By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Officials with the Rolling Hills Library are asking Andrew and Buchanan County voters to lower the library tax levy from 31 to 28 cents.
Library Director Michelle Mears says if the April ballot issue is successful, the 20-year sunset on one half of the overall levy would end as well. . .
"That restricts the number of years we can finance bonds towards construction projects, and so if we have a longer term or we don't have any restriction in terms of a sunset levy, then we can have better options to finance out over a longer term and have more affordable payments and still have funds to operate the library with," Mears tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Mears says a benefit of the ballot measure would be a stable source of funding for the library, allowing library officials to make forward-looking management decisions.
"Because we can't even look at staff salaries and benefits and long-term programs and that sort of thing, when half our current operating budget expires every so often with that sunset," Mears explains.
The move is also seen as an important step toward building a new Rolling Hills library to move out of the strip mall on North Belt highway.
The library board plans to use reserve funds for half the costs and issue construction bonds for the other half. Mears says the sunset clause must be repealed to issue bonds.
Mears says the library successfully asked voters to extend the sunset in 2019, because the library was still in planning stages for what to do next.
"Since then, of course COVID hit, and a lot of things have changed and we've learned a lot of lessons, and we made the decision that we really need to be in a new building with different features and something that was designed to actually be a library not a commercial strip mall building that's been adapted for library use," Mears says.
The measure will be on the April 2nd ballot