A proposed levy lid lift for the Timberland Regional Library (TRL) system would mean an average increase of $46 in property taxes owed per year for county residents and would keep the institution stable in the coming years.
Failure could mean significant cuts and unstaffed rural libraries.
That was the message from TRL Board of Trustees President Brian Mittge as he addressed the institution's budget woes in a yearly presentation to the Lewis County Board of Commissioners during its Tuesday morning business meeting.
The briefing comes just months before voters will have a chance to weigh in on a levy lid lift ballot measure, which library leadership said is necessary to sustain current services and avoid deeper cuts.
“We will still keep the doors open,” Mittge said. “But some of the staff, some of those small libraries, might be unstaffed. So keycard access only, and there would be fewer hours in the branches that do stay open. Collections would be lower.”
Mittge’s presentation started with a brief update on the state of Lewis County libraries, but was quickly overshadowed by the system’s overall budget issues. Mittge detailed the cuts made in recent months to close a $3.8-million budget deficit without widespread layoffs.
The cuts totaled $3.69 million in savings, not quite closing the gap.
As previously reported by The Chronicle, former Executive Director Cheryl Heywood announced the deficit in March along with a proposal to cut 20% of library staff to address the shortfall. The announcement faced significant pushback from employees and the community at large. Heywood’s resignation followed shortly after.
According to Mittge’s presentation, library leadership addressed the shortfalls largely by reducing spending on new books and ongoing programs and cutting travel and training. Those cuts represented $2.23 million.
The library also cut $1.16 million in spending across 12 months through voluntary — and then involuntary — layoffs, including seasonal, temporary and newly hired employees.
An additional $300,000 in savings came from changes to administrative salaries, "restructuring" and furloughed staff. That included pay cuts for both the executive director and deputy director positions, now filled on an interim basis by Andrea Heisel and Muriel Wheatley, respectively.
Mittge said that many of the cuts, such as slowing the purchase of new books, work as stopgaps but are not sustainable long term.
“So, the cuts we've made are helping to balance things,” Mittge said. “But looking forward, it's not a particularly sustainable response for years ahead.”
To sustain operations or even bring them back to pre-reduction levels, the library will need the additional revenue from the lid lift ballot measure. The measure asks voters to sign off on increasing the property tax rate paid to TRL from $0.22 per $1,000 of assessed value to $0.36.
Mittge pointed out that that remains far below what the library could seek, which is capped at $0.50 per $1,000 of assessed value. The lift would bring in approximately $14 million in additional revenue for 2027. This will be the first levy attempt since 2009. If approved, it would be the first levy rate increase in 25 years, according to the library system.
“It would be enough that we could resume full service based on what we had budgeted to do and increase it modestly but meaningfully with more hours and branches resuming our collections and some more activities,” Mittge said.
As an example, for the current property tax rates impacting The Chronicle’s headquarters building in downtown Centralia using Lewis County Parcels, the levy rate from TRL is currently the lowest of 10 being levied.
The lift to the higher rate would move it up by one spot, making it No. 9 and higher only than property taxes levied by the Centralia Port District, but lower than the local regional fire authority and EMS levy.
While TRL expects the levy lid lift would increase property taxes paid per year in Lewis County by an average of $46, that looks different in other counties, with the increase varying from a $31 increase in taxes owed per year in Pacific County to $59 a year in Thurston County.
The levy lid lift does not have to pass individually in each county and instead will be approved if 50% plus one of all voters in the five counties served approve the lift.
Recognizing a need to regain trust with local elected officials and the general public, the library leadership panel touched on new financial policies.
Lewis County trustee Hal Blanton said Tuesday the new policies are intended to repair communications “not just with electeds, but also with our friends of the libraries.”
“We’re having much better communication back and forth between people that are leading and people that are the users,” he said.
New policies implemented since the surprise shortfall announcement in March require multi-year budget forecasting along with a requirement that fund balance does not drop below 30% of total budget totals. The regional library has also started posting monthly financial reports and yearly beginning fund balances on its website at trl.org/budget.
“One of the changes we made this year was to put in some budgetary policies that require advance forecasting and reporting,” Mittge said. “We weren't doing that before. We weren't looking ahead one, two, four years ahead, and we should have been, and now we are.”
Concerning Lewis County specifically, its libraries have dealt with the same budget issues as the other regions. Wheatley, who manages the Centralia and Chehalis libraries, said that repeated staffing cuts in the area have led to Centralia dropping from 17 staff to six in the last nine years.
“We’ve really hit a wall with that where we’re at currently with our Centralia branch,” Wheatley said.
According to Devon Bergeron, a library branch manager, the Winlock and Salkum locations being more rural have always run leaner and haven’t faced as many cuts. However, she stressed that more cuts would mean the Anywhere Library, a mobile library operated by her branches that frequently visits senior facilities and daycare providers, will operate less.
Outside of the discussion at Tuesday’s meeting, Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope also aired frustration with Heisel in an email forwarded to The Chronicle after she stated she could not be in attendance because of a conflicting meeting in Tumwater.
“For me this is part of the problem,” he wrote. “For three years the (executive director) has not come to our once a year meeting. At this point, this is standard protocol. I did have a list of questions ready to ask you. Why did you leak a memo? How did this move build trust with your board of trustees? Why do you feel that someone who is on a limited budget and can afford to only vote yes on one property tax increase that TRL should get the vote over schools or public safety? What are you doing to ensure trust with the voters? What kind of person should lead TRL? In your opinion, what got TRL in this position? We are all busy. Today I was on vacation with family and I still made the meeting. We prioritize what we feel is important. To say that you had other things to do is simply (to) say you do not value, or feel meeting with the LC Commissioners was not important. We all have 24hrs in a day and we fill it with what we value. In my opinion only. You have only proven yourself to not be the right choice for TRL leadership, otherwise you would have been at our once a year meeting to build a coalition of unity. I hope your other meeting in Tumwater was exceptional, because as a representative of Lewis County I was exceptionally disappointed.”
For more information on the upcoming levy lid lift proposal for TRL, visit https://trl.org/levy/.
