Library mills lagging in Fort Smith election

FORT SMITH -- Voters in Fort Smith on Tuesday were rejecting a 2-mill increase to the city's library tax to provide funding for enhancing and expanding the services the city's library system offers.

With 4 of 6 precincts reporting, the unofficial totals in the special election were:

For 1,230

Against 2,295

With approval of the millage increase, property owners would be taxed 3 mills instead of 1, an increase of $40, from $20 a year to $60 a year, for a person owning a $100,000 home, the median-priced home in Fort Smith.

Library officials say it would be the first millage increase in Fort Smith's library tax in 57 years.

Library officials want to spend the additional $2.8 million a year in tax revenue on physical resources such as books and DVDs; digital resources that can be downloaded or streamed live by computers; more computers, Internet services and online reference materials; customer service and community outreach; infrastructure and hiring.

Some new features in the plan for the library included installing Redbox-style kiosks around the community for books and DVDs, customer self-check stations at all library locations and microfilm-to-digital conversion of newspapers and historical materials.

The library's budget this year is $2.7 million.

The library is paying for the special election through its library endowment fund.

A mill is a unit of taxation equal to one-tenth of a cent. Each mill is charged against each dollar of assessed value and would produce $1 of tax for each $1,000 of valuation.

Metro on 08/13/2014

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