The Dorr Township Library Board has decided to place a tax increase request for .06 mill on the August 2020 primary election ballot.
Library Board President Rachel Vote confirmed the decision this week.
Library Board Secretary Sara Rydeman asked the Dorr Township Board for guidance on whether the millage should be requested in August or in the March presidential primary. The board told her the date and amount was up to library officials.
The Dorr Township Library had operated on a local tax levy of 0.3 mill that was rolled back to 0.289 by the Headlee Amendment. It has expired and the Library Board in 2018 and last August sought millage increases.
A request for a half-mill hike in 2018, from 0.289, was defeated at the primary election polls by a margin of 1,070 to 634. The difference was smaller, 629 to 529, in a special election in August of this year on a request to bump the rate up to a mill for 10 years.
Township Board Trustee John Tuinstra, who actively campaigned against the millage request before the vote last August by distributing flyers, told Rydeman the Library Board should ask for a renewal of the 0.289 and then an increase of 0.2 in a separate request.
However, Vote and Rydeman have insisted the library cannot operate on just under three-tenths of a mill. They also have maintained that state library officials do not look kindly on any facility of program that has less than 0.3 mill in local support.
There was talk about having the millage request on the March presidential primary ballot, which would be a lot less crowded and it would decide library funding at an earlier date. However, it would cost the library $3,000.
Township Clerk Debbie Sewers indicated she got a lot of feedback from voters last August who didn’t appreciate library officials “spending money they don’t have.”
Library officials, including Director Alysha Hoekstra, said they find an August vote less attractive as an option because the primary includes a lot of candidates and issues, so the question would be buried at the bottom and perhaps overlooked.
As it stands now, the library will seek a levy of 0.6 mill for 10 years in the August 2020 primary.
