter, executive director of the library system, has said the increased costs associated with digital materials such as audiobooks necessitate more operating revenue.
At a library board meeting in late May, Coulter portrayed the system's financial situation as one that fell short of a hypothetical state of emergency. "But we ought to deal with it because if we don't deal with it now, it may be an emergency at some interval, and it's better to deal with it sooner rather than later," he noted.
In a written report prepared for the same meeting, Coulter estimated the millage increase would raise property taxes by $14 on the average Little Rock home.
The last millage-increase election in Little Rock to support the library took place in 2007.