Librarians forewarn impact of tax cap

WATERVILLE – Some librarians say towns might close their libraries or charge hundreds of dollars for library cards if voters approve a statewide property tax cap on Nov. 2.

Closing libraries or charging high fees for services would most hurt those who can’t afford to buy their own books or computers with Internet access, librarians warned. Cities and towns might drop funding for libraries altogether if property taxes are capped at 1 percent of a property’s assessed value, they said.

“The library, and pretty much the entire Department of Community Services, would be eliminated,” said Elizabeth Pohl, director of Lithgow Library in Augusta. “If we tried to run on library card fees alone, the charge would be so high it would price everybody out. That’s antithetical to the very reason for having a public library.”

Tax cap supporters said the claim that libraries might have to shut down is another scare tactic to sway voters by threatening to cut popular services rather than looking for ways to be more efficient.

“Scare tactics – their strategy – is very effective,” said Thomas McBrierty, a spokesman for Tax Cap Yes. “But I think it’s wrong and shows a real lack of leadership. They’ve taken this nonbusinesslike approach of 30 to 50 percent cuts across the board, without looking for efficiencies.”

Anne Davis, director of the Gardiner Public Library and past president of the Maine Library Association, said closing libraries would keep books and the Internet away from Maine’s most vulnerable: poor children. She said the only way the Gardiner library could stay open would be to charge $200 annually for a library card.

“There would be a devastating impact on low- and middle-income people, especially their children,” Davis said.

Davis noted that Maine’s libraries are often the keepers of town histories and archives, and serve as points of interest that draw people to downtowns.

The state, she added, does not have the money to fund libraries if towns can’t do it.