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Jonesboro residents will vote in November on whether to restore most of the property tax funding for the local public library system that Craighead County voters cut two years ago.
The Northeast Arkansas county, of which Jonesboro is the largest city, funded its libraries with a property tax of 2 mills until the 2022 vote narrowly cut the funding in half. A mill equals $1 for every $1,000 in assessed value on real estate.
The library system has since laid off staff and reduced its hours to adjust to the funding loss.
The defunding resulted from two companion ballot measures in 2022, one in Jonesboro and one in the rest of the county. The Jonesboro measure passed by less than one percentage point, while the county approved its measure 62% to 38%.
Having only Jonesboro vote on the measure to reinstate funding is “more responsible right now,” said Dean MacDonald, a leader of the effort.
“We do want to get back to the county sooner than later, but right now the overwhelming majority of the library’s funding is from Jonesboro, just from the city’s vote that accounted for $1.5 million to $2 million a year that they no longer have,” MacDonald said.
He submitted the measure with 146 signatures from Jonesboro voters to City Clerk April Leggett’s office on Sept. 6. Leggett certified the ballot language on Sept. 9 and submitted it to the Craighead County Election Commission.
Arkansas Constitutional Amendment 38 requires at least 100 registered voters to support a vote on any changes to a property tax funding local libraries. Supporters must submit the petition to county officials at least 30 days before the election in which they want the measure on the ballot.
Also on Sept. 6, Garland County Judge Darryl Mahoney ordered that a proposed cut to the millage funding that county’s library was insufficient for the November ballot.
Supporters of the cut said they also used Amendment 38 to collect signatures, and they modeled the proposal after the one that succeeded in Craighead County in 2022.
Garland County residents spoke against the measure at a Sept. 4 public hearing, and many said the ballot language would confuse people into voting for the measure even if they do not support cutting library funding.
MacDonald said something similar happened in Craighead County.
“Over the past two years, I’ve talked to about 48 people in my own capacity that wonder if they voted the wrong way,” he said. “We’re excited to give voters a straightforward ballot title.”
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He also said Mahoney’s decision in Garland County was initially concerning in case it created a basis to disqualify the Jonesboro measure.
“We don’t anticipate a legal challenge that would throw it off the ballot, but we were worried,” MacDonald said. “Petitions are topsy-turvy right now in Arkansas, [but] we feel pretty secure at this point.”
Supporters of the 2022 defunding campaign previously decried a transgender author’s visit to the Jonesboro library in 2019 and a Pride month book display in 2021 before shifting their message to say the libraries were overfunded.
Additionally, Craighead County’s neighboring Lawrence County faces a vote in November over whether to cut its own library millage in half.
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