Quote:
Originally Posted by anamardoll
I agree with this, and it's one more reason why ANOTHER layer of funding can be a bad idea.
If you raise taxes to "support libraries" and then next year, the libraries are still struggling, people are going to ask questions. I mean, they just had their taxes raised, they can guesstimate the total extra money that went in and they can demand to know why X amount extra didn't do any good. And then it comes out that, oops, that money "for libraries" didn't GO to libraries, and then changes can be demanded.
If you institute some arbitrary fee for Y content and the library is still struggling next year, what does that mean? Well, it may mean that money got taken from the previous library funds, or it may mean that people stopped renting that Y content type. It's harder to trace, harder to track, and less likely to get people in an uproar than, say, RAISING TAXES FOR SOMETHING THAT THEN DIDN'T GET FUNDED.
Extra complexity = less transparency.
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That is pretty much what has happened over and over in this city--and guess what? The council pretty much says, "too bad, so sad. We have to make these tough decisions." The ONLY way to hold their feet to the fire is to change the way the laws work. When a vote is passed to add a tax for X, it has to keep current funding (or a percent of it) AND give the new money to X. Because even if you say, 'You must spend it on x" they will--and they'll take ALL the other money away and the funding remains exactly the same as before. From what I could see, the ONLY thing that changed was the council salaries and the addition of a single police officer (which was actually supposed to be a part time librarian. Again, I don't have heartburn about a police officer getting a job, but it's just a bait/switch whether it's justified or not.)