Sultan voters to settle fate of library
Published 10:43 pm Thursday, February 21, 2008
SULTAN — Voters in the city soon will decide whether to pay additional property taxes to keep the Sultan library open.
City officials hope that voters will approve the annexation of the library into the Sno-Isle Regional Library System in an all-mail election on March 11. If the measure doesn’t pass, the library will shut down at the end of this year, officials said.
Sultan voters are expected to receive ballots this week. The annexation requires a majority vote to pass, city administrator Deborah Knight said.
Sultan now pays for library services out of the city budget. If the annexation measure passes, taxpayers would foot the bill directly.
The annexation wouldn’t change the content of library service that city residents receive, said Mary Kelly, community relations manager of Sno-Isle Libraries. If the measure passes, Sultan residents will continue to have access to 26,000 items at their library and to 1.4 million items throughout the library system in Snohomish and Island counties.
The annexation will let city residents pay directly to the library system. That will save the city $90,000 to $100,000 annually, Knight said.
“It frees up money in our general fund to do other services,” she said.
If the measure passes, city residents will see an increase in their property tax bills, starting in 2009. The increase will be the same as what people pay in many other cities in Snohomish and Island counties for their library service. They now pay 31.3 cents annually per $1,000 of assessed value of their properties. That’s $62.60 a year for the owner of a $200,000 home.
The annexation is part of the city’s effort to cut its expenses.
In 2007, the city faced a $450,000 budget shortfall, and city officials considered many methods to save money, including ending the service contract with the library system. The current contract is set to expire at the end of 2008.
If the annexation fails, the Sultan library will close. Sultan residents could use nearby libraries, such as the one in Monroe, but they would not be able to check out materials, Kelly said.
“Our goal is to keep the Sultan library open,” Kelly said.
Most cities in Snohomish and Island counties have their libraries annexed into the library system, which runs 21 libraries, Kelly said. Darrington and Lake Stevens are set to put library annexation issues on the ballot on May 20. Only Stanwood and Langley continue to pay for library service out of city budgets.
“Other cities have made this decision, realizing that they don’t have money in their general fund to pay for the library service,” Knight said.
Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@heraldnet.com.
