A petition was filed with the Marion County Clerk’s Office for formation of the Salem Public Library District. The boundaries of the proposed district include the City of Salem and territory in the Salem-Keizer (24J) School District as located in Marion and Polk counties, except the territory in the City of Keizer. Cities can only be included in a special district with the consent of the city council. The City of Salem passed a resolution to be included in the district if formed. The City of Keizer opted to not be included in the library district at this time.

Library services in the district area are currently provided by the City of Salem, funded through city property taxes for residents and library user fees for non-residents. Budget cuts across all city departments have resulted in reduction in library hours, book budgets and other library services. Formation of the library district will allow the City of Salem to use existing revenues for other city purposes.

Passing this measure will create the Salem Public Library District, a separate local government as opposed to a City of Salem department. The district will be governed by a five-member board of directors elected at large from within the district. The district will have a permanent tax rate limit of 62 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value. Revenues from this tax can only be used for library district purposes, including, but not limited to, operations, leasing existing library buildings from the City of Salem and accumulating reserves for the construction of proposed branch libraries. Ownership of library materials, furniture, artwork, vehicles and equipment would be transferred from the City of Salem to the district. Costs of leasing, certain rights and obligations would be the subject of an agreement between the district and the city.

Library services would be available to all residents of the district without a library card fee. The library district permanent tax rate is estimated to raise $5,545,000 in revenue and would provide dedicated funding for library services. Generally, the library district tax for a house with an assessed value of $150,000 would be about $93 per year. Some properties are projected to be in tax compression. This means the non-school, local government property tax cap has been reached, so each local government receives a reduced share of tax revenues. It is estimated that other local governments’ revenues would be reduced by approximately $900,000 the first year in additional tax compression.

Submitted by,

Gloria Roy, Assistant Legal Counsel

Marion County