County of Barrhead supports Yellowhead library levy increase

The County of Barrhead voted to support a proposed levy increase for Yellowhead Regional Library (YRL) at its latest council meeting on Tuesday, July 7.

The County of Barrhead approved a levy increase for Yellowhead Regional Library (YRL) at its council meeting on Tuesday, July 7. YRL provides resources and support to its member libraries, including 43 public libraries and 44 school libraries in 54 municipalities throughout rural and small municipalities in the region. The County of Barrhead is one of the regions served by YRL, which includes the Neerlandia Library and school libraries in Dunstable School and Neerlandia Public Christian School.

Partner municipalities currently pay a per capita levy of $4.85 for YRL services, with YRL recommending an increase of $0.75, a $5.60 per capita levy for all municipalities beginning in 2027. This is due to inflation, which has increased service costs. This represents a 15 per cent per capita increase, a large jump from previous YRL levy increases, which have not risen above 2.42 per cent since 2019.

As of June 15, 41 of 54 municipalities (76 per cent) voted in favour of the increase, with YRL only requiring a two-thirds majority for the increase to be approved. Despite this making the county’s vote have no impact on the upcoming increase, the vote was still brought to council as YRL seeks feedback from each of its partner municipalities. “One of the big things is that it's the request not to fund enhancements or new services, but to fund costs of services that municipalities are already receiving,” said county finance director Tamara Molzahn.

Coun. Bill Chapman said, “YRL is a phenomenal resource that looks after keeping the rural municipalities in this region up to speed in terms of new things happening with technology. They do a fantastic job of shipping books out throughout the region to satisfy the educational needs of our whole region.”

Councillors Chais Ellwein and Tyson Bergsma expressed concerns about the increase in cost compared to previous years. “We all had to make it through the through the economy in 2022 and we were unfortunately not able to see a 15 per cent raise from our employers,” said Bergsma. “There’s some good arguments and good discussion in it, I just don't know if municipal taxes is the place to fix that problem.”

Ellwein commented, “I'd rather see slighter increases instead of jumping from 2 to 15 per cent because to me that's bad planning. I see the levy history and they had a really tough year but still did nothing (with the increases in 2022). It's been one to two per cent increases and now it's 15 to 16 per cent.

That's really bad foresight.” Despite these concerns, the levy increase was still approved by council, with it coming into effect on Jan. 1, 2027.