Library funds on March ballot
ST. FRANCISVILLE — Out of room but with room to grow, the West Feliciana Parish Library’s board is asking voters to approve funding for a new library on property donated four years ago.
The March 24 propositions include a $3.5 million construction bond issue that bond attorney Alan Offner estimated will require levying about 1.15 mills in property taxes annually to repay the bonds over 20 years.
The library’s Board of Control, through the Police Jury, also is asking voters to continue the library’s operations tax for 20 years, but at 1.5 mills instead of the 1-mill tax that is expiring after this year.
A mill generates about $265,000 annually in West Feliciana Parish, Library Director Glenna Fallin said.
If voters approve both propositions, the net tax increase would be 1.65 mills, Offner told the Police Jury in November.
Sally Thomson Parker, of Union, S.C., donated a 4.6-acre tract on Burnett Road to the Police Jury in 2007 with the stipulation that it be used for a library, board Chairwoman Clara Ruth Saint said.
“If the library’s not built, the property goes back to the Parkers,” Saint said.
The wooded tract is hilly, and Fallin said the building will be situated so as to give a reading room a view into a deep ravine.
The parish’s library is in the town’s former post office building on Ferdinand Street in St. Francisville’s Historic District, owned by the West Feliciana Historical Society.
“The real problem we have now is a lack of space,” said Fallin, noting that the building’s 2,800 square feet is far short of the 14,000 to 15,000 square feet of space that the Louisiana Library Association recommends for a parish of West Feliciana’s size.
If voters approve the bond issue, the new building will have 15,000 square feet of space, as well as room to expand in four locations in the future, she said.
Fallin points to the public computers outside her small office.
“We only have room for eight computers for the public, and we’re having to delete two of them to install a computer for the visually impaired and another that is handicapped accessible,” she said.
Fallin said almost all applications for social services, such as unemployment benefits, family assistance, food stamps and others, are being done online as the state cuts back on offices and staff to offer personal assistance.
“We’ve begun doing Medicare applications, and we help people with death claims. We’re doing a lot of scanning and emailing of documents. That cuts down on our fax revenue, which was $4,000 last year, because we don’t charge for emailing a document,” she said.
Librarians also help people looking for work to access the state’s jobs database and other online resources, she said.
The library does not have space to display all of the books, CDs, DVDs and other material in its inventory, cannot hold activities during regular library hours because of the crowded quarters and does not meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards.
The inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary make up about one-third of the parish’s population, but the library is obligated to provide services.
A local school librarian doubles as a part-time library supervisor at Angola, and a part-time member of Fallin’s staff spends about 50 percent of her time handling interlibrary loans for Angola, she said.
“We also serve the nursing home and the Parish Jail,” she said.
In addition to the bond money, the library board will put about $600,000 from its reserve fund into the new building, Fallin said.
Saint said the money comes from the settlement involving the division of assets when West Feliciana split from the three-parish Audubon Regional Library in 2004. The fund already has been used to pay the building’s architect, she said.
Plans for the new building call for separate areas for children and adults, a special area for students being tutored, a meeting area with lobby and small kitchen, a garden area, a young adult area with video accessories, a story-time room, storage space and space to train the public in computer literacy.
Fallin said the board is seeking an increase in its operations tax because property tax revenues are declining, primarily because of the depreciation of the River Bend nuclear power plant. State aid for parish libraries also is decreasing.
Fallin said the current budget anticipated a state appropriation of $14,000, but the midyear budget cuts announced last month have decreased the amount to $11,500.