Cedar Rapids to vote on library levy to help pay operating costs

CEDAR RAPIDS — City taxpayers here have had only so much love for their public library over the years.

Maybe the best example of that came in 1985 when the city finally figured out a way to build a new library at 500 First St. SE, the one the flood of 2008 inundated and was replaced with the two-year-old, $46-million library across from Greene Square on Fourth Avenue SE.

Six times from 1969 to 1980, Cedar Rapids voters were asked to support a bond issue to build a new library, and six times voters rejected the idea.

The Hall Foundation, which has become the Hall-Perrine Foundation, finally contributed $6.8 million to the project and the not-for-profit library foundation added more than $1 million in private donations to get the 1985 library built.

News accounts at the time suggested that it was hard to call the 1985 library a public one and not a private one when it opened.

Federal and state disaster dollars, private donations and about $4.8 million in local-option sales tax dollars for flood recovery — and no need for a specific vote from local taxpayers on the library — have allowed the city's two-year-old downtown library to open debt free and have provided dollars to renovate a leased space so the city could open an expanded west-side library branch.

Come Nov. 3, city voters will have a chance to weigh in on their fondness for the library for the first time in years.

They will be asked to decide if they will put in place a special, permanent, property-tax levy that will raise an additional $1.6 million a year for the library's operation.

The proposed library levy of 27 cents per $1,000 of assessed property valuation will increase the city portion of the local property-tax bill for the owner of a home valued at $100,000 by $15 a year and for the owner of a $150,000 home by $23 a year, according to the city's Finance Department.

Owners of commercial and industrial property will pay more — an additional $243 a year on a property valued at $1 million — because they pay tax on 90 percent of the value of their property. Residential owners pay tax on only 55.7 percent of a property's value.

There does not appear to be any organized opposition to the library levy measure, although longtime City Council budget watcher and critic, Carol Martin, said last week that 27 cents was too much. She said she supported the old library levy of 4 cents, which had been only for the purchase of some of the library's books and materials and which ended on June 30, 2014.

For the past three city budget cycles, City Manager Jeff Pomeranz has told the City Council that the city needs a 'long-term funding strategy' to cover all the cost of the library's annual operating budget.

The 27-cent library levy is that strategy.

For the budget year that began July 1, the city is contributing $669,000 in one-time special funding for the library and the library's foundation is contributing $250,000 from its reserves so the library can balance its operating budget. In addition, the city has taken on $500,000 in debt in the current budget year so the library can keep its collections of books and other materials current and can replace what becomes damaged or worn out.

CRPL Director Dara Schmidt said the 27-cent levy will provide the library with a 'sustainable' revenue boost that will allow the facility to balance its budget and let it keep up to date on its collection in a pay-as-you-go way without having to do so by borrowing money.

Adequate support?

To be clear, the city contributes much more in ongoing revenue from property taxes to the library's budget each year — about $5 million a year — than the $1.6 million a year that the 27-cent levy will provide.

City officials expect to continue to provide this ongoing revenue, but the revenue from the levy will eliminate the need for additional emergency funding for the library.

According to the city's published budget for the current fiscal year, the city spends about 5 percent of its $116 million, property-tax-supported, general fund budget on the library.

Does that mean the city supports its library adequately?

There are plenty of numbers to look at to shine some light on an answer.

For starters, some 80 cities among the 544 in Iowa with public libraries have a 27-cent library levy in place, and handful have a library levy of smaller size.

Three of Iowa's six largest cities have a 27-cent levy — Iowa City, Davenport and Waterloo — while Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Sioux City do not.

In a wider view, seven of Iowa's largest 50 cities have a 27-cent library levy. The others in that group are Burlington, Cedar Falls, Newton and Ottumwa.

Two others among the 50 largest cities have smaller library levies — Mason City has a 14-cent levy and Marion at 4 cents.

Marion and Hiawatha voted down a move to a 27-cent levy in 2013.

CRPL's Schmidt pointed to the most recent state library figures from fiscal year 2014, which show that city dollars going to fund the library that year amounted to $35.76 per capita — that's nearly at the $35.60 average for the state's 544 public libraries.

Among the libraries in Iowa's largest 10 cities, Cedar Rapids — the state's second-largest city — ranks seventh in per capita city income going to the library. Iowa City, the state's sixth-largest city, is at the top, with $70.88 per capita in city funds going to the library, according to 2014 state figures.

'Essentially we are fighting for average funding,' Schmidt said.

The same state library figures from 2014 also look at Iowa's cities in another way — how much city revenue based on the city's overall property valuation goes to its library.

