Local libraries brace for new tax cuts

KALONA - Iowa state law has long permitted communities to tax 27 cents per thousand dollars of valuation for their local public library, as long as voters approved the measure in an election first.

Approximately 97 voted to do so over the years, according to the Iowa Library Association, including Southeast Iowa towns like Richland, Wellman, Ottumwa and Burlington.

But House File 718, a bill passed by the state legislature last year which implemented a number of major tax cuts across the state, will remove the authority to use such a tax levy.

Sam Helmick, president of the Iowa Library Association, said the reform eliminated an essential and inherently popular source of library funding.

“Levies are the most perfect form of representation through taxation,” Helmick said in a column published by The Gazette last year. “The voters of the communities proudly served by these libraries not only agreed through a petition to add the levy to the ballot, but also voted to tax themselves in order to fund their priorities.”

Kalona enacted the special levy in 1995, when voters in the city turned out two-to-one in favor of it at the ballot box, according to one November edition of The Kalona News. At the time, it generated $9,000 for the library’s operations. In 2023, it generated over $32,000.

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Next fiscal year, it will generate $0.

Kalona Public Library Director Trevor Sherping said he was concerned about the fallout for the institution’s budget.

“They didn’t just remove it so we could ask the voters again, we cannot, to my understanding, ever ask for that funding again, so that just goes away,” he said. “At my library, over 10% of our funding disappears, just because of that.”

Combined with other parts of the bill that limit city and county taxing, Sherping worries the legislation could leave libraries perilously under-funded. KPL, like other libraries in Washington County, relies largely on contributions from cities and the county each year that go above the state-required minimum.

Those dollars help pay for everything from IT services to programming costs to book purchases and more. But with those local governments collecting less money, Sherping said the library might find itself stretched too thin to maintain its current programming, services and hours.

“A city would have to get rid of another service or cut the budget across the board to do the same level of service,” he said. “(We’re) working right now to figure out exactly where our revenues are coming from, because every city is impacted in some aspect by House File 718.”

If cities and counties can’t continue that support, Sherping said the library would have to start putting things on the chopping block itself.

“I don’t have a 100% answer where our cuts are going to be coming from, except a little bit from everywhere, probably,” he said. “Right now, everything is on the table. I don’t think we’re going to go so far as to change the staffing procedures, but we have to evaluate that because everything is up in the air.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com