Libraries saw unprecedented success in the voting booth in 2017. Can we keep the momentum going?

EveryLibrary and LJ tracked a total of 133 library ballot measures across 24 states in 2017. A majority (85) were for operating funds to maintain or expand library programs, staffing, services, and collections. We are very happy to report that 83 of those 85 measures passed. This 98% pass rate is the highest level of success that we have tracked in the last ten years. Ballot questions related to updating, renovating, or building new library facilities also enjoyed a high rate of success, with 28 of 39 measures passing (72%). All nine of the “governance”-related questions, such as establishing a district or annexing new areas for service into a district, also passed. Overall, 90% of all library ballots passed in 2017, in both red states and blue ones, in small towns and in big cities, as components of larger municipal questions or as dedicated library measures. (Of these, EveryLibrary worked on 17 referenda, resulting in 14 wins, one partial win, and two losses. These include eight new or significantly expanded library buildings in six towns, seven increases in operating funds, and two new library districts.)

As in 2016, Ohio and New York accounted for nearly half of all measures we tracked. This year, 100% of the measures in each of those states passed. In particular, Ohio voters approved several new dedicated local library levies to supplement the state aid formula with local levy dollars. In New York, several libraries were able to pass their budgets after repeated tries. Big wins nationwide include Washington’s Kitsap Regional Library passing an .08¢ increase ($3,450,000) to its operating budget with a 62% yes vote, the Lyon Township Public Library, MI, passing a 60% increase to operating funding with a 56% yes vote, and the Bridgeport Public Library, CT, reinstating one mill of funding with a 65% yes vote. A county library for Moniteau County, MO, was created, as was a municipally funded library for the town of Rochelle Park, NJ. After many years of operating solely on donations, the team in Josephine County, OR, established a special taxing district for significant parts of the region.

Buildings on the ballot

Highlights from the building votes include Houston, TX, where voters passed a $123 million bond for library construction just eight weeks after Hurricane Harvey dropped devastating rain on the region over the course of five days. The Dallas Public Library will build two new libraries and undertake needed renovations across the system with a $11.5 million citywide bond approved at 76%. Several multipurpose bonds were on ballots across the country, including in Shelburne, VT, where voters approved $6.5 million for a new library and to renovate their historic Town Hall. In Ankeny, IA, the town will build a fire station and a library. The narrowest win for any library we tracked was a 12-vote margin (following a recount) in the town of Carbondale, KS, where the voters affirmed on December 12 a city council action to sell $1.65 million in revenue bonds to finance a new facility.

The only statewide ballot for libraries this year was in New Jersey, where the New Jersey Library Association succeeded in working with the General Assembly in Trenton to place a $125 million construction bond for libraries out for voter approval, then campaigned hard for its passage. With broad-based support among elected officials and other organizations across the state, and through the diligent work of the NJ Libraries Build Communities campaign, the measure passed with 60% of the vote.

2017 Summary

Riding a progressive wave?

How did 2017 break the record for winning measures, with 90% passing? We have a professional hunch or two. For instance, 2017 could be a year when traditionally progressive issues were able to succeed because “macropolitical” forces pulled out certain values-driven voters. This may have helped account for some large margins of victory and even some lucky breaks on the campaign trail. This does not discount the hard work and smart campaigning done by library teams nationwide. Classic voter identification work coupled with engaged and active Get Out the Vote contact by a Yes Committee still carries the day. Likewise, a library’s own Informational Communications Campaign is central to voter education and activation in every community that succeeds. But this first post-Trump state and municipal off-cycle election may merit an asterisk in the record books in the same way that library teams were forgiven in 2009 and 2010 for a high number of losses. Then, when they were dealt a terrible “macroeconomic” hand with unemployment, the housing crisis, and the collapse of Wall Street, not even the best campaign strategy, tactic, or practice could overcome voter resistance in some places.

Ten-Year Trends

Gearing up for 2018

If the progressive voters who were moved on the local level in 2017 by national politics continue to show up in 2018, it will potentially be a much easier set of Election Days. But don’t forget that this is a congressional election year, and in many places contested races and incumbents with challengers will bring out a different base of voters who don’t automatically share a love for libraries or a desire to tax themselves for them. So we’ll need to anticipate 2018 by speaking about our values as a library community.

As our colleagues in the political sciences note, voters identify with candidates based first and foremost on having a “shared values system.” Drew Westen, in his book The Political Brain (PublicAffairs), identified the key questions that voters unconsciously ask about a candidate in an election: “Does the candidate share the values that matter most to me, and do they care about people like me?” The identity of the candidate in relation to the voter, the consistency the candidate has with policy issues, and the candidate’s personal character matter significantly less than the values system the candidate espouses and with which the voter identifies.

The central campaign thesis at EveryLibrary, one that is rooted in the OCLC “From Awareness to Funding” study of voter perceptions about libraries, is that the “librarians are the candidate” when it comes to funding discussions, and the library’s record is the incumbency that is being considered. The perception and attitudes about the library as an institution are co-equal to that of the perception and attitudes people have about librarians. For libraries on the ballot in 2018, it is absolutely critical that staffers talk clearly about their own professional values as librarians and that board members speak clearly about their personal values as public servants who believe in the power and impact of properly funded libraries.

