Arkansas Online

Library officials talk millage plans

Exec: Petitions to set fall vote on uptick needed by mid-July

JOSEPH FLAHERTY

A Central Arkansas Library System official told board members Thursday that petitions signed by Little Rock residents must be collected by mid-July so they can be submitted to the city to tee up a fall referendum on a millage increase.

Officials from the library system will ultimately need to secure the assent of the Little Rock Board of Directors, which holds the power to call the special election.

It would be the first library millage increase in Little Rock in more than a decade if approved.

During the meeting, David Stricklin, the library system’s director of strategic partnerships and community engagement, told board members from Little Rock that they are permitted to solicit individuals to sign the petitions.

“This is just to get the thing on the ballot. This is not advocating passage of it, but we’ll talk more about that,” he said.

Stricklin said petitions must be returned by July 15.

Because 100 petitions are required, “we want to get 200 to make sure that we’ve got 100 good ones,” he said.

He said petition-signers must be registered voters who pay property taxes in Little Rock, “which may mean if you just own a car,” Stricklin said.

In a written report pre

pared for Thursday’s board meeting, library system executive director Nate Coulter wrote, “The most likely date for the library to be on the ballot is November 2. Accordingly, we need to have our petitions to the city in early August.”

In his report, Coulter also noted that library system board members “may sign and ask friends/family to sign these petitions.”

“The staff is permitted to participate in this process for determining the strategic and financial future of the library,” he added. “If the city board decides to set a library millage election, the limitation we discussed last month on staff advocacy for the millage while in the library or otherwise on work time will take effect.”

Seven Little Rock appointees, including board president Nancy Rousseau, sit on the library system’s board.

On May 27, library system board members approved a resolution giving the green light to pursue a millage increase of 0.5 mills, to be paid by property owners in Little Rock.

If approved, the increase would raise the current millage rate that supports the library from 3.3 to 3.8 mills in Little Rock.

Last month, Coulter suggested that the millage increase would raise property taxes by $14 on the average Little Rock home.

The executive director has said more revenue is needed to cover operating costs because of increased expenses associated with lending electronic materials, such as audiobooks, as well as a desire to avoid relying on capital improvement bond revenue.

The last millage increase in Little Rock to support the library system took place in 2007, when voters approved an increase of 0.5 mills, as well as a 0.1-mill increase to the system’s capital improvement levy.

Little Rock voters are already poised to go to the polls Sept. 14, when they will be asked in a separate special election to approve a sales tax increase of 1 percentage point proposed by Mayor Frank Scott Jr. earlier this year.

The city’s Board of Directors voted to call the special election earlier this month after much discussion of the sales tax package, which the mayor has named “Rebuild the Rock.”

Arkansas

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2021-06-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.arkansasonline.com/article/282260963432224

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