Arkansans urge Garland County officials to keep library tax cut measure off November ballot

Hot Springs resident Priscilla Davis (left) was one of 20 speakers to oppose a potential countywide ballot measure to reduce local library funding at a public hearing on Wednesday, September 4, 2024. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)

HOT SPRINGS — Garland County officials will decide by the end of the week whether a proposal to reduce the property tax funding the local library will be on November’s countywide ballot, County Judge Darryl Mahoney said after a public hearing Wednesday.

The proposal would shrink the 1.6-mill tax, approved by county voters in 1998, to 1.0 mills. An earlier version of the measure sought to eliminate the tax completely, but supporters altered it in July after county residents raised concerns that the Garland County Library would close without the tax funding.

Residents continued to voice opposition to the measure at the hearing. Many of the 20 speakers said the ballot language would confuse people into voting for the measure even if they do not actually support cutting funding for the library.

“I’m shouting it from the rooftops and I’m canvassing in my neighborhoods,” said Judy Dare, a Democratic candidate for the quorum court, the county governing body. “…They’re going to see the word ‘library’ and they’re going to go, ‘Yes, I love my library, so I’m going to vote for that.’ They do not understand that that is defunding the library.”

Supporters of the measure submitted 131 signatures to County Clerk Sarah Smith’s office on Aug. 2. Amendment 38 of the Arkansas Constitution requires at least 100 signatures from “taxpaying electors” for a proposal to change the tax levy that funds a local library.

Leslie Kauffman, Smith’s chief deputy clerk, said 110 signatures were from registered voters in the county and 101 of those voters were taxpayers. The signatures deemed invalid were from citizens who either were not registered voters or were registered at a different address than the one they wrote on the petition, she said.

Kauffman also said she contacted the people with invalid signatures and encouraged them to update their voter registration, and one person’s signature became valid after doing so.

Little Rock attorney John Adams, representing library executive director Adam Webb, said he saw a problem with this.

“If someone is not [correctly] registered at the time they sign this, their signature should not count,” he said.

Adams also argued that supporters of a petition should provide proof that an attorney reviewed the ballot language to ensure it does not conflict with “some other local law or obligation.”

“I think the public would need to know if, for example, the library wouldn’t be able to support its own bonds and would default on the bonds if [voters] were to reduce the millage,” Adams said.

Upon questioning from Mahoney, Adams said he was not aware of any case law regarding the use of Amendment 38 to get a measure on a county’s ballot. He said he hoped the county’s decision about the measure would rely on “statutes passed by the Legislature that provide a framework for figuring out what a valid petition is.”

Donna Casparian said she was president of the county library board in 1998 when voters approved the 1.6-mill tax, and she said she is confident the majority of citizens still support library funding as it is.

“I cannot imagine how 101 disgruntled persons can force their opinion on the entire county,” Casparian told the quorum court.

Mahoney and quorum court members didn’t hear anyone defend the proposal because no one representing the supporters attended the hearing. George Pritchett, who usually serves as spokesman for the supporters, said when reached by phone that he could not attend the hearing due to a death in his family. He gave no further comment.

Pritchett and Reggie Cowan, who also supports the measure, have said the Garland County Library receives too much tax money and can function on its cash reserves. They have also said library funding would be in the hands of the county quorum court.

Webb said in a July article in the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record that the library has $5 million set aside in “nontax accounts,” but he has said the idea that the library can rely on its reserves is not true.

The current millage brings in roughly $3.6 million annually for Garland County Library maintenance and operations, and the proposed 0.6-mill tax reduction would cut the library’s budget by $1 million and might force it to reduce its hours or limit its more expensive services, Webb said in July.

Several speakers Wednesday noted that the Garland County Library has always provided more to the public than just books, including internet access, fishing pole rentals and COVID-19 testing kits.

“We don’t need to limit this,” Priscilla Davis said. “We don’t need to dumb down our community.”

A statewide issue

If the proposed millage cut makes it onto the ballot and voters approve it, Garland County would be the second Arkansas county in two years, after Craighead County, to vote to reduce its library system’s tax revenue. Pritchett has said the Garland County effort is based on the one in Craighead County, a narrowly-approved 2022 measure that cut the libraries’ funding in half and forced the system to reduce its hours and staff.

Lawrence County, which borders Craighead County to the west, is facing a vote in November over whether to cut its own library millage in half, and supporters have said taxpayers should consider that the library might be overfunded, KAIT reported in August.

Library systems in other Arkansas counties, including Garland County’s neighboring Saline County, have seen scrutiny in the past few years from the public and from quorum courts about how much money they have and how they spend it.

Conservatives in Craighead and Saline counties have publicly opposed the availability of library books with LGBTQ+ content. Supporters of the Craighead County library defunding campaign previously decried a transgender author’s visit to the Jonesboro library in 2019 and a Pride month book display in 2021.

State Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Jonesboro Republican, sponsored a 2023 state law that would alter Arkansas libraries’ processes for reconsidering material and create criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider “obscene” or “harmful to minors.”

Eighteen plaintiffs, including Webb, are challenging two sections of Act 372 in federal court, and Adams is representing them. A federal judge temporarily blocked two sections of the law in July 2023 before it went into effect, and the case is scheduled for trial in October.

After  Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed Act 372, the Saline County Quorum Court recommended in April 2023 that the library system’s then-director, Patty Hector, relocate books with “sexual content or imagery” to an area inaccessible to minors. After Hector refused, the quorum court passed an ordinance giving County Judge Matt Brumley some hiring and firing power over the library. Brumley fired Hector in October, and she is now running as a Democrat for a quorum court seat.

Pritchett said in July that the Garland County tax-cut petition is driven exclusively by financial concerns, not library content.

Hot Springs resident Shari Bales said Wednesday that “local funding is paramount for the survival of the Garland County Library, and all libraries for that matter.” Bales was appointed to the Arkansas State Library Board by Sanders last year along with former Republican state senator Jason Rapert of Conway.

Arkansas Library Board again refuses to block funds to certain public libraries

Rapert’s term on the board will last until 2029, and Bales’ term will last until 2030. Since their confirmation in December, Rapert has proposed at each board meeting withholding state funds from libraries that are suing the state over Act 372 or that have books on their shelves that he considers inappropriate for minors.

Bales and the other five board members have rejected Rapert’s proposals. At Wednesday’s hearing, Bales called Rapert’s efforts “coercive” and “an existential threat,” and she reminded the audience that the governor is responsible for appointing a new member to the board every year.

“There is no guarantee that the next five appointees will be as forthright in their conviction or in their abilities to ignore the very personal attacks made by this particular board member,” Bales said. “Only three need to fold to his pressure or share his sentiment for state funding to halt. This is the reality in which we live, a reality where libraries have become political fodder for the political elite and the cornerstones of our communities are being attacked.”