In that regard, Cedar Rapids ranks 93rd among the state's largest 100 cities. Cedar Rapids uses 79 cents per $1,000 of property valuation (or about 5 percent of the city's overall levy of $15.21 per $1,000 of valuation) for the library, according to the 2014 figures.

Winterset in southern Iowa ranks first, and among Eastern Iowa communities, Oelwein is seventh, Coralville, 18th, Hiawatha, 20th, Washington, 28th, and Iowa City, 29th.

Joe Lock, president of the CRPL board, said it's difficult to make comparisons among cities because each city's overall budget is different.

What is clear, Lock said, is this: 'The special 27-cent levy is the only realistic way for us to maintain the same level of library service moving forward.'

Door to door

Director Schmidt is not sitting back as the Nov. 3 vote on the library levy approaches. She and the library staff are permitted to provide information about the library to the public, but not to suggest how they should vote.

So she and others have been going door to door to sign up residents for library cards and to talk about the library.

Susan McDermott, a longtime library board member, last week told the City Council she, too, had been going door to door and had gotten generally positive comments about the library.

McDermott rattled off statistics about the library that show dramatic growth in its use compared to 2007 — the year before the city's library service was disrupted by the city's historic 2008 flood.

Today, the library's annual circulation of 1.432 million books and materials is the largest in the state, she said.

Schmidt said the city's downtown library and west-side branch library comprise 94,000 square feet of space compared to the 87,600 square feet of the former 1985 downtown library and the former storefront library in the old Westdale Mall.

Most of the extra space is for meeting rooms, the larger auditorium downtown and for a youth and children's area, she said.

The number of books and materials in the library collection — most of what the library had was destroyed in the 2008 flood — is about half what it had been before the flood, 147,445 items compared to 294,291. But other library numbers are up: visits by 55.6 percent; circulation, 18.1 percent; program participation, 144 percent; meeting room use, 810 percent; and computer use, 95 percent.

McDermott told the City Council that she has been most surprised by how many people say they bring out-of-town visitors and relatives to see the library because they are so 'proud' of it.

'I don't think when we were building the library we anticipated that,' she said of the library board. 'It's a wonderful thing.'

Schmidt said the era of the library as a 'warehouse' of books has passed. Libraries today are 'community hubs,' she said.

'The library's job is to make sure that people have access to all kinds of different information,' she said. 'And sometimes that is from books, but a lot of times it is from each other.'

Schmidt, who is in her 16th month on the job, remembered sitting on the library's second floor in 2014, waiting to be interviewed, as an assortment of group meetings and conferences were in progress and a children's reading class was going on.

'You're sitting there — and I've been in libraries all across the country — and I've never seen anything quite like this before,' she said. 'This is true civic engagement that happens in Cedar Rapids.'

Schmidt said that the number of people who use the library's meeting rooms — 122,943 are expected to do so this year — may increase the likelihood of winning a majority in the Nov. 3 vote on the library levy.

In the city's former 1985 library, the central meeting room did not require people to go into the library proper. The meeting areas now are on the second floor.

'So once you walk in, you see life happening all around you,' Schmidt said. 'Then we got you. You understand what the library is for.

'…

But whether that is reflected on the ballot, I don't know.'

Schmidt said the number of full-time-equivalent employees at the library is 64, comparable to what the library had averaged in the years between 2000 and 2007, she said.

A defeat in the Nov. 3 election will mean closing the downtown library and the west-side branch one day a week, among other cuts, she said.

How the CRPL stacks up

Cedar Rapids Public Library Director Dara Schmidt pointed to the most recent state library figures, from fiscal year 2014, which show that city dollars going to fund the library that year amounted to $35.76 per capita — that's nearly at the $35.60 average for the state's 544 public libraries.

Among the libraries in Iowa's largest 10 cities, Cedar Rapids — the state's second-largest city — ranks seventh in per capita city income going to the library. Iowa City, the state's sixth-largest city, is at the top, with $70.88 per capita in city funds going to the library, according to 2014 state figures.

'Essentially we are fighting for average funding,' Schmidt said.

Those same figures from fiscal year 2014 also look at Iowa's cities in another way — how much city revenue based on the city's overall property valuation goes to its library.

In that regard, Cedar Rapids ranks 93rd among the state's largest 100 cities.

Cedar Rapids uses 79 cents per $1,000 of property valuation (or about 5 percent of the city's overall levy of $15.21 per $1,000 of valuation) for the library, according to the 2014 figures.

Winterset in southern Iowa ranks first, and among Eastern Iowa communities, Oelwein is seventh, Coralville, 18th, Hiawatha, 20th, Washington, 28th, and Iowa City, 29th.