Garland County residents submit petition for ballot measure to cut library funding

Garland County residents await a decision from county officials on whether they’ll get to vote in November to reduce the property tax that funds the local library, a supporter of the measure said Monday.

George Pritchett was one of the supporters who collected about 130 signatures from registered Garland County voters, more than the 100 necessary to qualify for the countywide ballot, and submitted them Friday afternoon, he said. The county clerk is expected to decide this week whether the measure qualifies, and Pritchett said supporters are “confident” it will.

The proposal would reduce the 1.6-mill tax, approved by county voters in 1998, to 1.0 mills. An earlier version of the measure sought to eliminate the tax completely, but supporters altered it after county residents raised concerns that the library would close without the tax funding, which Pritchett has said is a “misconception” and not the goal of the measure.

If the measure is successful, Garland County would be Arkansas’ second county in two years, after Craighead County, to vote to reduce its library system’s tax revenue. Pritchett has said the Garland County effort is based on the one in Craighead County, a narrowly-approved 2022 measure that cut the libraries’ funding in half and forced the system to reduce its hours and staff.




https://arkansasadvocate.com/briefs/garland-county-residents-submit-petition-for-ballot-measure-to-cut-library-funding/