Senate OKs Property Tax Levies by Libraries

Legislation requested by Los Angeles County that would allow financially ailing public libraries to levy local property taxes was narrowly approved Wednesday on a bipartisan vote of the Senate.

The bill, carried by Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), went to an uncertain fate in the Assembly on a 27-9 vote, the exact two-thirds majority required for approval. All the negative votes were cast by Republicans.

Roberti said the legislation is necessary because libraries, in the absence of special sources of funds, are especially vulnerable in the current recession.

In addition to 10 branch closings last year, Los Angeles County has drastically reduced other library services because of budget cuts, a pattern repeated statewide. Other counties where some branch libraries have closed their doors include Orange, Kern, Sacramento and Mendocino.

The Roberti bill would, for the first time, give local libraries a property tax revenue source of their own by allowing the creation of special assessment districts for library services. Under the proposal, a city council or board of supervisors could establish the district and then set an annual tax assessment for each property.

Property owners in the district could protest the levy at a hearing. However, if the protesters represented less than 10% of the value of the proposed assessments, the levy could proceed without a vote of affected citizens. If the 10% level was exceeded, the council or supervisors could submit the issue to an election or abandon the idea.

In the wake of the adoption in 1978 of Proposition 13, which slashed property taxes and clamped a lid on rate increases, special benefit assessment districts have blossomed as a way of bypassing a requirement that property tax increases be subject to voter approval.

Although traditionally used to finance and maintain public works, such as street lighting, benefit assessment districts in recent years have been created to include the financing of local firefighting services. The Roberti bill would earmark the proposed revenue for both library construction and operations.

“Libraries are closing across this state,” Roberti told the Senate. He said that “nothing is so important” as giving them an alternative source of revenue and shielding them from further cuts.

But freshman Sen. Robert Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), a manufacturing executive, criticized giving libraries what he called a tax break at a time when, he said, “this state cannot afford to give business any tax break.”