By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
Advanced voting got underway Monday in Ellis County and a group of voters in the rural areas of the county and Victoria have an extra question, regarding a county library, on their ballot.
In March the Ellis County Commission approved placing the question, “Shall Ellis County, Kansas establish and maintain a county library?” on the August 6 primary ballot.
Voters within the city limits of Hays and Ellis will not have the option to vote on the question. Both the Hays and Ellis Public libraries are funded by local taxes collected within each city’s limits.
A 1.5 mil tax is collected by the state of Kansas, for the Central Kansas Library System (CKLS) based in Great Bend, from residents in Victoria and rural Ellis County.
The taxes collected in Ellis County by the CKLS total nearly $300,000 annually and that money is distributed among a 17-county area of north and central Kansas.
Hays Public Library Director Brandon Hines recently told the Ellis County Commission that most of the people who have asked questions surrounding the ballot question don’t know that they are being taxed for libraries and that the money collected doesn’t all stay in Ellis County.
“This has been good for an education for just having these discussions,” Hines said.
Supporters of the ballot question, and the creation of an Ellis County Library, say that the funding gap between the amount of funds that leave Ellis County and those that return is widening and the creation of the county library would allow those taxpayers' funds to stay local.
The $300,000 would be distributed by the local county library board and could be given to both the Hays and Ellis Public Libraries as well as the three public school libraries in the county.
Ellis County Commission Michael Berges urged voters to cast their vote whether they support the measure or not.
“I'm just here to encourage people to vote on it and make their decision on what direction they want,” Berges. “If they want the current direction as to how their tax dollars are spent, supplementing other county libraries, that's fine. If they want to make a decision about where their tax dollars are spent locally, then vote that direction.”
Voters do not have to declare a party affiliation to vote on the question, the only requirement is that they live in Victoria or outside the city limits of Hays and Ellis.
Hines told the commission they are continuing to see a decline in the amount of funding Ellis County is receiving from CKLS and they believe that trend will continue.
According to Hines, in 2023, Ellis County received $100,000 from the CKLS. He said in 2024 the funding was cut to $90,000 and they have budgeted only $80,000 next year.
“We anticipate that to diminish for the next two years,” Hines said. “So, by 2027, the entire amount of money to the Hays public library would be $60,000 with an additional about $10,000 to the other libraries in the county. So, it would be $70,000.”
As members of the CKLS, the Hays Public Library, the Ellis Public Library and the public school libraries in Ellis, Hays and Victoria all receive funding from the CKLS annually. The local public school district libraries receive $500 each.
If the voters approve creation of the Ellis County Library it would set off a series of actions.
First, it would be up to the Ellis County Commission to create a library board and appoint five members to that board.
Those members can only live in the city of Victoria or in rural Ellis County. No residents from Ellis or Hays would be allowed to serve on that board.
“The board itself would be its own taxing district; the county would not get the money,” Berges said. “This library board would also be its own entity, with the ability to set their own levy up to a certain point.”
It would then be up to that board to decide on which libraries to contract with to provide services to local library patrons.
If the voters approve the creation of a county library, it does not mean that there will be a new library built in Ellis County.
Berges said Ellis County already has physical library locations.
“We're not going to build a library; we're going to contract (with other physical libraries), so those libraries can provide those services,” Berges said. “We're going to provide, ideally, more funding, because we have that pot of money that the taxpayers are already paying, but right now it's going to Central Kansas Library System and then they're divvying that pot of money back out at a less and less amount.”
He said he believes the board would contract with both Hays and Ellis Public Libraries to provide services throughout the county similar to how they operate now but there would be more money to provide to the local libraries.
Commissioner Nathan Leiker said the county library could be as much as an office inside of a school library.
The board would also be required to serve as the taxing entity for the local library tax.
“The tax can't just go away. The county residents still have to pay a levy for library services and that's where this decision is coming, is how do they want those library services provided,” Berges said. “As a local board, potentially, they're the ones establishing that levy.”
The county library board would still have to adhere to the state’s revenue neutral rate and present and pass a public budget, “just like other cemetery boards, rural fire, other kinds of taxing and governmental entities,” Berges said.
Berges, Leiker and County Administrator Darin Meyers all agreed that there are some questions that cannot be answered until voters weigh in on the issue.
“That's why it's hard to explain how it works, if there's no board appointed yet,” Meyers said. “They're the ones that would make those decisions on what's best for that money being collected and staying in Ellis County for our local tax purposes (and) for our local residents.”
The county commission and Hines all encouraged residents that still have questions to reach out to members of the Ellis County Commission, county administrator or representatives from either the Hays Public Library or the Ellis Public Library for more information.