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silveradeptOkay, we've done pissed me off again. So much so that I resort to deliberately incorrect grammar to get the point across. Beware and keep your 1000Hz tone ready. Insert it at appropriate places that you feel would be properly emphasised by having a profanity bleeped out.
The library system of Kitsap County, Washington is leaning heavily toward asking voters this November to approve a "levy lid lift". This, by itself, is not infuriating. The comments to the article, however, are.
First, though, some background. The law in Washington State restricts the growth of public tax revenues to one percent above the last year's revenue, up to a ceiling of so many cents per $1,000 USD of assessed value of property. If the library system needs to raise more funds, whether to try and fill budget shortfalls of reality or to raise extra funds in good economic times to hold on to for when bad economic times hit, the library system has to ask the voters of the county to approve a measure to suspend the 1% rule for a certain amount of time. The amount of voters who have to approve the measure are based on the voter turnout of the last of a particular type of election, I forget what, but as a rule, it's much harder to pass levy lid lifts in the ballot following Congressional or Presidential elections, because the amount of people needed to vote yes is substantially greater than in off years.
This levy lid lift would allow, say, the system to collect its maximum possible levy (for the library system I work in, that's 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed value) for a predetermined time before falling back down to a regular levy subject to the 1% rule. Incidentally, if a regular 1% growth would be above the maximum levy allowable (.50/$1,000), we're SOL on the extra revenue regardless of a lid lift or not. Thus, lid lifts are generally used during good times, to maximize revenues collected and plan for leaner times, like the ones we are in now. If a library is going out for a levy lid lift in bad times, it usually means they're facing painful cuts as it is and want to try and stave off even more painful cuts that will surely follow. Now would be a good aside to mention that the library system may also have to pay for the entire cost of putting their measure on the ballot - it's not cheap, like $500,000 USD not cheap, so it's not something the systems do willy-nilly.
That's the background. The article does an excellent job of detailing why the Kitsap Regional Library system needs to have a levy lid lift - capital and technologial improvements, like air conditioning systems for buildings that had to shut down because the heat was unbearable during the summer of last year, more computers and bandwidth (there can never be enough of either in the library), and retaining of staff, so that the library functions smoothly and delivers materials on time.
And then there is the comment squad. Before delving into their arguments, let's pause for a minute and do some mathematics. For a $200,000 USD house, at a maximum levy of .50/$1,000, it costs the property owner [EDIT: Math corrected. For being my strong suit in primary school, I seem to be good at making errors. This one, though, halves the original value, so it's an error I'm glad to have corrected. Thanks, Jeff!] $100 per year in levy taxes. That's less than $10/month in costs, at maximum levy. The requested rate (thanks again, Jeff) would be 44.5 cents/$1,000. That's pretty close to the price of one paperback book in yearly taxes. Even a Kindle book might be more expensive than the levy. And it's definitely cheaper than a hardback or a DVD. Two years of levy is a video game on the Greatest Hits plaform. Four years will net you a Blu-Ray disc. In exchange for such a levy, every taxpaying resident receives access to the entire catalog of materials in the system, (and other systems, too, through interlibrary loans) plus research, consumer information, and/or geneaology databases, and a professional staff that can answer their queries and find useful information for them. Oh, and did we mention the free wireless access and the free computer/Internet time as well? The return on investment for a library system is phenomenal. Taking out one item on loan saves the amount of the levy for the $200,000 home.
So, what are the negative commenters complaining about in the article? Well... (ooh, goody, deconstruction time!)
As you can guess from the above "objections", they're mostly rooted in ignorance. Ignorance of how little someone actually pays for library services versus the vast array of material available to them, ignorance of the crucial role libraries play in allowing those working their own budgets to stretch their dollars further, find better or more work, and enrich their lives with popular entertainment or scholarship, ignorance of the library as a crucial piece of infrastructure, including sometimes being somewhere to get away from the heat or the cold for a while (ask some of your librarians, about how they serve the homeless and those with mental problems sometime), and ignorance of how little we actually make compared to the amount of advanced degrees library people have. (Those clerks and pages? Bachelor's degrees for most of them, possibly Master's in Library Science for a significant portion. They could be doing my job, but there aren't any openings for them.)
Until those people experience the hardship that sends them looking for us and our services, or are impressed by the professional service and wide range of materials, they will not truly understand what kind of role we play in the community. The people who need to understand us most are the ones who use us the least, because they make enough that they don't have to use us. They see us as a parasitic drain on money they would prefer to spend elsewhere. Stupid, stupid rat creatures. $DEITY forbid you ever have to rely on us for anything. But if you do, we'll be here, assuming we have the budget for it.
The library system of Kitsap County, Washington is leaning heavily toward asking voters this November to approve a "levy lid lift". This, by itself, is not infuriating. The comments to the article, however, are.
First, though, some background. The law in Washington State restricts the growth of public tax revenues to one percent above the last year's revenue, up to a ceiling of so many cents per $1,000 USD of assessed value of property. If the library system needs to raise more funds, whether to try and fill budget shortfalls of reality or to raise extra funds in good economic times to hold on to for when bad economic times hit, the library system has to ask the voters of the county to approve a measure to suspend the 1% rule for a certain amount of time. The amount of voters who have to approve the measure are based on the voter turnout of the last of a particular type of election, I forget what, but as a rule, it's much harder to pass levy lid lifts in the ballot following Congressional or Presidential elections, because the amount of people needed to vote yes is substantially greater than in off years.
