At their August 21st County Board Meeting, the County Supervisors approved a new Iowa County Library Plan.  

Wisconsin law requires that Counties that have residents not served by a library, reimburse libraries used by their residents for the costs of materials that are checked out.  For example, if a resident in Montfort went to Platteville to check out a library book, Iowa County would reimburse the Platteville Library for 70% of the cost of their service to our resident.  The state minimum reimbursement is set at 70% and the new Iowa County Plan continues to meet that requirement.

What is new with the 2018 plan is that there will be a 2% increase to reimburse the 8 public libraries (partially or wholly) in Iowa County above the required 70% noted above.  An additional, second 2% increase will also occur in order to help fund county wide promotions of public libraries. 

In total, the Library Levy will increase 4% or roughly $13,013.  You may be asking, what will these increases cost taxpayers?  If you live in a community that has a library, your community likely adopts a resolution exempting you from the Library Levy, so you would pay nothing.  For those residents that live outside of a city or village having a library, your library levy is expected to increase 23 cents for every $100,000 home value.  Certainly an investment we hope returns dividends to everyone...