Email from my mother:
Apr. 20th, 2005 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pennywhistleTim was at an OLC legislative committee meeting today. The way the budget now stands:
They will not reduce the 5% LLGSF cuts.
The 21% income tax cut is a done deal. They will tell us that we need to plan ahead to fund libraries with local levies, which we have. THEN….
They are eliminating the tangible property taxes for businesses. (most big business owners are Republican…surprise, surprise) That will eliminate approximately 20% of the local levy receipts, so the local levies will be worth less and libraries/schools/counties will have to ask for huge millages to compensate, which will be voted down as extravagant. THEN…
We have Ken Blackwell and the TEL amendment. This will arbitrarily limit the amount of money that can be collected in taxes to the changes in population density. Even if the economy booms and tax receipts are exploding, if your entity’s population has remained stable or gone down, the state will take away the increase in tax income (or even the existing income) that you would have received. Not good for big cities whose expenditures do not go down with population drops. THEN…
Bill Seitz (REPUBLICAN from Hamilton County) applies an amendment that “allows” libraries to charge for AV materials. One of the most truly degrading, disgusting, DISHONEST moves I’ve ever seen a politician make. Access to information in a free society through free public libraries is a benchmark of democracy. This elitist amendment disproportionately impacts the poor who cannot afford the charges. The amendment is deceptive in that middle and upper class people don’t see anything wrong with this. BECAUSE THEY CAN F**KING AFFORD IT. They don’t see the older adult whose only pleasure in life is video or audiobooks. The Latino who is teaching himself English through film. Hamlet in print is good, Hamlet with Kenneth Branagh is bad. We could not charge enough to make a significant dent in what the state is taking away. We could not take advantage of cost-saving technologies like self-checkout. Nearly 40% of Dayton circ is AV. We spend LESS THAN 4% of our materials budget on AV. Sounds like a good deal for taxpayers to me.
THE WORST PART: this is an evil slippery slope designed by evil men. (And sorry, guys, they are men) If most libraries, as is likely, say this is an elitist plot to disenfranchise poor people and legislate what people can view or hear and we all refuse to charge, we are cutting our throats. Two years from now, if we don’t charge, they will piously say that we must not need money very badly because we didn’t take advantage of this “revenue enhancement option) that was given to us. Therefore, we don’t need the money we’re getting and they can cut it further. If we do give in and charge for AV, they come back in 2 years and say hey, let’s “help” libraries even further by “allowing” them to charge for computer access, story times, bookmobile visits, and such. And they will want us to charge for books that aren’t “appropriate educational tools” like paperbacks, or teen graphic novels, or sci fi… And because we are charging for more services, they can—Hey what a concept!—cut state funding even further.
So I’m here, donating my 40th hour or more of time so far this week, and I have two days to go…to try to see that Montgomery County citizens have decent libraries while all these disgusting, evil people are conspiring to destroy libraries as we know them and then go home to their fancy houses and their rich lives. I hope they all rot in hell.
They will not reduce the 5% LLGSF cuts.
The 21% income tax cut is a done deal. They will tell us that we need to plan ahead to fund libraries with local levies, which we have. THEN….
They are eliminating the tangible property taxes for businesses. (most big business owners are Republican…surprise, surprise) That will eliminate approximately 20% of the local levy receipts, so the local levies will be worth less and libraries/schools/counties will have to ask for huge millages to compensate, which will be voted down as extravagant. THEN…
We have Ken Blackwell and the TEL amendment. This will arbitrarily limit the amount of money that can be collected in taxes to the changes in population density. Even if the economy booms and tax receipts are exploding, if your entity’s population has remained stable or gone down, the state will take away the increase in tax income (or even the existing income) that you would have received. Not good for big cities whose expenditures do not go down with population drops. THEN…
Bill Seitz (REPUBLICAN from Hamilton County) applies an amendment that “allows” libraries to charge for AV materials. One of the most truly degrading, disgusting, DISHONEST moves I’ve ever seen a politician make. Access to information in a free society through free public libraries is a benchmark of democracy. This elitist amendment disproportionately impacts the poor who cannot afford the charges. The amendment is deceptive in that middle and upper class people don’t see anything wrong with this. BECAUSE THEY CAN F**KING AFFORD IT. They don’t see the older adult whose only pleasure in life is video or audiobooks. The Latino who is teaching himself English through film. Hamlet in print is good, Hamlet with Kenneth Branagh is bad. We could not charge enough to make a significant dent in what the state is taking away. We could not take advantage of cost-saving technologies like self-checkout. Nearly 40% of Dayton circ is AV. We spend LESS THAN 4% of our materials budget on AV. Sounds like a good deal for taxpayers to me.
THE WORST PART: this is an evil slippery slope designed by evil men. (And sorry, guys, they are men) If most libraries, as is likely, say this is an elitist plot to disenfranchise poor people and legislate what people can view or hear and we all refuse to charge, we are cutting our throats. Two years from now, if we don’t charge, they will piously say that we must not need money very badly because we didn’t take advantage of this “revenue enhancement option) that was given to us. Therefore, we don’t need the money we’re getting and they can cut it further. If we do give in and charge for AV, they come back in 2 years and say hey, let’s “help” libraries even further by “allowing” them to charge for computer access, story times, bookmobile visits, and such. And they will want us to charge for books that aren’t “appropriate educational tools” like paperbacks, or teen graphic novels, or sci fi… And because we are charging for more services, they can—Hey what a concept!—cut state funding even further.
So I’m here, donating my 40th hour or more of time so far this week, and I have two days to go…to try to see that Montgomery County citizens have decent libraries while all these disgusting, evil people are conspiring to destroy libraries as we know them and then go home to their fancy houses and their rich lives. I hope they all rot in hell.
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Date: 2005-04-21 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2005-04-21 02:58 pm (UTC)