Alan Kooney, Hopewell
To the editor:
Regardless of where Hopewell Borough residents stand on the proposal to move the Hopewell Public Library to a new location, it is important that the dialogue not be clouded by factual misconceptions about library taxes currently paid by residents.
In a public meeting sponsored by the library to present the proposal, as well as in a recent letter to this newspaper, assertions were made that Hopewell Borough taxpayers are currently paying a library tax to both Mercer County and to their local borough government.
This assertion is emphatically untrue. Hopewell Borough, having established its own free public library under state law 100 years ago, is not a member of the Mercer County Library System and borough residents do not pay a county library tax. We do pay county taxes for many other services provided by Mercer County, such as roads, county parks and recreation facilities and courthouse services, but we do not pay a county library tax. Our situation is not unique; Pennington, Princeton and Hamilton Township are other Mercer County municipalities that do not belong to the county library system.
What Hopewell Borough residents do pay, and always have paid, is a local tax to support the Hopewell Public Library, which is collected by the borough and turned over to the library. The tax, which is levied and assessed according to state law, is Ð of a mill per $100 of equalized property value. Since a mill is equivalent to one-tenth of a cent, the tax works out to be about 33Ð cents per $1,000 of equalized value. Since 2011, this tax has been broken out and displayed on property tax bills as a separate line item, but it is not new; it was previously collected, at the exact same rate, as part of the larger municipal budget. When the state of New Jersey enacted a law requiring that the local library tax be identified separately, the municipal general purposes tax rate was reduced by an equivalent amount, and there was no net difference in billings to residents from the new dedicated tax.
What may have some residents understandably confused, is that Hopewell Borough (and Pennington) residents are allowed to obtain a free library card for use at the Hopewell Township branch of the Mercer County library on Pennington-Titusville Road. This historic anomaly reflects the construction of the county library branch on property owned by the Hopewell Valley Regional School District, of which both Hopewell and Pennington are constituent members. The ability of our residents to use that branch of the county library, notwithstanding not being taxed for that purpose, was part of the legal agreement that allowed the county to place the library in its location next to the high school.
To summarize: Hopewell Borough property taxpayers are paying to support only one library — their own Hopewell Public Library — and are doing so at a tax rate specified by the state of New Jersey and one which has remained unchanged since the early 1900’s. This information can easily be confirmed by Hopewell Borough officials and by the Mercer County Library Board.
As a former member and president of the Hopewell Public Library board of trustees, I support the efforts of the current library board to seek a safer, larger, more easily accessible and more productive library facility to serve our residents well into the future. The board has been studying this issue for almost 20 years and has documented the shortcomings of our beloved, but inadequate "Little Red Library" through a series of studies and actions.
But regardless of my personal opinions, I believe the current dialogue taking place over the library’s proposal is helpful for all parties, including our residents who use the library and those who may not use the library but pay taxes to support it as a public service. The only thing I hope is that the dialogue is not clouded by beliefs or assertions of fact that are not correct and are irrelevant to the debate.
Alan Kooney
Hopewell
