« Study to decide fate of Perth Amboy Public Library | Main | Kenneth F. McPherson, husband, father »

October 2, 2008

Council: Library costly to taxpayers

Atlanticville Sept. 25, 2008
Boro officials seek change to state library funding formula
BY DANIEL HOWLEY Staff Writer

WEST LONG BRANCH — Borough officials are seeking the support of the state's 565 municipalities in an effort to change the free municipal library funding formula.

The West Long Branch Borough Council unanimously adopted a resolution Sept. 17, calling for the state to change its library funding formula, which Councilman J. Thomas DeBruin called "archaic."

Council members are also seeking to have the resolution placed on the agenda for consideration by members of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities (NJLM) at its annual conference in November.

DeBruin said that he seeks change to the library funding formula in order to reduce what has become a heavy financial obligation on borough taxpayers.

"Hopefully our brothers and sisters in municipal government will agree with us that the formula to fund a library is outdated," DeBruin said.

The library funding formula was originally instated by a state statute in 1944 and revised in 1985. Under the 1985 revision, municipalities are required to provide an amount equal to one-third of a million dollars on every dollar of assessable property within the municipality, DeBruin said.

As a result, West Long Branch, with a total property valuation of approximately $1.35 billion, was required to budget approximately $500,000 for the public library this year.

"The average home in 1990 in West Long Branch was [assessed at] $208,153," De- Bruin said, adding that the average home in West Long Branch is valued at $476,713 today.

"That's more than double," he said. DeBruin criticized the current formula, saying that it is has not been altered over the years to reflect changes in property values after municipal revaluations occurred.

Municipalities perform revaluations to ensure that property values reflect current market trends, DeBruin said. Following revaluations, property values can increase, decrease or remain the same. West Long Branch last performed a revaluation in 2005.

After the last revaluation, DeBruin said the borough saw an adjustment to its tax rate, but the way a municipality budgets for its public library has remained unchanged.

According to the resolution, the borough is calling for the state to cut in half the amount municipalities must raise for libraries.

"Since the evaluations have more than doubled, I think we should take this one-third [of a million dollars] and cut it in half, and make it one-sixth [of a million dollars]," De- Bruin said.

"And that is what we are going to propose to our colleagues who are also municipal officers in the state of New Jersey," he added.

The NJLM is a voluntary association consisting of members from each of the state's 566 municipalities. The league's goal is to better facilitate communication between towns by pooling information, resources and brainpower from each of the municipalities.

The cost of funding West Long Branch's public library became an issue during the borough's 2008 budget-planning sessions, according to DeBruin, who said that allocating over $500,000 for the library is asking too much from borough taxpayers.

At that time, DeBruin suggested making the borough library a branch of the Monmouth County Library System. The West Long Branch Library is a member of the county system but is operated by the municipality.

If the borough library became a branch of the county system, borough taxpayers could save $387,000, DeBruin said.

Posted by tumulty at October 2, 2008 12:10 PM

Comments

Post a comment