Provo City Library may be forced to slash hours and services if taxes aren’t raised

The Provo City library is facing a significant budget shortfall, jeopardizing programs and resources that serve both children and adults.

On the potential chopping block is a creative lab where locals can film music videos and record podcasts and an attic exhibit space that displays work from both community and professional artists.

Also at risk is access to free databases that help people with budgeting and investing. And the library may need to slash its operational hours and staff.

That’s all if the Provo City Council doesn’t approve the library’s request for a local tax increase to help supplement its financial needs. The library is short about $800,000 and has already cut around $235,000 in services to compensate, library director Carla Gordon said.

For it to keep its remaining amenities — and crucially, the staff to run them — Gordon said she needs about $500,000, meaning taxes would need to increase by about $12 per household and about $22 per business.

The Provo City Council in June voted 6-1 to hold a “truth in taxation” hearing on the matter on Aug. 13. Such hearings are required when an entity aims to rake in more property tax revenue than it did the year prior and beyond what it would receive from normal growth. Only councilmember Travis Hoban, who represents District 4, voted no.

Prior to the June 18 meeting, the City Council had received more than 200 emails supportive of holding the taxation hearing, plus nine from people who were either unsure or opposed — “more public input on one single item than I’ve gotten on anything in the entire time that I’ve been on the Council,” said councilmember Rachel Whipple, who has represented the city’s District 5 since 2021.

More than a dozen people spoke in support of the library — and holding the taxation hearing — during public comment at the June meeting, recalling how they’ve used the library over the years.

The potential $12 tax increase “is the cost of maybe one hardback book, and even then, that’s a cheap hardback if you buy books,” said Jennifer Bruton, a member of the library’s board who spoke on behalf of herself and her children at the June meeting. “The library provides so much more than just books on the shelf.”

The Provo City Library serves about 115,160 people, according to Institute of Museum and Library Services 2021 data. According to an analysis of that data, it ranks 17th in the state in the amount of money it spends on each service-area resident — at $39.29.

That positions it just between the Garland Public Library and the Ephraim Public Library, in terms of per capita spending, while supporting roughly a hundred thousand more people than either system.

Library has already made cuts to save money

When the Provo library in 2001 moved to its current building — the site of the former Brigham Young Academy, constructed in the late 19th century — officials raised the tax levy as high as they could, anticipating the need to spend more money to sustain and staff the bigger, older building, Gordon said.

“But they found, as they got in, they actually didn’t need all of the money they had,” Gordon said, “and so they put it in a savings account.”

A surplus passed into the savings account for about 10 years until inflation caught up and library officials made the decision — “right or wrong,” Gordon said — to pull from the savings account to make ends meet, until the account dwindled to about 35% of their annual budget.

Gordon said the “understanding, or the thought, or the hope” was that, eventually, library officials would stop reaching into its savings account coffers and ask for a tax increase.

The library asked for a tax increase last year, the first time in more than 20 years, Gordon said. It passed, resulting in about $2.50 in increased tax burden per Provo household.

But it wasn’t enough, especially after the library’s chiller system went out, she said.

The library has already cut certain services, like some of its movie and music streaming service, and slashed some of its collections budget (the books, including ebooks and audiobooks, available to check out) — amounting to its roughly $235,000 in penny-pinching.

“We were looking at anything we could cut that people would miss but wouldn’t die without,” Gordon said.

‘Too important to our community’

If the tax increase isn’t approved, Gordon said, the library will be forced to cut staff, which means fewer people will be able to run the library’s programs, like its popular story time events for children.

At the June meeting, councilmember George Handley said that even if a tax boost is approved this year, the library would still need a regular bump to make ends meet. He worried that the City Council wasn’t supporting it enough.

“We’re paying less for our library now than we were 24 years ago, and the library has been providing its services ... with decreasing buying power over the course of those years. That’s a real concern,” he said, “So I’m not ready to ask them to be more creative with their budget, when they’ve already proven that they’ve done that very well.”

Coucilmember Whipple seemed to agree, saying that the library’s strategy of dipping into its savings and doing more with less was a great strategy to weather hard times — but not sustainable.

“Because if you try to sustain doing more with less over a long period of time, eventually you’re just doing less. You’re burning out your people. You’re realizing you can’t maintain our exceptional level of services and quality, and you have to make the cuts,” she said. “This resource is too important to our community.”

At the scheduled Aug. 13 taxation hearing, residents will be able give feedback on whether or not they support raising property. Locals can also share comment by emailing council@provo.org or posting at communityfeedback.opengov.com/portals/provout/Issue_13947.

The City Council is expected to make its final decision on Aug. 20.