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Mahoning library board cuts levy total for Nov. 4 ballot
POLAND
Mahoning County’s public library trustees have voted to place a single real-estate tax levy on the November ballot that would generate $1.3 million a year less than the two existing library levies combined.
Trustees of the 15-branch Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County took the action Thursday.
The system now has a 1-mill levy that generates $3.6 million annually and a 1.8-mill levy that produces nearly $7 million a year, for a combined total of $10.6 million a year.
Those local levies, which expire at the end of this year, provide 58 percent of the library system’s funding, with an additional 40 percent coming from the state and the remainder from fines, fees and donations.
The system has a $17.6 million general-fund budget for 2014.
Under the trustees’ plan, the 1-mill levy would be allowed to expire, and the voters would face a single five-year ballot issue that would renew the 1.8-mill levy and add 0.6-mill to it to generate $9.3 million a year.
The county commissioners still must approve the library levy before it can go on the ballot.
The library system should be able to survive on reduced levy income because no new major construction efforts are planned after completion of the new $5 million Canfield library and the $15 million renovation of main library, Heidi Daniel, library director, said.
“It’s a break for the taxpayer, and it gives us what we need unless the state funds disappear,” Daniel said of the Nov. 4 levy proposal.
The forthcoming Canfield and main library projects already are funded by the system’s savings. An August groundbreaking is planned for the new Canfield Library, which will replace the existing one on the same site, Daniel said.
Trustees also approved transfer of up to $30,000 in private donations from the library foundation to the library-levy campaign. No tax dollars can be used to campaign for the levy, said Janet Loew, library communications and public-relations director.
In other business, the trustees authorized Daniel to engage in further discussions with Mill Creek MetroParks officials concerning the possible move of the West Side Library from its Mahoning Avenue location to the warming house of the former ice skating rink at Mill Creek Park’s James L. Wick Jr. Recreation Area.
The West Side Library Community Input Group, composed of residents of Youngstown’s West Side, voted 8-1 in favor of moving the West Side branch to the park location off McCollum Road if a desirable reuse can be found for the Mahoning Avenue site.
“We do not want to leave an empty building on Mahoning Avenue. We do not want to leave blight,” Daniel said.
Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, a nonvoting member of the library board, who attended the meeting, urged the board to delay a final decision on the move for about a month to allow more time for discussions between library and park officials and for West Side residents to voice their opinions.
Renovating the Mahoning Avenue location would cost slightly more than $1.6 million, but renovating and expanding the warming house would cost slightly more than $1.2 million, Faniro Architects Inc. told library officials in March.
The Western Reserve Transit Authority is willing to alter its Cornersburg bus route to serve the proposed park location, Daniel told the board.