Updated May 29, 1:34 p.m.
The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday officially approved asking voters to consider renewing library parcel taxes in the November 2024 election.
Designed to maintain current services, the Sacramento Public Library Combined Parcel Tax Measure will require a two-thirds majority to pass.
Council member Karina Talamantes, who serves as the chair of the Sacramento Public Library Authority Board, is set to lead writing the ballot argument supporting the measure. An argument opposing the measure can be submitted to the City Clerk’s office through June 7.
City voters are also set to elect a new mayor and District 2 council member in the Nov. 5 election.
Original story, published May 22:
The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to move forward with a November ballot measure to combine two existing library parcel taxes into a single tax with no expiration date.
Current taxes are set to end in the next three years, so council members said consolidating and continuing them through the measure would allow the Sacramento Public Library to maintain services at the 12 locations in the city.
“If it doesn’t get [renewed], what that means is that our public libraries will be open only three days a week,” Council member Mai Vang said. “And I know that’s not what the community would like to see.”
Voters would need to approve the measure with a two-thirds majority. They last approved library parcel taxes in 2014 and 2016 with 73% and 79% in support, respectively.
Together the taxes generate about $9.6 million a year for services at city library locations, including programs, staff, materials and technology. The city also contributes about $14.3 million a year to the library system from the Measure U sales tax, according to a staff report.
The measure would not increase the rates, but would keep the same rules for automatically adjusting the combined parcel tax for inflation each year. The tax could not increase more than 3% annually. For this current fiscal year, a single-family home owner pays $54.50 for both of the taxes together.
Jarrid Keller, deputy director of the Sacramento Public Library, told the council that locations within the city were visited about 920,000 times between July 2022 and June 2023. The visits made up half of the entire system’s foot traffic for the year.
The system’s proposed budget for libraries within the cCity of Sacramento includes a proposal to spend about $2.4 million of reserves because costs are increasing faster than revenues. Costs are projected to rise 9%, while revenues are expected to rise 3.7% over the next year, according to the proposal.
The council plans to vote next week to put the measure on the ballot. After, Council member Caity Maple said educating voters on its importance will be the next step.
“It’s not just about books; it’s not just about things,” Maple said. “There’s so much that goes into it and…it’d be a huge hole missing in our city if we didn’t have a way to renew this.”
If voters pass the measure, the new combined parcel tax would begin in July 2025.
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