A.C. library would suffer under casino tax plan

ATLANTIC CITY - The new method of casino taxation under consideration by state legislators could have an unintended casualty: the highly regarded Atlantic City Free Public Library.

State legislators acknowledged Thursday that the Atlantic City recovery bills, as currently written, would leave the library in the lurch for much of its current $5 million budget. Library director Maureen Sherr-Frank said Thursday that it would remove 70 percent of the funding.

Marshall Spevak, aide to State Assemblyman Vincent Mazzeo, said legislators would seek a remedy in the bill to prevent any drastic impact on the library, which also operates a branch on Richmond Avenue, and the city's historical museum and archives.

"Obviously the intent of the legislative package was not to reduce the funding of the library but to fix the property tax problem in Atlantic City," Spevak said. "We will do our best to fix this."

By state law, libraries are funded by a formula derived from assessed property values - one-third of a mill on every dollar of assessable property.

The proposed legislation - which creates a collective $150 million payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) for casinos, would take the casinos out of that formula and in effect exempt them from their share of the guaranteed levy for the library.

The library's overall $5 million budget is likely to go down in any event, as casinos in 2014 collectively paid about $210 million in taxes and would pay $150 million in the PILOT program.

The library is used to that, as the budget has declined by nearly $2 million since 2010. Sherr-Frank said the 2015 budget would be reduced by as much as 25 percent just on declining property values; without the casino taxes, it would drop by the untenable 70 percent. In 2014, casino taxes accounted for $2.8 million of the library's budget.

"It will have a drastic impact on the services that the library can offer to the Atlantic City community, at the very time more and more people are turning to the library and needing the range of services we offer," she said.

The glass-enclosed library at Tennessee Avenue is a city fixture, catering to a wide range of patrons, ages, cultures, and purposes, from the unemployed using computers to create resumés and apply for jobs, to scholars and writers researching the city's well-known archives for books and TV shows about the historic resort.

Spevak said that local legislators Mazzeo and State Sen. James Whelan had been in touch with Mayor Don Guardian and State Sen. Stephen Sweeney, and that all agreed they had not intended the library to be left out of its share of the casino tax payment. The state's own fiscal impact statement accompanying the bill does note that the library, unlike the county and schools, is not accounted for in the PILOT.

The legislation, which also includes a provision to direct more state aid to Atlantic City schools to bring aid in line with what nearby school districts already get, was expected to be considered last month.

The bills were pulled after billionaire Carl Icahn failed to close a deal with the union representing workers at the Trump Taj Mahal. It is currently not scheduled for a vote, according to the legislative offices, and has drawn some new objections from Atlantic County officials.