The Arizona Library Association shared good news on Valentine’s Day/Statehood Day—the defeat of HB 2379:
Dear AzLA Members,
Due to the overwhelming response from library districts and counties and really great meetings with our rural House members, Representative Olson will be striking his language off of HB 2379 and will instead be running language that requires a public notice and majority vote of the county board of supervisors before increasing a levy in a library district (as well as jail and public health services districts). His bill will no longer seek to limit the amount library districts can levy. This is great news for our library districts. It’s not a complete ideal situation and we will continue to work with the County Supervisors Association closely on this bill, but removing the levy limit language is a huge win for us.
Here is a link to the new strike everything amendment; http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/51leg/2r/proposed/h.2379jo.pdf, that will be offered in House Ways & Means on Monday. The committee is going to re-hear the bill with this new language. Take a look and let me know if there are any major concerns or points you think I should be aware of.
The LAPR electronic repository bill may be moving to the floor in the Senate next week, it is scheduled for Rules and caucus next week. We will continue to weigh in with Senate members asking for their support of SB 1238.
Hooray! Thank you to EVERYONE who helped spread the word! If Arizonans love their libraries, then their libraries love them even more!
This article appears in Feb 13-19, 2014.
Yes! The smallest of positive gestures, when added up, CAN change the world…one individual at a time. WooHoo!!!
I am so sad to hear that anyone is celebrating this as a victory. First and foremost, taxpayers and residents of our county have chosen to fund our libraries in a certain way. Any restrictions or additional requirements on that is political overreach by the State Legislature. Second, this is not a victory. It’s a trap. If this passes and truth in taxation rules are enacted, any time the library needs to raise the tax more than 2%, we’ll have to have hearings. It doesn’t sound so bad until the leg comes back to it, using the excuse that because we’ve obviously been raising the tax more than 2% that we need more oversight. Then you’re right back to fighting the bill we started with.