Palmer, Wasilla officials demand funds for libraries

WASILLA — Wasilla and Palmer city councils are uniting in an effort to demand the Mat-Su Borough pass along property taxes collected on residents who live outside their cities that fund smaller libraries.

It’s either that or start charging borough residents who live outside Palmer and Wasilla $25 to $35 for an annual library card to use the Wasilla and Palmer libraries, city officials said.

If worse comes to worst, dwindling resources could even cause some libraries to close, Wasilla Councilman Steve Menard warned.

“We’re at the point that if the borough assembly is not prepared to reinvest back into the cities, then we need to call upon the taxpayers to become educated and the only way to do that — and I hate to say it — is to make people mad enough to do something about it,” said Steve Hastings, Wasilla’s manager of culture and recreation, during a joint meeting of the two councils Monday. “It’s the sharp stick. It’s not something we want to happen, but if the cities lock arms and say that’s how it’s going to be, then we’d have a year of educating the public and then the assembly will say they’re tired of having their meetings packed with people asking about library services.”

Wasilla Library Director K.J. Albright said more than 79 percent of materials checked out of the Wasilla library last year and more than 73 percent of items borrowed from the Palmer library last year went to residents who live outside city limits. None of the borough mill levies on non-areawide property owners is returned to these libraries, but is used to fund other libraries in the borough.

Wasilla and Palmer also each pay the borough $20,000 annually for the Mat-Su Library Network’s automation system, which helps keep costs lower, allows resources and materials to be shared between libraries and provides collected buying power for online databases and other electronic resources, Albright said.

Although Palmer and Wasilla receive some funding from the borough, that amount has been reduced by 20 percent each year over the last few years and will be down to zero next fiscal year, she said.

“Additionally, even as the block grants from the borough have been decreasing, library use has been increasing,” Albright said. “In Wasilla, since FY05, library visits have increased 29 percent to more than 97,000 visitors per year, circulation has increased 44 percent to more than 174,000 items borrowed each year, and patron computer use has increased 111 percent to more than 17,000 users per year.”

Albright added that this fiscal year, the Wasilla library is on trend to loan more than 185,000 items and have more than 100,000 visitors. It also offers about 200 programs, including story times, baby lap-sits, the Iditapage Challenge and summer reading programs for all ages in which about 7,800 participants are expected.

The same goes for Palmer’s library, she said.

Wasilla’s library costs the city about $1 million a year and Palmer’s about $612,000 each year, city officials reported.

“And those costs are only going to go up,” Hastings said, adding that about 76 percent of the library’s expenses are personnel costs. “We’re providing a great service to the borough and we’re not being compensated for it.”

And although Wasilla Councilmember Taffina Katkus cautioned against approaching the funding issue in a hostile manner, Palmer Councilmember Kathrine Vanover made it clear she is tired of playing nice.

“This is just one of those things that makes me crazy,” Vanover said. “I’m expecting the borough to pay for the services that we render that they collect taxes for. Let’s take that ‘please help us’ business out of our vocabulary because to me that sounds like we’re the little red-haired stepchild begging for a crust of bread and I don’t like it.”

Vanover also was incensed about the idea of the borough taking over the cities’ libraries if the cities can no longer afford to run them.

Born and raised in the Valley, she said she can remember both libraries being one-room buildings 60 years ago, with a “crippled” elderly woman running the Palmer facility.

“I remember her being at that library with this funky little stove running,” Vanover recalled. “It was a one-room thing with little tiny shelves and I will not let that go to the borough to become forgotten. They are historic and part of our culture.”

Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright said the cities have been trying for years to track how the borough’s one-half mill levy on non-city residents has actually been spent. Although it’s slated for borough libraries, animal control and economic development, Rupright said it’s difficult to find out exactly where that money goes.

“We researched this for a year and a half and that one-half a mill kept getting lost in a — dare I say it? — a slush fund?” Rupright said during the meeting. “There was really no borough accountability for those dollars.”

Both councils expressed frustration over the borough’s attitude that the cities can use the monies collected through sales taxes to fund their libraries.

Those funds, they argue, are used for roads and water and sewer services — not for libraries.

“How these cities spend their sales taxes is none of the borough’s business,” Vanover stressed. “The borough administration needs to be accountable to the assembly for that levy on how they spend that money. I think they owe that to their assembly.”

When the borough announced in 2005 the cities would no longer receive block grants of about $300,000 for its libraries, local library advocates launched a campaign to convince the borough to reconsider, Albright said.

“We had posters up and there were bookmarks and blue postcards,” she said. “An assembly person then said, ‘I don’t care how many blue postcards we get, we’re not funding city libraries.’ I think over 400 postcards were sent to the borough clerk’s office.”

Palmer and Wasilla city officials and council members, however, were hoping Monday that with a new borough mayor, manager and a few new assembly members, they might be able to make some changes this time.

New Assemblyman Noel Woods — the only borough representative in attendance Monday — told the councils he agrees about the non-areawide property taxes being used for the main libraries.

“You can’t take what I say for gospel, but we are trying to change a few things down there,” Woods said. “I commend you for getting together on this issue.”

Rupright, Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson and both councils agreed to draw up a joint resolution on the issue as soon as possible and begin educating residents on the importance of getting funding from the borough.

Menard, who remembers this being an issue when his father Curtis Menard was borough mayor, said he just hopes such a resolution has enough teeth to bring the changes needed.

“I support the resolution, but I fear it’s not enough and we’ll be sitting in this room two years from now talking about the same issue,” Menard said. “Unless we get serious and start cutting staff and really closing the doors on some of these libraries, then people will say, ‘What’s the big deal?’”

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.