County Leaders Clarify Issues and Concerns Regarding the Library Tax, Measure P

Back in 1989, the city of Davis passed a $42 per parcel library tax to help fund the library. In 2007, Davis residents still pay the exact same amount despite the fact that inflation has greatly reduced the purchase power of that tax. Measure P proposes to increase that parcel tax to $88 which still would not equal the amount of the tax from 1989, however it would enable the library to maintain its current level of service, to refurbish some of the library building, and to restore some programs that have been cut over the years due to lack of funding.

The Vanguard was able to sit down last week with three key supporters of the library. Helen Thomson, one of Davis' representatives on the Yolo County Board of Supervisors who along with Marik Yamada is helping to spearhead this effort. Mary Stephens was a long time valued and honored librarian who just this year retired as the county librarian. And Rich Peterson has been hired as the day-to-day Measure P campaign manager.

One of the goals of this article is to clarify a variety of issues and questions that arose on this blog and within this community as to what Measure P does, what it funds, and why the tax increase is needed to maintain the library as a modern and vital institution.

As we have discussed previous, Measure P will enable the library to maintain its current level of service.

According to Mary Stephens,

"For me the most important thing is to sustain at a minimum sustain the current level of service including hours. The library has been using reserves since about ’92 off and on depending on how the funding came through to make up for the shift of local property taxes by the state. The reserves are running out, so if there isn’t an increase in the funding, there will be a significant reduction in the hours, materials, and programs."

Measure P will also allow the library to hire additional staff--positions that have been eliminated over the years due to having effectively less money over time.

"It will also allow us to add some additional staff, I think there are two positions to work with kids after school which have been eliminated over the years due to the tightening of the budget."

Over 1000 people use the library per week and the library has a high volume of book circulation--over one million dollars worth of books are circulated.

Supervisor Helen Thomson expressed surprise at how many people use the facilities.

"If you’re over at the library, which I was recently and I was pretty surprised at how many people use the library on Saturday and Sunday, it’s just phenomenal."

Supervisor Thomson talked about the additions for the children's area and the community rooms.

"[They will] have two rooms instead of the one Richard Blanchard room. That will be able to be divided into two so there will be one large one or two smaller ones. It’s going to have a sound system which it desperately needs. The kitchen will be nicely fixed up so that can be the continuation of pot lucks and things. It’s a very used community room. We’ve contacted all of the community organizations that use that room for support and nobody has turned us down."

She also spoke about the need for computers to insure computer literacy, but for her this comes down to a central belief in the need for a library that began early in her life experience.

"For me I believe so strongly in a public library, I was the eldest of eight children and my mother took us all to the library once a week and said you get books. She made sure we read them and at the end of the week they all went back. My mother was not an educated person beyond high school and she was a very big library user who read continuously and thoroughly, through all of her life and she made sure the kids all had an appreciation of the public library. So I really think that it’s important that our library in Davis be an up-to-date much used, much loved, and it certainly is that. It now needs to be fixed up a little because it is so loved and used. It needs to have some additional space and some more equipment."

Computers are a vital service that some of us take for granted.

Rich Peterson pointed out:

"I think when your talking about computers, I think it’s really important, although your readership all have computers, there are still a significant number of people who live in apartment buildings all throughout Davis that just don’t. And it’s hard for us to imagine. Whenever you go in there after school there are kids of all types that are there using computers."

Supervisor Thomson followed up on that pointing out that in addition to a place where people can learn, it's also a place for people to socialize and a place for community.

"And when we were moving into this building, one of the maintenance men was asking, what are you going to be doing in there? We told him about the library election and he said, oh I go to the library everyday, when I have time, that’s where I go. I was really pleased to hear that because it’s also I think a place for all of us who are so busy with so many things that we don’t think about the fact that there are people who aren’t as connected and who don’t have family or friends close by and so they do spend time sitting in there and reading magazines and the newspapers. It’s a kind of socializing if you will as much as they can with other people who come in. It is that kind of place as well now.

The new libraries of the 21st century, the librarian doesn’t go around saying “shh, shh, shh.” They are encouraging people to be involved and active. They encourage the kids, there are some wonderful groups of teens at the library and some young people and they have reading times and book clubs."

One thing that I learned from this interview is that the library is a special district, it is its own tax entity, and therefore it cannot receive money from the county general fund. So the only way that the library can increase its funding is by raising the taxes that it levies.

Mary Stephens told me:

"The library is its own tax entity, it’s a special district administered by the board of Supervisors so it has a dedicated property tax. The challenge always for the county library was to do the best you could with the money the tax generated."

Helen Thomson followed up saying:

"I think it’s really important to understand that because the library is its own taxing entity just like special districts that are fire districts, or community service districts, or any of these other special purpose, special districts. The general fund of the county can’t be used for adding on for those purposes."

To make matters worse, the legislature in its efforts to mitigate funding problems for schools and elsewhere has shifted money from the library to schools.

As Mary Stephens pointed out:

"What has happened is the property tax shift has just really hurt us badly and we’re shifting between 30 and 40 percent a year forever... It’s shifted locally from county property taxes to the schools to reduce the state’s reimbursement. It’s called ERAF—Education Revenue Augmentation Fund. People don’t understand it because it’s so convoluted. And there was a proposition about a year ago to stop any additional ERAF shifts in funding. But the shift that is going on continues. The library has shifted over $5 million from I think."

For a library that's a huge amount of its operating expense being shifted. Now a proposition recently passed has stopped the expansion of that shift, but the shift still remains.

We talked about the services that Measure will help maintain if it passes. The big thing is hours. Hours could be reduced down to 40 hours per week from 60 unless Measure P can increase the funds available.

Mary Stephens suggested this will lead to a 30 percent reduction in the programs and hours.

