Jackson taxpayers’ contribution highest for library services.
Jackson taxpayers continue to foot the bill for the majority of library services provided across Hinds County.
Meanwhile, funding for libraries in Madison County appear more equally spread across the population.
This year, Jackson is slated to contribute $1,947,000 to the Jackson-Hinds Library System (JHLS), a little less than half of its $4.4 million budget.
That amount comes from a 1.71 millage rate that was set this year by the Jackson City Council.
By comparison, the Hinds County board of supervisors will allocate $1,660,000 to the library system, which is the amount generated from a 0.913 millage rate.
In Madison County, the board of supervisors allocated $1,675,000, or about 73 percent of the Madison County Library System’s $2.3 million budget.
The cities chip in additional funds, with $110,000 coming from Ridgeland and $100,000 each coming from Madison and Canton. An additional $1,200 in funding is provided by the town of Flora.
In Hinds County, Jackson is the lone city contributing to the system. Clinton, a city roughly the size of Ridgeland, does not provide an annual allocation, nor does Byram, a city only slightly smaller than Canton.
Residents in those cities do contribute by virtue of paying Hinds County property taxes.
Homeowners in unincorporated parts of Madison County also contribute to the library system through their taxes.
However, residents living in the municipalities of Jackson, Ridgeland, Madison, Canton and Flora pay twice for the services, with a portion of their ad valorem taxes going to fund their respective city and county library allocations.
An individual living in Northeast Jackson with a home valued at $300,000, for example, will pay $78.69 for library services this year, with $27.39 going toward Hinds County’s allocation and $51.30 going toward Jackson’s.
However, libraries in the capital city are typically larger and provide more services than do the branches in the county.
In all, Jackson-Hinds has 14 branches, seven in the city of Jackson and one each in Clinton, Byram, Raymond, Terry, Utica, Edwards and Bolton.
Madison County has five branches, one each in Madison, Ridgeland, Canton, Flora and Camden, an unincorporated area. Branches in Madison, Canton and Ridgeland are owned by the cities. The Flora and Camden locations are owned by the county.
Jackson owns the seven branch buildings located in the capital city. Branches in Terry, Edwards, Utica and Raymond are owned by the county. The Byram branch is by the Hinds County and the county school board, with part of the property it’s on being owned by a private developer.
The Quisenberry Library in Clinton is owned by the city of Clinton. That city is paying about $600,000 a year to retire the $8 million bond used to build it.
Utilities and basic upkeep are a responsibility of the Jackson-Hinds itself, while major renovations, such as the addition of new roofs, fall to the city and the county.
Jackson and Hinds County hold back a portion of their library allocations each year to help defray those costs.
In Madison County, utility and maintenance fall to the cities, not the library system.
Electricity and water, as well as general maintenance, have become major expenses for both systems.
An example of this in Jackson was the system’s decision to abandon the Charles Tisdale Library.
In September, the JHLS board of trustees notified the city council that it was abandoning all interests in the facility, in hopes to save money. Electricity at the defunct building alone was running around $35,000 a year.
According to a letter from board president Rickey Jones, “we cannot afford to sustain this kind of financial obligation when the library no longer is useable.”
Utility and maintenance expenses are also in the tens of thousands in Madison County. For the Elsie E. Jurgens branch in Ridgeland, utilities and maintenance run about $41,000 annually, an amount the city of 24,000 pays on top of its $110,000 allocation.
Jackson-Hinds was formed in 1986, when the city and county entered into an interlocal funding agreement.
Under the deal, all libraries in Jackson and Hinds County were put under one umbrella and funded jointly by the city and county, with moneys contributed going into a single pot to cover centralized services, such as information technology, human resources and other administrative costs.
Since the agreement was implemented, the capital city has allocated $45,780,149, while the county has given $43,933,195.
Amounts given by both entities have more than doubled since the system’s creation, but have not kept up with inflation. In 1986/87, the first year of the agreement, Jackson and Hinds County each awarded the library system $915,000.
Based on inflation, the city and county should be giving Jackson-Hinds around $2.1 million today.
Jackson’s contribution this year is about $150,000 less than that. The county’s is $425,000 less.
The interlocal agreement governing MCLS was put in place in the 1960s and last modified in September 2009.
It was signed off on by the county board of supervisors, as well as the governments of the cities of Madison, Ridgeland, Flora and Canton.
Under terms of the agreement, the county collects an annual millage for library service, which is paid by all property owners in the county.
The agreement states that all groups must provide an annual allocation but does not set a specific amount.
