Consultant to Determine Support for Library Tax

Ventura County has hired a consultant to help determine whether residents would pay a parcel tax to help support the county’s financially battered library system, officials said Friday.

Specifically, the consultant will conduct a telephone survey asking residents whether they would support the creation of a benefit assessment district in which property owners pay an annual library tax, officials said.

“This will give us some good information,” said Dixie Adeniran, the county’s librarian. “There will be a whole bunch of different kinds of questions on the possibility of an assessment district and questions of what kinds of services people are interested in.”

Adeniran said the county hired a private consultant from Half Moon Bay earlier this month to conduct the telephone survey. She said the consultant had already done some sampling this week in order to refine its questionnaire before beginning formal interviews next week.

A recent memo issued from county Chief Administrative Officer Lin Koester to the Board of Supervisors stated that the study would cost about $15,000 and results should be available by Thursday.

Koester, who could not be reached for comment Friday, goes on to say in his memo that a formal proposal to place a benefit assessment advisory vote on the November ballot will be presented to the board July 2.

After the vote, the board can review the results and decide on a course of action, Koester wrote. If the board decides to move forward with the creation of an assessment district it would have to seek formal approval from the cities, according to the memo.

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Supervisor Maggie Kildee said she was unaware that a survey was being done. But she said it could prove useful and even save the county from spending money on an election if it shows that residents strongly oppose a library tax.

“I suppose that’s $15,000 well spent” if that is the case, she said.

Meanwhile, Supervisor Frank Schillo on Tuesday will ask his colleagues to hire another consultant to help devise a plan to rescue the beleaguered library system, which is threatening to shut down five of its small libraries in another week.

Schillo will ask the board to pay as much as much as $60,000 for a consultant to study several library reorganization options, including a joint operating partnership either between the county and cities or local schools districts or both. The consultant would also evaluate the current 16-branch library system for possible inefficiencies.

Although they welcome an independent library study, members of the group Save Our Libraries said they oppose Schillo’s recent efforts to get local school districts to take over five small libraries targeted for closure July 1. The libraries are in unincorporated areas of the county.

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They said they would have preferred that the supervisor stick to his original plan to work with cities on the library problem, rather than involve schools already struggling with hair-thin budgets. School officials have yet to commit support.

“There is no educator who doesn’t feel that the public library system should continue to exist,” said George Berg, a member of the library group. “But there is also no educator who would place running a library over educating kids when it came to a crunch.”

Schillo said his intent was to get school officials to join the county and cities at the negotiating table and not to endorse or pursue any specific plan. Besides, he said, city officials have already said they have no interest in taking over the smaller libraries.

“I’m just trying to throw up enough dust to make sure that everything gets discussed,” Schillo said. “Then we can take all the information we’ve gathered and see what holds together.”

The 16-branch county library system lost nearly half of its $10-million annual budget through state cutbacks in 1993 and has been fighting to stay afloat.

Adeniran, the county’s librarian, told the Board of Supervisors earlier this week that her agency would need $1.4 million next fiscal year, which starts July 1, in order to maintain its current library operations.

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Although the county has bailed out the library system in the past with hefty operating subsidies, Schillo said the county is facing a $20-million deficit in the new fiscal year and cannot afford to lend a helping hand.

“I know some people would like to fund the whole thing with zillions of dollars from the county--I would too--but that’s not reality,” he said. “There’s no money.”

In fact, Schillo pointed out, the money for the proposed library study itself would not come from county coffers but a special trust fund, which collects revenue from county fees charged to the Southern California Gas Co. The $15,000 for the telephone survey is coming from the same fund.

The supervisor said the only way to keep libraries open in Saticoy, Oak View, Meiners Oaks, Oak Park and Piru would be to scale back hours at all county libraries. Many libraries are open less than 25 hours a week already.

“I don’t know how else we would do it,” Schillo said. “It’s the only solution I see right now.”

One thing that Schillo and library supporters do seem to agree on is that even with a reorganization of the county system, a new source of long-term funding will be needed.

Berg said he believes that a benefit assessment district may be the best way to go. “I don’t see another way of resolving this,” he said.