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26 ALTERNATIVES FOR FINANCING THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Library in Baltimore, and the most active of the suburban libraries in California, then attach the structure of the most developed county libraries of the South in order to reach small towns and rural areas, he would have a bulwark of knowledge at the several levels-specialization, functional information, cultural education-equal to the needs of the economy, of the public life, and of personal aspirations. But the average public library, the usual agency serving people across the land from metropolis to remote crossroads, is a pale shadow of a research source-a fragmentary information center and a pallid educational force. We have invented a potentially powerful institution and have demonstrated, here and there, that its potential can be realized. But we have tried to nurture this national resource within the confines of a highly circumscribed local fiscal base and inadequate financing measures. We have taken functions that are national, state-wide, regional, and local in impact, and sought to sustain them all with public monies collected primarily to provide distinctly local services.

The belief is emerging that, in a democracy, one cannot educate the child in one locality at one level and the child in another locality at another level, and long maintain the democracy. People affect not just the block on which they own a house and the town in which they live, but they affect the body politic and the entire social fabric. Similarly, knowledge is not a local convenience commodity, like public swimming pools, that can be provided at a high level in one sector and not in another, and long maintain productivity and freedom. The United States must look to its knowledge resources as it looks to its human and natural resources. It has a public agency for the purpose, but it has not worked out a rational financial structure for that agency.

CHAPTER 3

Analysis of Fiscal Factors and Intergovernmental Financing Patterns

Purpose and Background

With the advent of Federal general revenue sharing and the consequent curtailment of Federal categorical grants for libraries, there is considerable concern regarding the future of the public library system. It is the purpose of this analysis to review the present system of public library financing within the general framework of state and local government finance. In this context, general conclusions can then be drawn regarding alternative means of financing the public library function.

It is, however, a difficult time to draw general conclusions and formulate definitive alternative recommendations applicable to the field of intergovernmental finance. The passage and implementation of general revenue sharing has introduced pervasive factors and forces of unknown potential in basic intergovernmental fiscal arrangements. Some would argue that the concept of revenue sharing was never intended to be linked with a wholesale elimination of Federal-statelocal categorical aid programs. Certainly, there appears to be rising opposition in the library finance field, and in other program areas, to such a linkage. The effort to revise and combine categorical grants as block grants under the revenue sharing program is now being debated in the Congress. Certain categorical programs have been restored or continued and, as discussed elsewhere in this report, a new Federal funding initiative in public library finance is being discussed and may soon be submitted to the Congress. Details of the new initiative, described as a Federal Library Partnership Act, have not yet been fully developed nor made public. However, President Nixon in his education message of January 24, 1974, has defined a new and broader Federal role as follows:

"While I continue to believe that state and local authorities bear the primary responsibility for the maintenance of public libraries, I also believe that the Federal government has a responsible role to play."

TABLE 1.-COMPARISONS OF EXPENDITURES FOR SELECTED STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS, 1967 AND 1972

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· ALTERNATIVES FOR FINANCING THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

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Personal income, 1966 and 1971 (millions)

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Governmental Finances in 1971-72" and "Census of Governments, 1967," Vol. 4, No. 5: Compendium of Government Finances.

Police

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It is, therefore, reasonable to expect that Federal categorical funding support for public libraries, in some form, will be continued. This analysis of the financing patterns for public libraries, and the comparisons with general criteria and other intergovernmental financing patterns should assist the resolution and final development of an improved fiscal base for public library services.

The Public Finance Dimension

Recent Trends in Public Library Expenditures

The $814 million (less than $4 per capita) expended by states and localities for public libraries in fiscal 1971-72 was less than that spent for virtually every other domestic service. It was about one-third of the amount spent for local parks and recreation and less than one-sixth the expenditure for police protection. It represented less than 2 percent of state-local expenditure for elementary and secondary schools.

Total general expenditure of state and local governments rose almost 80 percent in the 5-year period 1967-72, while library expenditure grew by less than 60 percent. (See Table 1.) By contrast, expenditure for police protection virtually doubled as did spending for health and hospitals. Because personal income grew almost as fast as did expenditure for libraries during the same period, the latter increased only minimally relative to personal income, while related expenditure for police protection and health and hospitals rose by one-third.

Interstate Variations

Per capita library expenditure averaged $3.90 in 1971-72 and ranged from a low of $1.58 in Alabama and Arkansas to a high of $7.76 in Massachusetts—a factor of almost five to one. (See Table 2.)1 As is the case for expenditure in general, the Southeast registered the lowest per capita amounts, while the Midwest, New England and the Far West spent the largest amounts. Because personal income grew at considerably different rates in individual states, it is not surprising that library expenditure per $1,000 of personal income actually fell in a number of states between 1967 and 1972. Almost half the states showed declines in library expenditure relative to personal income. In a dozen states, the drop was more than 15 percent.

Governmental Source of Financing

As in the case of local public schools, all three levels of government-Federal, state and local-participate in the financing of public

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30 ALTERNATIVES FOR FINANCING THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

TABLE 2.-STATE AND LOCAL EXPENDITURES FOR LIBRARIES, 1967 AND 1972, BY STATES AND REGIONS

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