This levy lid lift would allow, say, the system to collect its maximum possible levy (for the library system I work in, that's 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed value) for a predetermined time before falling back down to a regular levy subject to the 1% rule. Incidentally, if a regular 1% growth would be above the maximum levy allowable (.50/$1,000), we're SOL on the extra revenue regardless of a lid lift or not. Thus, lid lifts are generally used during good times, to maximize revenues collected and plan for leaner times, like the ones we are in now. If a library is going out for a levy lid lift in bad times, it usually means they're facing painful cuts as it is and want to try and stave off even more painful cuts that will surely follow. Now would be a good aside to mention that the library system may also have to pay for the entire cost of putting their measure on the ballot - it's not cheap, like $500,000 USD not cheap, so it's not something the systems do willy-nilly.
That's the background. The article does an excellent job of detailing why the Kitsap Regional Library system needs to have a levy lid lift - capital and technologial improvements, like air conditioning systems for buildings that had to shut down because the heat was unbearable during the summer of last year, more computers and bandwidth (there can never be enough of either in the library), and retaining of staff, so that the library functions smoothly and delivers materials on time.
And then there is the comment squad. Before delving into their arguments, let's pause for a minute and do some mathematics. For a $200,000 USD house, at a maximum levy of .50/$1,000, it costs the property owner [EDIT: Math corrected. For being my strong suit in primary school, I seem to be good at making errors. This one, though, halves the original value, so it's an error I'm glad to have corrected. Thanks, Jeff!] $100 per year in levy taxes. That's less than $10/month in costs, at maximum levy. The requested rate (thanks again, Jeff) would be 44.5 cents/$1,000. That's pretty close to the price of one paperback book in yearly taxes. Even a Kindle book might be more expensive than the levy. And it's definitely cheaper than a hardback or a DVD. Two years of levy is a video game on the Greatest Hits plaform. Four years will net you a Blu-Ray disc. In exchange for such a levy, every taxpaying resident receives access to the entire catalog of materials in the system, (and other systems, too, through interlibrary loans) plus research, consumer information, and/or geneaology databases, and a professional staff that can answer their queries and find useful information for them. Oh, and did we mention the free wireless access and the free computer/Internet time as well? The return on investment for a library system is phenomenal. Taking out one item on loan saves the amount of the levy for the $200,000 home.
So, what are the negative commenters complaining about in the article? Well... (ooh, goody, deconstruction time!)
- That air conditioning for the building is a luxury, and they'd prefer their library to close when it gets too hot, because, after all, there are other branches of the system. Except for the people who are walking to the library, or people who can't afford the time to drive to another branch, naturally.
- They're complaining that they don't want more taxes laid on them, like having it increase from $48 to $58 for the year. Libraries are cheap taxes, especially compared to the tax you'll pay for not carrying health insurance, for example. And for you budget-conscious people, you do realize that libraries are already doing their very best to work within limited budgets, right? And that further cuts will result in further cuts of service, open hours, and staffing levels?
- They think the Internet has everything. Uh, people, the Internet is for porn. Porn and misinformation are the two things the Internet does really, really, well. If you want actual information, you're probably going to have to pay for it. And unless you have several hundred to several thousand dollars to shell out for database access, you can't afford it. Better to let the libraries do the heavy lifting on this one. (And to the person in the back that thinks computers aren't a necessary part of library operations - where else are low-income and out-of-work people going to get and check the e-mail addresses they need to respond to job postings? If you say that "everyone has a computer and internet access at home", you will be whipped repeatedly and then pointed to a study that indicates about one third of the population of the Untied States uses library computers, and that in poorer households, that figure almost doubles to six in ten.)
- Books are available elsewhere, just buy them. If you're poor, they're still plenty cheap at thrift stores. If you like limited selection and old stuff, yeah, they are. New stuff is all more expensive in the bookstores. Accurate stuff is much more expensive. Remember that cute thing on your teacher's desk that charged progressively more as we went from "answers" to "correct answers?" Same principle here. Some people can't afford to go and buy every book they think they need. Not to mention if they don't like a book, it's wasted money.
- Public servants have lavish salaries and gold-plated health plans. Where, precisely? The starting salary for my full-time professional level job in my home state would have been a quarter of the total amount of my student loans per yer. Here, it's about half. If I wanted to make money at this job, I wouldn't be in public service, or I woul dbe trying to claw my way into upper management as swiftly as possible. Maybe once I made Director, my salary would just barely top six figures. Oh, did I mention that a lot of people work in libraries part-time at the profesional level, which means they don't get benefits? And on the related tangent of "they're spending money on 'seminars' and 'paid leaves of absence', and other non-materials spending in upper administration, which are totally unnecessary", those "seminars" are what let us give you top-quality service that's up to date, and unless you like surly and burnt-out workers, paid vacation is a must.
As you can guess from the above "objections", they're mostly rooted in ignorance. Ignorance of how little someone actually pays for library services versus the vast array of material available to them, ignorance of the crucial role libraries play in allowing those working their own budgets to stretch their dollars further, find better or more work, and enrich their lives with popular entertainment or scholarship, ignorance of the library as a crucial piece of infrastructure, including sometimes being somewhere to get away from the heat or the cold for a while (ask some of your librarians, about how they serve the homeless and those with mental problems sometime), and ignorance of how little we actually make compared to the amount of advanced degrees library people have. (Those clerks and pages? Bachelor's degrees for most of them, possibly Master's in Library Science for a significant portion. They could be doing my job, but there aren't any openings for them.)
Until those people experience the hardship that sends them looking for us and our services, or are impressed by the professional service and wide range of materials, they will not truly understand what kind of role we play in the community. The people who need to understand us most are the ones who use us the least, because they make enough that they don't have to use us. They see us as a parasitic drain on money they would prefer to spend elsewhere. Stupid, stupid rat creatures. $DEITY forbid you ever have to rely on us for anything. But if you do, we'll be here, assuming we have the budget for it.
