Chapel Hill library could start charging

Out-of-towners could lose their free ride at the Chapel Hill Public Library if two town council members get their way.

The plan could help bring in extra money for the popular library, which now costs Chapel Hillians $34 in taxes per year.

But that might not solve the funding woes of the library, whose $16 million expansion will be the center of discussion at the council’s retreat this weekend.

And as the council clashes with Orange County — who manages its own library system — about how much money the town deserves, Chapel Hill is left pondering how to pay for a library where need has outgrown the building.

Facing a dilemma

Earlier this month, council members Laurin Easthom and Gene Pease presented a petition asking the town to look into charging non-Chapel Hill residents for library cards.

Their reasoning is simple enough: Chapel Hill residents pay taxes for the library, but others in the county can use it for free.

There is a catch, however. A state statute requires library service to county residents be free as long as the county helps fund it. The library cannot collect money from both the county and its residents.

“If we were to take $10 from one resident, we would have to give up $250,000 from the county,” said Kathleen Thompson, director of the Chapel Hill Public Library.

Martha Brunstein, president of Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library, said the group could not predict whether charging a fee would cover the forfeiture of county funds.

“Nobody knows that,” Brunstein said. “There is no way to know that.”

County doesn’t budge

The decision to charge stems from council members’ frustration that the county isn’t paying its fair share.

The Board of Orange County Commissioners provides $250,000 annually to the Chapel Hill library, which is not a part of the Orange County Public Library system. The commissioners’ funding has remained level since 1994, before the library’s budget ballooned from $1 million to more than $2.3 million.

Today, the contribution amounts to about 11 percent of the library’s budget — a modest offering considering 40 percent of the library’s users live outside Chapel Hill.

County Manager Frank Clifton suggested doubling the commissioners’ contribution to $500,000 following an Assembly of Governments meeting in December, but a formal proposal has not been offered yet.

“I’m doubtful the county is going to offer up the operating expenses we feel are enough to be fair,” Easthom said.

“If that’s the case, the council needs to have a discussion about, number one, whether it’s going to proceed with the expansion, and number two, how much to charge.”

Council member Matt Czajkowski suggested at one point last year to make the fee $100 for non-Chapel Hill residents. And Easthom said she has heard of library systems charging as much as $150 for cards.

The library already charges $60 annually for non-Orange County residents.

Meanwhile, the need for expansion continues to grow.

“They should have to pay”

Circulation at the library, already the highest per capita of any library in the state, is rising. Users borrowed an average of 17.8 items each in the 2008-09 year, up from 16.6 the year before and substantially higher than the state average of 4.6 from 2007-08.

And as the economy falters, an increasing number of people is using the library’s Internet access for job listings and resume writing practice, Thompson said.

The expansion, which was scheduled to begin in July but has been delayed multiple times, would more than double the size of the facility from 27,000 square feet to 68,000.

Some of the expansion’s burden will fall on Chapel Hill residents, whose property taxes could go up more than $30 a year.

Anne Cabell, a Chapel Hill resident, said she wouldn’t mind the extra taxes. But Carrboro and other non-Chapel Hill residents shouldn’t be off the hook.

“They aren’t having to pay extra taxes for the library,” she said. “So they should have to pay for it somehow.”

Chapel Hill resident Joe Galanko said a fee could reduce the need for expansion in the first place.

“People on that board say we have such a high circulation,” he said. “Of course you have a high circulation, because you’re giving your product away for a low cost. No wonder they’re going to come use it.”

Residents of the town approved the library’s expansion in a 2003 vote, and bank borrowing rates are finally low enough for the town to pursue the $16 million project, council member Jim Ward said.

The dispute of funding the library has become local blog post-fare recently, and even inspired a tongue-in-cheek YouTube video in which a subtitled Hitler advocates for charging Carrboro and other non-Chapel Hill residents for library cards.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton rejected the idea of his residents chipping in. Instead, the county should give Carrboro residents a reason to frequent their own libraries, he said.

“The supposition is that a lot of the expense for Chapel Hill comes from people who are not residents of Chapel Hill,” he said. “So if (Carrboro residents) had a good county-branch library to go to, they would probably go there.”

Carrboro has two libraries, both of which are a part of the county system and neither of which is free-standing. The Carrboro Branch Library operates out of McDougle Middle School and the electronic access-focused Cybrary runs out of the Century Center. And neither is remotely as expansive as the Chapel Hill library. The Carrbro Branch Library must operate around the middle school’s hours.

No resolution in sight

The county has discussed investing in a free-standing library for Carrboro to serve southwestern Orange County.

Council member Jim Ward, a government liaison to the Friends of the Chapel Hill Library, said the county commissioners may have to choose which project to finance.

“The county doesn’t appear to have funding to put a significant amount of money to the southwest branch and towards the Chapel Hill library,” he said. “So I don’t think they can do both.”

County officials say they’ve been put in a precarious spot, essentially having to weigh the needs of Chapel Hill against those of the rest of its residents.

“To me, the question isn’t so much ‘Do we support Chapel Hill or not support Chapel Hill?’” said Orange County commissioner Bernadette Pelissier, “but ‘How do we best provide services to all our citizens?’”

Chilton continues to advocate for the merging of the Chapel Hill and Orange County library systems, a move he said would help the county fairly allocate funds to each library.

But town and county officials have indicated such a move will not happen any time soon, leaving the county with two conflicting libraries and no long-term resolution in sight.

“Ultimately, the most equitable solution would be to have one library system,” Chilton said. “It may not be that realistic. But asking for us to put money in isn’t any more realistic.”



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