Library district wants tax hike put to a vote in June

Monday, Feb. 10, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.

Las Vegas voters could decide the future of the area's largest library district this June.

The Las Vegas-Clark County Library District is asking the county's Debt Management Commission to approve a June 3 ballot measure providing $50.6 million for new libraries and about $9 million a year for operating expenses.

The committee will meet March 7 to decide whether to put the property tax on the ballot. Last week both the Las Vegas City Council and Clark County Commission endorsed putting the issue before the voters.

Of the 14 people on both boards, the only vote against the ballot measure came from Las Vegas Councilwoman Lynette Boggs-McDonald, who said that she is not opposed to support for libraries but has serious concerns about the impact additional property taxes could have on other issues.

"The timing to me is very poor when you're in the middle of a legislative session and there is a proposal to discuss $1.1 billion in new taxes," she said.

One problem is state law caps total property taxes at $3.64 per $100 of property value. Property taxes of various kinds add up and governments need flexibility when approaching that limit, Boggs-McDonald said.

The property tax rate for city residents now is about $3.25 per $100, according to the county assessor website.

"Right now, we're below the limit. The city has always had a cushion," she said. "But everything adds to that stack."

"At the end of the day, if you're balancing a choice between more police on the streets, or more libraries, I would choose the police."

But advocates for the measure said it has been more than a decade since voters approved new funding for libraries, and the district has to grow to meet the needs of a population that also has grown.

Daniel Walters, library district executive director, said the voters approved bond issues for the district in 1985 and 1991.

That money paid for "basically, everything the district has," Walters said.

That last bond issue, 12 years ago, funded an expansion program to serve a population of about 500,000, he said. The district now serves more than twice that population.

"In terms of triage, we're hitting those most rapidly growing areas first," Walters said. That includes both areas that have had rapid urban "infill" and areas that have become hot spots for growth in the last decade, he said.

The new tax would put four new libraries in the county. Three libraries would open in 2006 and the fourth in 2009.

In the first phase, one library would open in Mesquite, in the far northeast part of Clark County; one would be in the growing community of Centennial Hills, near Centennial Parkway and Buffalo Drive; the third would open in East Las Vegas adjacent to Moore Elementary School on Lamb Boulevard.

In 2009, a library would open near Windmill Parkway and Rainbow Boulevard.

Walters said it is not enough to build the libraries. Money also would be needed to staff the desks and fill the shelves.

The tax, to be spread over 30 years, would add an average of $8.82 per year for each $100,000 of property, Walters said. The maximum amount per $100,000 of property would be a little more than $10 for about three years, he said.

The property tax would be phased in while the property tax and bonding debt from the 1991 and 1985 voter-approved funding measures are retired, Walters said, to "strategically limit the tax impact" on the area's taxpayers.

"This plan has been put together very carefully to phase these improvements in while we are retiring the old debt," he said.

The library system now has 24 libraries -- 13 in the central urban area of the county and 11 in outlying, rural areas.

Not everybody in Clark County would pay the new tax. Residents of Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City have their own city library districts and would not be assessed the new tax.

A similar effort to put the issue before voters failed two years ago. Walters said he feels more confident that the Debt Management Commission will approve this effort.

Last time, the property tax addition was seen as competing against the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to build a children's public hospital, he said.

The library district will pick up the cost for the election if it gets the go-ahead from the Debt Management Commission, Walters said. The cost would be $300,000 to $400,000, he said.