Library Funding - General Taxes or Property Tax Levies?

[tubemonkey]

I agree with this editorial. Libraries should be funded from general revenues and not left to the whims of the electorate.

A SEVEN-YEAR Seattle Library Levy is the wrong way to pay for an essential day-to-day service.

Free public libraries are an essential service. They are about reading, which is about education, personal achievement, and democracy. Because libraries are such good things, they should not be offered up to voters in politically constructed take-it-or-leave-it choices.

This current levy proposal is mostly for libraries' day-to-day expenses, and these are neither optional nor one-time. They are essential and ongoing. They should be paid from general taxes, the same as police and fire services.

Funding library operations through levies opens the door to an egregious type of cost shifting. Libraries already have money going to them. If the voters add new money, the City Council can take out some of the old money and spend it on something else. In fact, it plans to do that. The levy would raise $17 million next year, but $5 million of it would replace money diverted to another part of government. So it's really a seven-tenths library levy.

But a levy for day-to-day operations is different. Saying no creates an opportunity to send a message to the City Council: You fund it — or not. Make your decision and explain yourself to the voters.

[JeremyR]

When raising property taxes, a question you should ask is "Is this worth throwing people out of their own homes at gunpoint for?"

Because that is the consequence of raising property taxes. Don't say it doesn't happen, it happened to my parents. And it happens quite a bit - people only seem to see the "positive" side of foreclosures and such (like storage places and what not), seeing people buying "bargains" but on the other side it's someone losing essentially their whole life.

If you want a library, why not fund it voluntarily? Cut out things like dvds and video games and focus on education.

[Phogg]

Property taxes is probably the worst way out there. When property values have become unnaturally inflated you become defunded when they correct. A nation can crash its entire economy and still not hold back such a correction.

Where I live we fund our frugal library with donations and fund raisers.

[Giggleton]

Can we discuss a an ebook server with access fees to pay for operating costs in lieu of taxes?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Can we discuss a an ebook server with access fees to pay for operating costs in lieu of taxes?

I'd oppose that. That doesn't help those who can't afford it.

What about other library services - paper books, magazines, computers, etc?

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Can we discuss a an ebook server with access fees to pay for operating costs in lieu of taxes?

Perhaps that deserves its own thread. I don't think it's germane to this topic.

[SleepyBob]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

If you want a library, why not fund it voluntarily? Cut out things like dvds and video games and focus on education.

With $2/day overdue fines, I wouldn't be surprised if our library's DVD section were a net revenue generator.

[Fbone]

In my town the library receives a set percentage of general revenue. While the total amount may vary each year the percentage does not. This, I believe, is state law.

[Greg Anos]

A property tax levied on copyrights themselves....

No-brainer.

Y'all want to treat copyright like real property, tax it like real property.

[wizwor]

A library is not an essential service -- at least not in the US where public schools provide the same services at taxpayer expense. In my community, the library is little more than a free version of blockbuster. Most of their expenses (after salary and facilities) is to purchase DVDs.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

A property tax levied on copyrights themselves....

No-brainer.

Y'all want to treat copyright like real property, tax it like real property.

What do you mean? The sale of copyrighted material is already taxed?

Do you mean if someone wishes to retain copyrights every year they must pay a fee based on potential income?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Can we discuss a an ebook server with access fees to pay for operating costs in lieu of taxes?

I must be missing something. Are you on the far right this week?

Taking this literally, it sounds like the subscription libraries, originally for the near-rich (Benjamin Franklin founded one), that predated public libraries.

On the other hand, I could look on your post as an endorsement of the many good public libraries that allow out-of-area people to borrow both paper and eBooks for a fee. (Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore and Princeton come to mind as in my general area).

The ebook server idea is fine so long as the publisher is on board and receiving the agreed-upon price.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by wizwor

A library is not an essential service -- at least not in the US where public schools provide the same services at taxpayer expense.

So any adult can just walk into a public school and borrow books?
The public school has the same selection of books as a library would?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

What do you mean? The sale of copyrighted material is already taxed?

Do you mean if someone wishes to retain copyrights every year they must pay a fee based on potential income?

The latter. Disney want to keep Steamboat Willie in copyright, make them pay a library tax on the copyright. Don't pay and it goes Public Domain...

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The latter. Disney want to keep Steamboat Willie in copyright, make them pay a library tax on the copyright. Don't pay and it goes Public Domain...

Actually, as costs are ongoing, zero copyrights and patents should exist on a one time fee.

Every copyright or patent should be renewed each year, with a cost based upon what the cost to maintain the copyrights has been the previous year. Exactly like every other government regulated commodity or franchise.

No more freebies for authors, inventors, photographers, musicians, or other freeloaders.