"I know from our other discussions, in all likelihood, it would be to close Friday. And do a six day a week schedule. And probably work one shift. Right now it’s a shift and a half."

Rich Peterson added:

"They would also likely curtail the morning hours because the evening hours are so important. What happens if you start cutting away from the morning hours, then you lose the young children’s programs."

One of the big services that this would add would be after-school programing for kids, that includes story times, book clubs, homework help, and an expanded children's area.

Measure P represents an increase of $46 per parcel, per year. That works out to be just under $4 per month over what people are paying now. Remember, the library tax is a permanent tax, there is no sunset date, so the real choice for voters is $42 or $88 per year, zero is not an option. Measure P would simply override the current measure on the books.

Supervisor Thomson said:

"It goes from $42 to $88 per parcel. That $42 was set in 1989. It’s a significant amount if you say it doubles. At the same time, if you look at the value of the dollar, and what it purchases, it’s even so a significant amount but it’s not near the purchasing power of the dollar in 1989. We feel pretty strongly as a committee that we looked at… what was the absolute minimum that we needed to continue the programs that were existing and add some of the things that we felt the committee wanted because when we did a poll about… at least two years, all of the things that we are adding on are things that community said it would really like to have. Plus just the fact of the librarians being there day in and day out, they see and hear and talk with the patrons that come in, and they know what some of the needs are. Those of us who use the Blanchard Room on occasion, we know that that certainly can be expanded. There can be some amenities added there."

So why is the increase needed? As some have complained, perhaps Measure P goes too far beyond simply maintaining what we have in the libraries to include things such as expanding the Blanchard Room, adding multi-functional self-service check out kiosks, expanding bookshelf space, among other things.

Mary Stephens informed us that part of the need for the change in the check out area is a health concern.

"There is a big issue with repetitive stress with the current set up of the circulation area and this would permit us to bring it up to date and take care of a lot of those issues. The library was designed before the internet took off, even though we did a pretty good job of anticipating wiring and things for more computers but the volume coming through that desk, particularly returning. All the books have to be put back on the shelf regardless of the technology you have, so just the picking them up and putting them back on the shelf has led to a lot of repetitive stress. And this will help."

Rich Peterson also clarifies that the Blanchard Room expansion and reconfiguration is not really the bulk of the expense.

"The comment was made that the reconfiguration of the Blanchard Room was going to be the bulk of the money. That’s not true. The reconfiguration of the Blanchard Room is allowed because we’re trying to protect worker safety."

More crucially, Davis libraries will actually increase the amount of their operating budget spent on books.

"We’ll actually spend more money (proportionally) on books. Right now the Davis Public Library spends a fewer percentage on its book collection than any other of the county libraries. With this measure they’ll be able to expand both the adult and the children’s. Especially when you have the governor cutting $15 million out of the public library system—which for us means a thousand books—and that’s huge for Davis."

Many have also suggested that our library is outdated and does not provide as many resources as other city libraries.

According to Helen Thomson, Measure P fixes that.

"Yes it will. That’s why we want people to vote for Measure P because 67 percent is tough to get to even when you have a wonderful project and a reasonable amount of money and a lot of supporters. 67 percent is hard to get to. So yes, the money that will come from the tax measure will help to modernize, rehabilitate, add computers and books, continue the hours that we currently have, give us a more updated look, modernizing, and professionalizing. "

They are also looking into bringing library services to South Davis.

According to Supervisor Thomson:

"It does [help to bring library services to South Davis]. The city has a parcel of land down there in South Davis which they had agreed with the Board of Supervisors to hold [they deeded it] until such time as there is enough money to do a South Branch of the Davis Library. One of the reasons that it’s not been another year is that we were looking at going for an election last year, is we looked into very thoroughly, and had a community committee as to how much it would take, what kind of branch we could put there, how much money it might take, how we might be able to manage it within the context of the amount of money that people in polls said they were willing to spend, which was the maximum of $90. We couldn’t get beyond the $90 and still get a facility in South Davis."

Until they can build the facilities they are looking into some kind of store front or kiosk. Mary Stephens suggested the big issue for many was a place for people to drop of their books. People do not mind coming in to pick up books, but having a convenient place to return the books would greatly add to the usage for the library.

For people on fixed incomes, there will continue to be a hardship waiver.

Mary Stephens said,

"People will have to file annually. It’s announced at the end of April for a June 1 filing. Forms will be made available throughout the community. "

In closing, Helen Thomson argued that libraries remain vital for the functioning of Democracy.

"They have to think about how important the library is to democracy, and maybe that’s a great big vision thing. But in today’s world, where there is so much assault on democracy, keeping the library free and accessible, having the most up-to-date computers and technology, and access to information, is critically important in an educated citizenry and an educated citizenry is what challenges and questions the decisions being made nationally, locally and internationally. I strongly believe that’s an incredibly important principle to preserve. So people should ask the question as to whether this is a value to me and I would hope that Davis citizens would say yes, this is a value--$88."

This is of course not really $88 but rather $46 on top of what people are currently paying.

Mary Stephens said from her perspective,

"I look at the library as just the core of lifelong education."

For Rich Peterson it's a matter of equality of opportunity for rich and poor, young and old.

"Libraries are truly a great equalizer, it provides an opportunity for those that don’t have what most of us have, to be similarly educated."

The residents of Davis have a decision, for the increase of $3.50 to around $7 per month, they can insure that our libraries remain open, remain modern, remain vital in our community to all of our residents. This is a resource that small children use when they are first learning to listen to stories and then read. It is a resource that teens use to learn how to do research and gather information on computers. And it is a resource that adults and seniors use as they continue the learning that began when they were children. It is a small price to pay for an institution that so many get so much out of.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting