Despite partisan clashes, the COVID-19 pandemic, and economic headwinds, voters largely came through for public libraries in 2020

Last year U.S. public libraries went to voters for tax levies, renewals, bonds, and other funding and governance ballot initiatives. Of the 170 sampled here, 100 elections were held prior to November 2020, and 67 took place during the general election. Only 20 were for building improvements or construction; the rest were for operating and governance. Of those on November 3, only eight failed, for a 12 percent loss rate. Throughout the rest of the year there were at least 103 library initiatives and 11 of those failed as well, for an 11 percent loss rate.

There were a lot of concerns about the level of uncertainty going into the 2020 general election. It is satisfying to note that despite the rancor around the presidential and congressional elections, and in the midst of a pandemic, the public has generally come out in support for libraries in the United States. This year’s ballot measures proved that the majority of voters in towns, cities, and counties—in both red states and blue states—support smart taxes for their local libraries.

This year’s election results were not far from average when compared to previous years. During the Trump administration we saw a slight bump in the percentage of wins, due largely to Trump’s attacks on libraries and anti-Trump turnout at the polls. For example, in 2017, the year after Trump threatened federal funding for libraries in his proposed budget, we saw referenda for operating budgets reach an all-time high passage rate of 98 percent. Building referenda were up to 72 percent passage rates (building referenda consistently do worse than operating budgets).

THE STATE OF THE STATES

Ballotpedia tracked 120 statewide initiatives and called 89 as approved and 31 as defeated, meaning that libraries, on the whole, did better than statewide ballot initiatives across the country. Those state-level wins included the biennial “GOBond for Libraries” in New Mexico, which passed with 66 percent of the vote. This $9.7 million bond provides funding to public, academic, school, and tribal library operations and facilities. In Arizona voters embraced Prop 208, the statewide Invest in Education Act, which will positively impact school librarian jobs in the state. However, in California, Prop 15, which would have raised anywhere from $10.3 billion to $12.6 billion annually by allowing an increase in corporate property tax rates, failed. This initiative would have funded cities, counties, and schools, which would have meant more funding for libraries as well.

Colorado repealed the Gallagher Amendment by passing Amendment B. This will allow libraries (among other local governmental entities) to set their own annual adjustments to their tax rates without having to go to the voters to “de-gallagherize” themselves first. The Gallagher Amendment, passed in 1982, was designed to maintain a constant ratio between the property tax revenue from residential property and from business property, but it also caused a 75 percent decline in property tax revenue since 1982 and reduced funding for local public services such as libraries.

LOCAL VOTES TO NOTE

Unfortunately, there are no comprehensive national resources or data sources available for local measures, and that makes it very difficult to look at comparison models between libraries and other issues. But early analysis by EveryLibrary, the nationwide library funding PAC, suggests that more voters focused their votes on presidential and state-level politics this year than previous presidential elections and skipped voting for local initiatives. That may have given progressive-leaning ballot initiatives an edge.

Typically, we include analysis about which kinds of initiatives fared better or worse, but this year’s failed initiatives are broadly and equally spread across operating budgets, buildings, and governance as well as renewals and increases in funding. It doesn’t appear that there were any significant or notable trends among the initiatives that passed, either.

Notable results from Election Day 2020 include:

• In Oregon, voters approved Measure 26-211 for the Multnomah County Library. This $387 million bond will finance library renovations by imposing a property tax of $61 per $100,000 of assessed value to repay the bonds. The Deschutes Public Library District likewise passed a $195 million construction bond by a large margin. In Eugene, the voters renewed their library’s $2.85 million operating budget. EveryLibrary provided direct assistance to the Libraries for Everyone Committee there.
• Voters across Ohio voted to renew all the local library levies but one. In Cuyahoga County, voters agreed to a new 1-mill tax increase which will raise an additional $18 million per year for library operations, preventing significant cuts to programs, building maintenance, and the budget for books and other materials. Unfortunately, voters in Portage County again rejected a proposal to establish a new local levy for the library district.
• Hampshire County, WV, ultimately approved reestablishment of the core funding levy for the library, 67 percent to 33 percent. The tax, which was first established in 1987, had failed to be renewed on the spring 2020 ballot. In Taylor County, WV, fully 88 percent of the voters said yes to renewing their county library’s operating levy.
• Voters in historic Woodstock, NY, rejected a measure to replace their library with a new building by just 34 votes.
• In Antioch, IL, voters defeated a proposal to repair, improve, and enhance their library building.
• In the town of Castle Rock, WA, voters rejected an initiative to reinstate the library’s basic operating levy by a two percent margin. The levy would have set a rate of 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value to raise about $91,500 for the library. Sadly, Library Director Vicki Selander said it is likely the library will close.

LOOKING FORWARD

The next few years will be very interesting, with the loss of a strong adversary to library funding and potential for a favorable political environment for libraries at the federal level. Paradoxically, this could mean that we start to see libraries lose at the local level. What we saw over the last few years was that organizations on both the left and the right that were anti-Trump often saw an increase in donations, volunteers, and support. This typically happens in politics: the incumbent and the causes or political issues aligned with them see fewer campaign contributions or cause related donations, lower voter turnout, and less overall political action, while the insurgent and their related causes and issues see an increase in political activity, donations, and higher voter turnouts.

Voters who are against taxes, government, and education are still there. While nonpartisan, libraries are, of course, tax-funded government organizations and often have a progressive culture. Our fear is that disillusioned Trump supporters will turn on local tax-funded government institutions, as we’ve seen in a few communities, where local elected library boards were taken over by hostile insurgents who began to cut library funding from the inside.

Also, according to OCLC’s “From Awareness to Funding” report, libraries lost almost 20 percent of voter support from 2008-18. Right now, we believe that around 42–45 percent of voters oppose increases in taxes for libraries. If this decline in voter support continues, then in just a few years libraries will have dropped below the 50 percent voter support margin that is required to win in most states. If that happens, we’ll begin to see a huge decline in library funding across the country as more libraries lose at the ballot box and local elected legislators no longer feel the need to support libraries.

Unfortunately, libraries are not confronting this trend. Our industry’s advocacy strategies still largely revolve around outdated methodologies and ideologies. For example, the field continues to operate under the outdated premise that library use causes or increases library support. OCLC’s 2018 report “Public Libraries: Marketing and Communications Landscape” found that libraries were spending the bulk of their marketing budgets on increasing awareness and use. But national surveys such as “Awareness to Funding” and our own analysis of local political polling shows no correlation between library use and support at the ballot box. In fact, many people who use the library do not support taxes or government. On the other hand, many people who don’t use libraries personally nonetheless vote for them, because libraries achieve outcomes that align with their values.

If we want to reverse this trend, we must shift our focus from increasing awareness and library use to more data-driven and persuasive arguments around the benefits of paying taxes for a government organization such as the public library. The necessary shift can only be done with large scale public opinion polls and focus groups to determine what it is that the public wants to hear about libraries in order to be willing to fund them. The data from this process helps organizations understand how to segment the American public into audiences and talk to each audience in a way that matters to them. In the face of widespread anti-tax and anti-government rhetoric, we need to learn more about our voters and what it is that would motivate them to vote for libraries.

Patrick Sweeney is Deputy Director of the EveryLibrary Institute, coauthor of two books on library funding, and lecturer at San José Ischool.