Restoring rationality

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently appointed conservative former state senator and founder of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers Jason Rapert to the state’s library board. The board oversees the “Arkansas State Library [which] … administers state and federal funds appropriated for libraries and library development.”

I’m confused why the state augments local-library finances at all, given that libraries are overwhelmingly funded through local property taxes known as millages. (Most libraries tax at around a 1 percent rate. Greater Little Rock, through the Central Arkansas Library System, or CALS, taxes at four times that.)

When the state collects taxes destined for libraries, it sends that money through the state’s bureaucracy that inevitably leeches off its vigorish, only to revert the remainder back to localities that already have a dedicated tax for libraries. Both Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible for keeping this influence-peddling system in place.

Recently, Rapert proposed withholding this supplemental state funding from those libraries currently suing to invalidate a recently enacted law that restricts access to adult material at libraries to, well, adults in libraries. The State Library Board rejected Rapert’s motion.

How about going bigger instead? Let’s stop having the state collect taxes for libraries when their localities are simultaneously draining citizens’ pockets for the same purpose. If that is too bold, here are three other methods to save Arkansans their hard-earned tax dollars:

First, the state’s money should be limited to struggling libraries, not gluttonous ones. Leftists should gush over a progressive redistribution that selectively funds poorer libraries over privileged ones. And in this instance, in which taxpayers would save money, so would I.

Second, the state should limit funding to libraries that focus on being libraries, i.e., lending books. For example, Little Rock’s library tax isn’t so high because central Arkansas has a lot of books and a disproportionate desire to devour the written word. Oh, no. The good people of Little Rock are so over-taxed by CALS because it uses its cash gavage to purchase a cache of tools and fishing supplies to make available to patrons.

Here’s what CALS website says: “Need to find a giant mallet to use just once for a fence you’re putting in at home? How about some wire cutters or a voltage meter? Whether you need to do some painting, drywalling or those bushes need pruning, you can find the tools to do it at the new CALS tool lending library … More tools will be entering the catalog soon, including large lawn care power tools.”

Libraries like CALS—which so deeply pick their residents’ purses so as to be able to afford to lend rakes, shovels, and pole saws—don’t need extra cash from the state. I wonder, does Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. agree that lawn and garden supplies are more important to his constituents than feeding the hungry or housing the homeless? I, for one, would use the money for drug-addiction treatment. (By the way, that’s not needle exchanges and methadone clinics. I said treatment, not facilitation.)

Rapert should move to close the state’s money spigot infusing these kudzu-mimicking libraries. Bureaucratic overgrowth shouldn’t be rewarded. It should be disincentivized.

Finally, library directors, like all government-funded employees, should be answerable to elected officials. That’s how democracy works. And the state should only fund libraries that support this fundamental tenet.

Currently, library directors typically answer to unelected city or county boards. So taxpayers have no control over profligate spending or libertine lending. If these localities eschew democratic principles, they should equally be foreclosed from getting our hard-earned state-collected tax dollars. That’s good sense and cents.

Saline County recently placed its library board under the direct oversight of the county administrator (oddly known in Arkansas as the “county judge,” notwithstanding that he’s not a judge), and the same ordinance removed the library board’s ability to hire or fire library employees and regulate their salaries. The county judge is now back in charge, and he answers directly to the electorate.

Over the last several years, the left has taken to claiming to be the protector of democratic norms. I should hope, therefore, it wouldn’t support funding those libraries that operate like Grand Moff Tarkin-empowered Imperial regional governors—maintaining direct control over their systems without any say of the people.

I’m cautiously optimistic that with Library Board members like Rapert, we can bring some rationality to what has become unchecked government operating under our noses. Kudos to him and the governor for trying to right this listing ship.

This is your right to know.