Ketchikan borough manager proposes paying less for city library as deal nears end

Ketchikan Gateway Borough Manager Ruben Duran is asking the Borough Assembly on Monday to reopen library talks with the City of Ketchikan on terms that would pay less than the city asked for. The agreement under which the borough pays for residents outside the cities to use the city library is set to end Dec. 31.

The city asked for $725,107 this year, 8.8% more than its request a year earlier. Under a draft amendment written by borough staff, the borough's payment would be capped at what a 0.6-mill tax on property outside Ketchikan and Saxman raises. The borough's current 0.6-mill library tax brings in about $565,000 this fiscal year. If the existing formula, based on the share of borough residents living outside the two cities, came out lower, the borough would pay that instead.

The borough's money makes up roughly 40% of the library's budget. In June, Duran gave the city notice of the borough's intent to end the 2018 agreement Dec. 31, writing that the notice was "predicated by an apparent intent of the Assembly to seek renegotiation."

The Assembly has been trying since 2024 to slow the growth of its payment, and city and borough staff have repeatedly failed to agree. The borough cut its library tax to 0.5 mills for fiscal 2025 after a fund balance built up in its library fund. Lower tax revenue and rising library costs then nearly emptied the fund, borough staff wrote, and the Assembly raised the tax to 0.6 mills in May.

Talks paused while voters weighed a citizens' initiative to have the borough take over the library. Proposition 1 failed Oct. 6, 1,314 to 1,054. It passed inside Ketchikan and Saxman, 658 to 589, but lost outside the cities, 725 to 396, according to certified results.

The city is preparing to negotiate. City Manager Abner Hoage wrote in an Oct. 30 memo that his office "will be meeting with the Borough Manager to negotiate terms for library services to non-areawide Borough residents after December 31, 2026." He has asked the City Council to discuss its negotiating position in a closed-door session Thursday, and any agreement would go back to the council for approval.