Monday, August 16, 1999
Cates drops library funding effort
For now, he'll focus on local solutions in suburban counties
BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
For readers in booming suburban counties, state money for public libraries in Southwest Ohio will continue to lag.
State Rep. Gary Cates, a Republican from West Chester, said that for now, he is giving up efforts to change the complex formula that funnels money to counties for their libraries.
He said his efforts to do so during the summer budget session foundered amid concerns about education funding and health care reform.
“This was just not the time to fight this battle,” he said. “There's no interest in it.”
Instead, Mr. Cates said he will pursue local solutions, possibly asking voters to approve a library levy. “It's an issue in my district, and I have to address it.”
The issue stretches beyond Butler County.
An Enquirer analysis published in January showed that Ohio's fastest-growing counties get the least money per person for libraries.
Warren, the second-fastest-growing county in Ohio, ranked last among the 88 counties, according to the 1997 data, the latest available.
Clermont ranked 85th, Butler 73rd and fastest-growing Delaware County ranked 87th.
By contrast, Hamilton County, whose population dropped 1.7 percent between 1990-97, ranked first. Hamilton County received $52.13 per person, compared with Warren's $23.36.
Mr. Cates said he has encountered resistance among lawmakers and the Ohio Library Association to change the state funding formula.
He blames it on their fear that change could leave libraries poorer if other groups make a grab for their money.
Also, he said, veteran lawmakers want to avoid a battle like the one that took place 13 years ago when they created the current formula. Then, the changes promised to make funding fairer for smaller, struggling counties by basing funding on state income taxes and population. Before then, funding was tied to each county's collection of taxes on investment profits, giving larger, urban counties an advantage.
That formula also promised not to cut funding for large urban libraries and that limited how much other counties' rates could be increased.
Also, lawmakers did not foresee the growth headed to suburban counties.
The formula can't keep up.
Mr. Cates says this leaves little choice but to find local solutions. He's exploring the idea of a library levy to pay for relocating and expanding Middletown Public Library's West Chester branch. One idea would see the library move to the former Voice of America site.
A library levy could be a hard sell to residents.
“I don't see why our taxes would pay for it,” said Liberty Township resident Ruth Roth, emerging last week from the West Chester branch clutching John Grisham's The Testament. She said she would vote against a library tax measure if it were put on the ballot. “But I'm a grandmother,” she said. “Maybe someone with children using the library” would support it.
Not necessarily.
Gerri Stringer of West Chester and her 5-year-old daughter, Sarah, like the library without an expansion. Ms. Stringer is against the levy idea.
“This library is just fine for me,” she said with Sarah at her side, carry ing several books after the library's summer reading program.
Jennifer Martin of Liberty Township doesn't have children but uses the library enough to support a levy.
“This is something that's needed. I really like to be able to come in and have the newest novels available to me,” Ms. Martin said while helping a friend's child look up a book on a library computer.
Julie Boggs agrees increasingly crowded libraries need a relief but said a tax is not the answer.
“It's a zoo down here, especially after school,” Ms. Boggs added. “Getting on the computer to go through the index is impossible, especially in the evenings.”
.
Instead of levies, libraries should start charging small fees for their services, Ms. Boggs said.
For their part, library directors have not given up on more state money. Joined by Middletown Public Library Director Douglas Bean, the five library systems in Warren County are banding together to spread the word and try to change the funding formula.
“It's still a major concern,” said Sarah Brown, director of the Mason Public Library, which just completed a 7,000-square-foot addition with $190,000 raised through corporate and private grants and book sales. “There are legislators who don't want to touch it because of that (that larger urban counties fear they could lose money with a change), and I can understand that. But to us, the disparity is so obvious.”
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