Lafayette Library Has Until December to Save Its Branches. Here’s What the Board Heard Monday.

LAFAYETTE, La. — The Lafayette Parish Library Board met Monday, two days after parish voters rejected a 10-year property tax renewal 56-44, to discuss what happens if the measure goes back to the ballot in December and fails again. Director Danny Gillane told the board that the outcome would put the system in a position it cannot sustain.

“If you take 65% of our revenue away,” Gillane said, according to The Advocate, “we would have to shutter buildings, remove staff, curtail hours severely and, at that point in time, the question becomes which branches do we keep open.”

Gillane acknowledged he was reluctant to speak in those terms publicly, noting that some residents might interpret it as a threat rather than an operational reality.

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What the Failed Tax Actually Funds

The 3.12-mill property tax, first approved by Lafayette Parish voters in 2016 and raised slightly following a property reappraisal, was projected to generate just under $9 million per year over the next decade. According to KATC, those funds cover everything from staff salaries and building repairs to programming, new materials, and ongoing renovations at the North and South Regional branches.

The library system operates nine locations and a bookmobile, serving more than 250,000 Lafayette Parish residents. Its total annual budget runs roughly $14 million. The second dedicated library millage, a 1.84-mill levy generating approximately $5.2 million per year, was not on Saturday’s ballot and remains in effect.

If the larger tax is not ultimately renewed, the library would enter 2027 running a $14 million operation on roughly $5 million in annual revenue.

Lafayette Has Done This Before

This is not the first time the Lafayette Parish Library system has faced a budget crisis tied to a failed millage vote.

In 2018, parish voters failed to renew a separate library property tax, cutting roughly $3 million per year from the system’s budget. That rejection came in an election with only 9% turnout and forced years of belt-tightening that consumed most of the library’s unassigned fund balance, which had once stood above $26 million.

“When we lost our tax in 2018, turnout was only about 9%,” Gillane noted ahead of Saturday’s vote. “When we passed the renewal in 2021, turnout was around 15%.”

Saturday’s election drew close to 40,000 voters, a significantly higher number driven largely by the U.S. Senate primary at the top of the ballot. Gillane said Monday he isn’t certain whether opposition to the library tax was intentional or whether the millage was swept up in broader anti-tax sentiment from other ballot items.

“I can’t know — do I attribute that to the push for a ‘vote no’ on the ballot and we just got swept up in that?” he said, according to KATC.

The Numbers Behind Saturday’s Vote

According to the Louisiana Secretary of State, 38,332 votes were cast on the library proposition May 16. Of those, 21,582 opposed renewal and 16,750 supported it.

The ballot question asked voters to continue the 3.12-mill levy for 10 years beginning in 2027 and running through 2036. The millage represents a 0.21-mill increase over the previous 2.91-mill rate, a change triggered by a property reappraisal rather than a discretionary increase by library leadership.

What Happens Next

The current tax does not expire until December 31, 2026. The system has roughly seven months to operate at current funding levels and one more opportunity to place the renewal on the ballot, with December 2026 identified as the likely window.

A successful December vote would lock in funding through 2036 and preserve plans for several capital projects tied to the renewal, including an expansion of the Carencro branch and a long-awaited new branch on the former Holy Rosary Institute site in northeast Lafayette. That facility was projected to exceed 20,000 square feet and open in 2028, serving one of the parish’s most underserved and densely populated corridors.

If December fails, library leadership will face decisions about which branches stay open, how staff is reduced, and what services are cut. The financial gap would be considerably larger than what the system navigated after 2018.

“For more affluent people, we represent access to books,” Gillane said. “For less affluent people, we represent access to books, we represent access to the Internet — but for everybody, we also provide access to programming.”

Library officials have not announced any specific service cuts or closures at this time.

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