Voters Support Libraries at the Ballot

Many Americans nationwide cast their Election Day ballots in favor of school, public libraries

By Kathy Ishizuka -- School Library Journal, 12/1/2004

Apart from choosing a president on November 2, Americans nationwide voted on crucial local library funding initiatives—and the news was encouraging. Despite heavy tax burdens and an economy still in recovery, voters in communities large and small approved tax measures in support of their school and public libraries.

Residents in Detroit, MI, for example, overwhelmingly approved two library millage proposals to maintain services at the 24-branch Detroit Public Library. Local cities, villages, and transportation agencies can raise funds by leveling a millage, or tax, that can be matched by federal funds. Measure L will ensure existing tax funding for libraries over the next 10 years, while Proposal M represents a one mil increase (each mil represents $1 in taxation for every $1,000 of a property's assessed value), which will raise the library's projected annual budget from $36 million to $42 million. This brings the library budget back to 2000 funding levels, before the state slashed its support by $6 million, and will ensure continued service, says Juliet Machie, the library's director of public services.

Machie says the results of library focus groups on the proposals showed that both library users and nonusers are saying, "I'm going to make the sacrifice," even though their tax burden is high and the economic slump continues.

Likewise, New Mexico voters approved Bond C, which provides $16.3 million to purchase books and other materials for public, state, and academic libraries, with $6.2 million going specifically to the state's school libraries.

In California, those who cast their ballots in Petaluma, Livermore Valley, Mill Valley, and Burlingame all passed measures to boost local education, including school libraries. Petaluma voters approved Measure K, a four-year parcel tax to raise an additional $1 million each year for the district's junior and senior high schools. Susan Thompson, a librarian at Casa Grande High School, says the measure guarantees a media specialist position at each of the four secondary schools in the district. Thompson, along with fellow librarians Connie Williams, Nancy Sieck, and Karen Andresen, wrote an editorial to the Argus Courier saying, "The information age is becoming increasingly complex. Without librarians, who will guide our students through the maze of information resources and instruct them in recognizing what might be unreliable? Fully staffed libraries are not a luxury, they are a necessity and our students deserve nothing less."