
{"id":19364,"date":"2011-06-30T08:50:13","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T12:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=19364"},"modified":"2011-06-30T08:50:13","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T12:50:13","slug":"chapel-hill-won%e2%80%99t-charge-library-fees-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/06\/30\/chapel-hill-won%e2%80%99t-charge-library-fees-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapel Hill won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t charge library fees, for now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>CHAPEL HILL \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Accepting a last-minute offer from Orange County officials, the Chapel Hill Town Council voted 7-2 on Monday not to charge non-Chapel Hill residents of Orange County to use the Chapel Hill Public Library. <\/p>\n<p>The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted earlier this month to increase its annual allocation to the library from $250,000 to about $343,000. The council had asked the board to increase its allocation to the library budget as operating expenses increase with an impending expansion, then recently approved the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fiscal year 2011-12 operating budget and with it a fee schedule that specified a $60-per-household annual fee for those who live outside Chapel Hill to use the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s library. <\/p>\n<p>The move followed the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s previous refusal to increase its contribution, which had remained static for 10 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had issues with the county. This year has been a challenging one on our relationship,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought it was a pretty big deal that they went forward and proposed a budget item [increasing library funding].\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>If the council had chosen to implement library usage fees for non-Chapel Hill residents of Orange County, the county would have rescinded its annual contribution to the library\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s operating budget. According to town staff estimates, a fee-based library card system for non-Chapel Hill county residents could have generated up to $100,000. To offset any shortfall in library revenue during 2011-12, the Chapel Hill Public Library Foundation committed as much as $200,000 from the Cornelia Spencer Love Trust. <\/p>\n<p>As part of the increased allocation, commissioners have said they would like to develop an interoperability agreement that would create ease of use between the Chapel Hill Public Library and the Orange County Public Library systems, and set a target date of November 2012 for such an agreement to be in place. In a suggested agreement, the commissioners proposed that the county increase its contribution to the library each fiscal year through June 2015 until the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contribution represents 30 percent of what it spends on annual operation costs for the county library system. The county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funding of the Chapel Hill Public Library this year represented about 18 percent of what it spent on its own library system. <\/p>\n<p>Several council members expressed apprehension at an interoperability agreement, but said they were willing to try to come to an agreement with the county. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see the risk of leaving things alone for a year \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and seeing if we can come to an agreement that makes sense,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d council member Gene Pease said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For me, it buys time and saves this town a lot of money this fiscal year.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we are going to get to this point where we are getting what we consider to be a fair share from them \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re also going to want to have their fair share of say,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d council member Donna Bell said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re also going to have to decide what the cost of freedom and lack of entanglement is for us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Council members Laurin Easthom and Matt Czajkowski voted in favor of charging a $60 fee-per-family for non-Chapel Hill residents of Orange County to use the library. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 looking at years and years of subsidizing people who live out of town,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Easthom said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I just think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the most reasonable and fiscally equitable way of assuming the increase in our operational costs due to this huge expansion and capital cost.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Czajkowski agreed. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So what changed in terms of a different apparent attitude on the part of the commissioners from two weeks ago to today?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Czajkowski said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For the first time, they actually believed that we were going to say no to their money and start charging the nonresidents.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A year from now, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be on the threshold of a brand new library \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00c2\u00a0substantially higher costs that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to find a way to fund, and it will be that much harder to walk away from what the county is offering,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he continued. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The only time we have gotten any response out of the commissioners was when they actually believed that we would \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 tell non-Chapel Hill residents that they had to pay, and it will become much more difficult. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When it comes to interoperability, how much control of our library are we going to be willing to cede?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chapel Hill Town Council voted 7-2 on Monday not to charge non-Chapel Hill residents of Orange County to use the Chapel Hill Public Library. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19364"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19396,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19364\/revisions\/19396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}