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Go Easy

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Parent Issue
Day
13
Month
May
Year
2001
Copyright
Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
Editorial
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EDITORIAL

GO EASY

Library's made great progress, and the next step's sustaining it

There have been at least two significant changes at the Ann Arbor District Library over the past year: one involves personnel, the other the institution’s finances.

They’re obviously related. And the library’s board, its new comptroller and the library staff members who’ve gone through a crash course in resource and financial management all deserve credit.

The library has rapidly moved from a deficit to a surplus position and undone a lot of the damage that occurred when weak administration, lax board oversight and some outright deception by a former financial officer led to depleted reserves and a $1 million debt.

The situation is much improved today.

Nevertheless, the board would be wise to moderate its aggressive building and expansion plans until the organization can demonstrate sustained financial stability.

There is, in fact, still something to prove and reason to be cautious.

Despite the dramatic turnaround and the board’s confidence in number-cruncher, Ken Nieman, there’s little evidence that other fundamental management weaknesses have been eliminated or that, absent Nieman and a newly vigilant board, problems might not develop again.

There’s also a case to be made:

■ For getting some experience operating under a more “normal” budget after this past fiscal year’s rather austere spending plan - especially before taking on the construction of new branch libraries, and;

■ For seeing the effects of whatever agreement comes out of negotiations to replace long-expired contracts with union employees.

Although library officials - and doubtless branch patrons - feel a great urgency about pushing ahead, there’s little to be lost by delaying for a year. Indeed, the price for waiting to ensure that revenue and expenses are truly in line is simply time and any inflationary costs that accrue. That’s a much smaller price than the risk of over-extending and finding the organization’s ability to maintain existing services threatened again.

While this year’s good financial news is real - and the general thinking behind new branches apparently sound - there’s also the matter of a pledge made last year by then-library board president Dick Dougherty. Dougherty, who continues to serve on the seven-member board, promised to roll back the tax rate after a year, when the crisis would, presumably, be abated.

It’s clear that’s not going to happen.

And even if the rationale for maintaining the 1.95-mill tax rate makes it agreeable to many community members, library officials must be mindful of the fact that they’ll face a new credibility problem if they reverse themselves too many times.

It will be hard to put stock in current board President Carol Hollenshead’s promise about ensuring that function - rather than frills - guide the design of new branches, for instance, if there’s a pattern of walking away from commitments.

Similarly, library officials should avoid leaving the impression that they’re being cute or coy with taxpayers’ money. The notion that the now 1.95-mill tax will be rolled back to 1.65 mills with another 0.30 for branch construction certainly falls into that category. It’s word play and it’s not helpful.

That said, we accept the idea of holding the tax at its current rate with the understanding that revenue from the extra 0.30 mill is dedicated to upgrading and replacing branch libraries in the future.

As a rule, we’re not advocates for collecting and banking taxes. But in this case, library officials have a plan. And even though we’d suggest that they delay acting on it, there’s no sensible reason to decrease a tax for a year with the expectation of pushing it back up again right away.

The library’s turnaround has, in other words, caused us to relent on the tax-rate question.

Still, it would be terrible to jeopardize the progress by biting off too much too soon.

FYI

The board is scheduled to vote in the budget proposal May 21.