Operating Referenda

A patchwork of taxes & vocabulary

Part of talking about what we believe about public libraries and library work needs to include how we fund our institutions. The type of tax that will be on the ballot, as well as the vocabulary for that tax, changes from state to state and across regions. As a voter, where you live determines whether you are voting on a levy, a warrant article, a referendum, a parcel tax, a sales or use tax, a bond, or a millage for your library—not to mention whether you can vote on the future of your library at all.

In places such as Mississippi and Hawaii, voters never directly consider the tax rate for their public libraries. Some states, like Oregon and Missouri, levy taxes based on property. So whether the library is a stand-alone district where voters occasionally vote on a tax measure or a department of local government, taxpayers will see a line on their tax bill for their library. In other states, there are multiple types of taxes for libraries, but it varies by jurisdiction as to where the revenue is raised. In California, for example, libraries are funded through a mechanism called parcel taxes, in which each unit of property is taxed at an equal rate regardless of value. But California libraries can also potentially be funded through local sales taxes—it depends on the county. In parts of New England, libraries are funded through the general revenue account of the town, but voters need to approve a “warrant” for new spending. Without passing that warrant article, funding may continue at the same rate as the previous year. In states such as Indiana and New Jersey, voters can approve the baseline for tax funding for library services.

In New Jersey, it is within their municipality, while in Indiana it comes through a district that may or may not be concurrent with the voter’s hometown. Across much of the country, the terms levy, millage, and mill levy are used to describe a tax based on the “assessed value” of the property. In states like Illinois and Wisconsin, the local assessor’s office has a formula to determine the “equalized assessed value” of the property. But in Montana, the assessor references the commercial value of the property. In other areas, school districts or other units of government are the taxing authorities for the local library, and the calculations are particular to that relationship. In many jurisdictions, residential, commercial, and farm properties are taxed at different rates.

Library Governance Referenda 2017

New pressures and possibilities

With any tax there exists a system of exemptions and loopholes. In Michigan, libraries and other sectors of local government are seeing a significant problem because large corporate landlords are using an exemption designed to abate the rate for “dark” or unoccupied stores by claiming that exemption for fully occupied stores as well. If enough taxable parcels are removed from the tax rolls, local government, including public libraries and schools, suffers from a local recession. The Michigan Library Association is at the forefront of fighting this problem. However, it is also seen elsewhere in the country. In 2018, voters in Florida will likely consider a “Homestead Exemption” for local property taxes. If enacted, units of government across the Sunshine State will experience a freeze or decline in revenue of the kind that colleagues in California (under Prop 13) and Colorado (under TABOR) have suffered under—and have been attempting to ameliorate or reverse—for years.

With the new federal “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” two additional pressure points on state and local taxes will likely come to the fore. One is the new $10,000 cap on deductions for State and Local Taxes (SALT). The other is the significant diminishment of federal revenues over the next decade that will likely force policy changes. The 2017 tax law was signed ten days before it went into effect. As of this writing, everyone from state treasurers and city/county managers to big Wall Street firms to the National Council of Non-Profits are still trying to figure out exactly what the impact will be on their clients, their portfolios, and their local government receipts. As changes to federal tax law are implemented, one thing should be clear for library leaders: expect new pressures on local funding sources and significant alterations to available federal and state sources of funding.

While the federal tax code does not change or impact the local funding formula directly, capping the SALT deduction can create a political climate in which it becomes more difficult to pass additional local government taxes, especially in high local tax areas. If there is already a hold-back or tax cap in place for libraries in your state, the SALT deduction caps may make it even more difficult to pass new library funding. In places without a hold-back or cap, the SALT changes could potentially function as a “political cap” on new taxes for local government, including libraries, in light of changes in federal funding.

Currently, 41 states have some form of income tax that funds state government. Nearly all of those have a degree of “linkage” and “conformity” within their state income tax scheme to the federal system. With federal tax rates changing, each of these linked states is reviewing its revenue projections for the current fiscal year. For some states, these changes will compound already weak revenue projections for the remainder of the current fiscal year. However, the 2017 Tax Act forecasts a loss of $1.5 trillion in top-line revenue for the federal government over the next ten years. That loss is impossible to offset without cuts to either the military or entitlements, neither of which appear to be feasible, or massive cuts to federal programs. With about 31% of all state revenue coming not from local taxes but from federal funding, what happens when there is simply less money moving to the states and subsequently to local services and budgets?

Building Referenda 2017

MAINTAINING MOMENTUM

We have a lot to celebrate in 2017, and EveryLibrary feels we now need to push that positive energy forward by preparing for the possible cascading effect of new federal tax laws and crowded ballots in 2018. Local polling and data will be key to unlocking the shared values and attitudes toward taxes in your community. Such insights can empower your team members to talk clearly about their professional values, keeping the positive perception of your library on the minds of voters in the anticipated packed ballots of 2018. To survive this massive structural shift in how we tax ourselves, library leaders must plan to create ongoing and sustained success with their voters at the ballot box for district libraries and with local elected officials for departmental library budgets. If you haven’t gone out to the ballot in a long time, why not now? Let 2017 serve as an inspiration to you, your board, your colleagues, and your constituents.

John Chrastka is Executive Director of the political action committee EveryLibrary and a 2014 LJ Mover & Shaker. Erica Findley is Development Director, EveryLibrary, and Catalog/Metadata Librarian, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR