The school year is concluding – congratulations to the Class of 2024, including the Library’s own Elise Todd! – and the fiscal year is winding down. The budget season is over for the library, and now we are preparing for our annual audit. We have also concluded the pre-design phase of our building expansion. Once we have large-scale images, I’ll post them in the library.
Recently, while presenting a building update to a local group, a community member mentioned that the library should see increased revenue to offset increased operating expenses with all the new homes being built in the area. I thought that, too. I’m a librarian, so research with a side of tenacity is my superpower. Here’s what I learned about urban renewal districts and their impact on revenue (from the layperson’s perspective).
More Houses Don’t Equal More Revenue
Madras has two urban renewal districts: the Madras Commercial Urban Renewal District (MURD) and the Housing Urban Renewal District (HURD). These URDs receive redistributed funds from local taxing special districts (e.g., the Jefferson County Library District, Jefferson County Fire/EMS, the County, City, and Aquatic Center). Urban renewal districts don’t increase your property taxes, they change where your property taxes go.
The HURD was created to encourage builders to add more houses to the area. More houses mean more people, which leads to more demand for commercial stores, restaurants, and services. The new tax revenue created by the new housing pays back the funds initially borrowed to start the URD. If your house is in the Housing Urban Renewal District, the property tax you pay on your land goes to the library; the property tax you pay on the assessed value of your house goes to the HURD. Since 2022, $18,000 in library tax revenue has gone to the housing urban renewal district (2022/ $5,703.00; 2023/$12,150.00). That number will continue to grow until the HURD expires in 2049. Until 2050, new houses don’t mean more tax revenue for the special districts.
For all special districts, the challenge lies in providing adequate services to an increasing population without a corresponding increase in funding from new housing developments.
The Plan Ahead
I’m giving a shout-out to the Library Association Board. These intrepid women were instrumental in passing our permanent tax rate, $0.4349/thousand, in May 2000. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, combined with my perpetual optimism, I believe we can efficiently provide library services to our district once the expansion project is complete. Why?
Past and current library board members and directors take its financial accountability to the public seriously. In 2020, we secured grant money to update our 6,000-square-foot library, making it more welcoming to the community. Although the Annex is gone, we have managed to maintain a small meeting room available to the public, a maker space, a programming space, and more space for browsing. We’ve been saving money in anticipation of a future expansion. We have also been fortunate to receive several considerable donations from local citizens, and the board has earmarked these donations for building expansion.
The Board has been planning on library expansion since October 2000, when the library purchased the Rodriguez Annex to the east of the library for expanded services and future expansion. Beginning around 2010, the board purchased the remaining properties surrounding the library. All building expansion-related expenses so far (architect and owner’s representative fees, required surveys) – just under $200,000 – have been paid with money from our building fund.
Before asking you to support a construction bond next spring, we plan to seek grants and donations, search out federal and state matching funds, and investigate the feasibility of a low-interest loan. It’s important to the library board and me that the funds for expansion come from various sources and not just from the residents by way of a construction bond.
For now, if you’d like us to meet with your group to explain the process and get a peek at the new library plans, please call (541.475.3351) or email us (info@jcld.org) to set up a time for us to make a presentation. We’d love to share our progress.
Update on Changing our Libby (Overdrive) Library
As of May 31, Jefferson County Library patrons can no longer access the Deschutes Public Library (DPL) Libby digital collection. As with most transitions, there have been a few hiccups. Items currently checked out were lost, and I’d like to personally apologize for saying that would not happen. I am checking with the Libby provider to determine why it happened when I was assured it would not happen. As of June 7, over 300 JCLD patrons have switched to the Libraries of Eastern Oregon Libby catalog, which includes our JCLD collection. The board has set aside additional funds this year so we can create our own digital collection in addition to the item’s available consortium wide. For those of you who were using the Deschutes Public Library app (not the Libby app), the unfortunate news is that DPL has cut off access to their library app as of May 31. This decision has created a few other issues related to renewal and hold notices, and we’re trying hard to resolve the problem. Please continue checking our website for updates.
Finally, thanks to all JCLD digital audio and eBook users for your patience, kindness, and grace. Changing from the Deschutes Libby collection to the Library of Eastern Oregon collection will save us tons, especially considering that our eBook costs for the Deschutes collection for 2024-2025 would increase by 30-100%. With the redirected funds, we can add a music streaming service and a virtual author speaker series in 2024-2025. Plus, we can purchase Libby content of our own, which we were not allowed to do with our partnership with the Deschutes Public Library.
“Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities.”
R. David Lankes
Local News
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