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West Virginia Fine-Tunes Library Funding SchemeThe West Virginia House and Senate were working March 9 to reconcile two versions of a bill that would resolve a public library–funding formula declared unconstitutional in December by the state supreme court.Librarians are rooting for enactment of the House version of SB 541, which increases the discretionary-spending pot from which local school boards supplement public-library budgets from 2% to 6% of the school districts’ property-tax revenue. The legislation also qualifies counties for a 25% hike in revenue per additional student when they experience a spike in student enrollment of at least 2% over three years. “It certainly is a better day now,” Kanawha County Public Library Director Linda Wright said in the March 6 Charleston Gazette after the House amended the Senate version so that school boards would not have to ask voters how they’d prefer the discretionary funds spent on something other than libraries. For KCPL, that would have meant placing one-third of its $7-million operating budget on a levy ballot. Although the court ruling voided only the library funding formula statute in Kanawha, similar schemes in eight other counties will become void as of July 1—a delay imposed by the three-judge panel to give lawmakers time to legislate a fix by the start of FY2008. Posted March 9, 2007. |
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