The Dayton Metro Library will ask voters this November to approve a property tax increase to prevent possible cuts in hours, materials or technology.
According to Jeffrey Trzeciak, the library’s executive director, the five-year levy of 1 per thousand would cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $35 a year.
“Fifteen years have passed since our last operating levy in 2009,” said Trzeciak.
To maintain current services, the library faces a budget shortfall of about $7 million, he said.
“If we cannot pass the levy in the fall, we will have to cut about $7 million from our budget,” Trzeciak said. “That would impact the hours we can work, the materials we can buy, the technologies we support and also the maintenance of our facilities.”
If approved, the levy would raise about $10.5 million a year, he said, to cover the library system’s rising expenses, including the cost of popular e-books and audiobooks.
“A regular book might cost $15. But that exact same book might cost $65 as an e-book and $95 as an audiobook,” Trzeciak said. “The e-books and audiobooks we lease. We don’t own them. So if a book stays popular for a long time and the lease expires, which is usually after two years, we may have to lease it again. We shell out the money again.”
The library system is available to all Montgomery County residents, but Trzeciak said voters in Oakwood, Centerville-Washington Township and Germantown will not vote on the levy. Those communities have independent libraries.
