The Daviess County Public Library’s board of directors voted unanimously to adopt the compensating tax rate for fiscal year 2019-2020, which will lower the library’s tax rate from last year. Officials with DCPL say accepting this compensation will give the library the same amount of tax revenue it received last year.
Each year, DCPL is given the option on how they want to handle their tax revenue. As the government-run facility depends on tax revenue each year to keep afloat, the library is given the option to take the compensating rate, leave taxes the same as the previous fiscal year or increase property taxes up to, but not exceeding, 4 percent.
DCPL Director Erin Waller said that, while the library’s tax rates have gone down, a taxpayer’s could still see an increase in taxes.
“An individual’s property tax may be increased this year due to other entities raising taxes, or [due to] the value of an individual’s property increasing, but not solely because of the library’s rate,” Waller said.
Even though Daviess County Fiscal Court voted to increase property taxes this year, Waller said the County’s budget is separate from the library’s.
“The County’s budget has nothing to do with ours. The DCPL is a Special Taxing District,” she said. “Our Board of Trustees has the authority to set the library’s tax rate up to a certain percentage above compensating.”
DCPL’s tax revenue for fiscal year 2018-2019 was a little over $4.5 million, Waller said.
“We anticipate basically the same for this year,” she added. “This represents 92 percent of our budget, so it pays for everything — salaries, benefits, materials, facility maintenance and utilities, programming and capital expenses.”
The library’s adopted real property rates are 6.3 cents per $100 of assessed property value. Tangible personal property, such as aircraft, watercraft and inventory, is 7.57 cents per $100, and motor vehicles are 4 cents per $100.
