LEGISLATIVE WRAP

AN INTERVIEW WITH ILA’S

LEGISLATIVE LOBBYIST,

JOHN WATTS

Editor's Note: Mr. Watts has been ILA’s lobbyist for several years, and his contract with the ILA was recently renewed for another three years. Mr. Watts is impressively knowledgeable about the legislature -- its members and its way of doing business. He has been, by general agreement, an exceptionally able spokesperson for library causes. He is part of the Veritas Advisors Group, with offices in Boise. The Idaho Librarian spoke with him on May 5, 2003, immediately after the close of the legislative session.

I.L. The one bill backed by the ILA that managed to pass in this legislative session was HB140. It dealt with how, in the case of a city library that successfully joines a library district, the budget of the resulting unit would be determined. Why was this bill promoted by the library community?

J.W. The reason that the ILA wanted this bill passed, was to clarify, in the future, if a city was to join a district, that the budget that was in effect at the time of the election would be the budget that would be used to calculate a new rate for the district budget and hence a levy. Apparently one thing that has been the case is that when cities have voted to join a district, they haven’t been certain if the "most recent certified budget" – the terminology now in the code – whether that was the budget that was certified to levy taxes within the city or the last annually audited certified budget, and those could be two different things: one - obviously the more recent one - could either be higher or lower than the most recently certified one. The city may have given an increase, or the city may have held back some money for some reason, because of tight fiscal restraints, or some reason like that. So the bill clarifies that whatever budget is in effect on the day of the election is the one that is used. That way there’s no confusion over which budget is to be used, last year’s or the current year’s.

I.L. Two of the bills backed by the ILA which failed to pass had to do with allowing libraries to consolidate – city with district (HB141) and district with district (HB139) – when the city and district, or district and district, do not share a boundary – that is to say are non-contiguous. Could you explain what would be advantageous to libraries in making such consolidations legal?

J.W. One of the benefits that we were hoping to achieve in passing this legislation would have allowed a city to join an existing district, even if they weren’t contiguous. Right now, state law requires that a city and a district must be contiguous if they are to join together, and the reason for that is to ensure the orderly growth of any government, whether it be city, county or special district. What we have in the case of Osborn, for example, is that Osborn wants to join the Kootenay library district, but it is not contiguous. It does not have a library and would benefit from having library services, but, because it is not contiguous, the folks that live in Osborn cannot access the district library without having to pay a special fee. In the case of such smaller cities that want to join a district it would actually be less expensive for them to take part, through the property tax, in supporting the library district, as opposed to paying that special "non-resident" fee. So, we have a contiguous policy that is in question here, and whether or not it is beneficial to allow "leap-frog" development of these taxing districts for libraries. It certainly is of benefit to the small city libraries, and the rationale for the small cities to be non-contiguous and join is really the same rationale that would be used for a smaller district to join a larger district. The smaller district library would then have larger holdings, could do some interlibrary exchanges, get on the same computer system, perhaps even eliminate some administrative overhead, and perhaps enjoy the benefits of larger-scale purchasing, some economies of scale, for example. The issue at play, though, is whether you should allow these districts to develop in a non-contiguous fashion. This legislature, this time, happened to say "No, we’re not going to allow that."

I.L. What was it that really bothered the legislators about the idea of non-contiguous merging?

J.W. In the case of the city wanting to join the district, there were two points: it was not an issue of whether or not the city residents got to vote, because that was provided for; rather it was, first, the issue of leap-frog development, and second, the possibility that the taxes of the district would be impacted without those folks getting to vote. In the case of the district joining a district there were three issues: first, there was no vote of any kind provided for; it was just a matter of an agreement between two library boards and then approval after a hearing by all the county commissioners that were affected. Secondly, you had an issue of the levy rate of one of the involved districts perhaps going up, without voter approval. And finally, the non-contiguous issue, again. The tax commission and the county commissions like to have predictable boundaries, so they know where everything lies, and if you have empty space in between some political boundaries, it makes them uncomfortable and raises some questions of fairness; are you jumping over someone, do they want to be jumped over? Primarily, they want orderly growth, and that seems to mean, to them, growth involving contiguous areas.

I.L. What should our strategy be in getting the next legislature to approve these bills?

J.W. The one I think the ILA should pursue in the future is the city-to-district consolidation. I just think there’s a good case to be made for that. I think some of these smaller cities would benefit greatly if they were able to join a district. And all the pieces are there for it to happen -- except for the non-contiguous issue. I think if you had a couple of real live examples, similar to the Osborn case, I think we could make the case that it’s going to benefit folks to have access to a library. So I think that’s probably the easiest one.

I.L. But in the other case?

J.W. District-to-district is a little tougher. I think until they have a real example, it’s going to be difficult to overcome the opposition, but I think there’s a good case to be made once you find a real example. For some of the smaller districts, for example Lizard Butte District Library (Marsing), out in Canyon County, it would benefit by joining the larger district. Right now it’s a very small, isolated area and would probably benefit -- cost savings due to scale – if they could join.

I.L. Could we modify the bill on district-to-district consolidation to provide for a vote, for example, and help the effort to pass it?

J.W. Yes, you could. That’s entirely up to the library association Board of Directors.

I.L. A lot of us are wondering what has happened to the State Library budget. Has that been settled?

J.W. Yes it has been settled, and actually it turned out a lot better than everybody feared it would. They actually had only a 0.8% cut, which is pretty phenomenal since a lot of agencies were cut more than that. Their budget was set according to the governor’s recommendation. They received $2.4 million in general funds, this year, and then with the dedicated money that they have, which is about $1.2 million, they have a total of $3.6 million this year. That’s not where they want to be, but it’s a lot better than a lot of agencies made out.

I.L. Is there any other legislation of relevance to the library community that you’d like to comment upon?

J.W. There are two other pretty significant pieces that we had to deal with. One was the telephonic reading bill, HB 183. The folks at the Idaho Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired and other groups that are associated with the visually impaired, wanted to bring a bill that would have allowed a newspaper reading service that would have been placed at the State Library. People would read on tape these daily newspapers and other periodicals and make them available to the visually impaired. It would have been funded through a twenty-four cent surcharge on local telephone lines. That was a pretty tough go because you had to get approval from the Public Utility Commission, and that just wasn’t going to happen, and you had to get all the telephone companies to approve it, and they certainly weren’t in a mood to have their rates increased just now, in the present economic climate.

Then there was H.B. 288, which represented a desire by a representative from Mountain Home, Representative Peter Nielsen, to require that all library materials comply with Idaho Code 3316-12, which defines a "thorough system of public schools." That section of the code deals with a number of defining features, including "The basic values of honesty, self-discipline, unselfishness, respect for authority and the central importance of work are emphasized." It was Mr. Nielsen’s concern that some of the books in the library might express contrary thoughts about respect for authority and discipline. But, as it turned out, he was unaware of existing library material review boards at most of the schools throughout the state. So, once he understood that they were in place, and that there was a process for these materials to be reviewed, and that there was even a process for people to file an appeal of anything that might be approved to go into a school library, he felt much better about the system that is already there and that there wasn’t such a great need to change the law.

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