With a $1.4-million deficit and enough money to operate for about four more months, the Flint (Mich.) Public Library got a temporary bailout November 11, when the board of directors voted unanimously to recommend a library tax proposal that would go before city voters February 22.
The board expects the millage to raise about $4.6 million annually at a cost of $58 per year to the owner of a $40,000 home. The added funding would allow the library to stay afloat while a merger with the Genesee District library is considered. “If the millage doesn’t pass, then we’re faced with a library that won’t exist after March,” Board President Claude Verbal said in the November 11 Flint Journal.
Money from the Flint board of education and a donation of $1.8 million in August by the Mott Foundation were insufficient to stave off the financial crisis. The foundation hired a consultant in April to help the Flint and Genesee systems work out a plan for how a joint city-county system could be funded.
Posted November 15, 1999.