PORT ANGELES — The system that operates four public libraries in Clallam County won’t be able to continue its present hours and staffing unless the organization can pass a levy lid lift in November, its executive director said Monday.
“If we consciously picked the worst possible time to go to the public for a levy, this would be it,” Paula Barnes, North Olympic Library System executive director, told about 75 people at a Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
“The board really struggled with that, and we’ve tried to figure out alternatives,” she said.
But they could find no other way, Barnes told the group.
“We feel that we have no good alternatives, and we are at the point where we have to ask for a levy rate increase,” she said.
The levy measure on the Nov. 2 general election ballot will ask for an increase from 33 cents per $1,000 assessed valuation to 50 cents per $1,000 assessed valuation on property countywide to support public libraries in Port Angeles, Sequim, Forks and Clallam Bay.
That means the owner of a $200,000 home would go from paying $65.86 per year to paying $100 per year in property taxes.
Sustainability
A major part of the decision on the amount of the levy lid lift was sustainability, Barnes said.
“We wanted to commit that we will not have to come back to the voters for another 10 years,” she said.
“If this does not pass, the only way to balance the budget — and I know this is extremely difficult for the staff to hear — is to do layoffs.
“If we are laying people off, we will have fewer staff, so that means shorter hours, fewer programs, fewer new materials and fewer people to handle them.
“It also means dealing with the continual failure of vehicles and buildings throughout the system.”
If the levy lid lift passes, taxpayers would pay more but also get more, Barnes said.
“We would be able to expand our hours,” she said.
“More convenient hours is always the first thing we hear as a request.”
Expand hours
She gave the Port Angeles Library as an example.
Operating hours at the Port Angeles Library would expand to 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, she estimated.
Now, the Port Angeles hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and from noon to 8 p.m. Monday and Wednesday.
Barnes did not address hours at Clallam County’s other three public libraries.
If the levy passes, money will begin to be collected in 2011, Barnes said.
The current budget is about $3.05 million. About 89 percent of the budget is from property taxes. The rest is from timber and forest products and from fines, fees and interest.
Unlike a school levy, the vote will set a rate — not an amount to be raised for the first year.
In subsequent years, the library, which is a junior taxing district, could collect 1 percent more than the total amount of taxes collected the year before.
In order to balance the 2010 budget, the four public libraries will shut down twice for a week at a time.
The employees voted for the unpaid furloughs in lieu of layoffs, Barnes said.
“It amounted to about a 4 percent pay cut for the employees,” she said.
“It was a really tough decision for them.
“They also didn’t get [cost of living adjustment] raises this year.”
Barnes said that in 2009, the library system was well used:
• 4,091 people received new library cards.
• 875,077 books and other materials were borrowed from the library.
• 411,679 people visited the library.
“Also, about 63 percent of Clallam County’s population has library cards,” Barnes said.
“That is astounding. Most places have about 50 percent or so.”
She said that the library was more than just a “book warehouse.”
“It really is that ‘third place,'” Barnes said.
“It is not home, and it is not work, but it is a place in the community where people can go, gather, learn and interact.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladaily news.com.
