At its first budget public hearing the Fort Myers Beach Library Board voted to raise the millage rate from .1612 to .18, a 12% increase. Tonight at 5:05PM the board will take its final vote to approve the 2027 budget and millage rate.
The Library is its own taxing district, separate from the Fort Myers Beach Town Council, similar to the Fire Control District and Mosquito Control District.
The library budget is projected to be $1.7 million. With the increase in property valuations from the Lee County Appraiser’s office, the library was already set to receive more money than last year.
Property Appraiser Matt Caldwell says on Fort Myers Beach there was an 8.52% increase in total taxable property valuations. He estimates that Fort Myers Beach went from $4.634 in total taxable last year to just over $5 billion this year.
Library Board Vice President Chris King says the increase in taxes is needed to slow down the pace at which the district was tapping into reserves, “which I believe should be in place to safeguard us in case of another disaster — pay insurance premiums, pay for repairs not covered by insurance, etc.”
If the increase to .18 is approved, it’s estimated the district would receive $1,062,278.34 in ad valorem tax revenue. They would still need to draw $376,821.18 from reserves to balance the budget, according to King. Over the years, $2.6 million has been taken from the library district reserve account to balance the budget.
King added, “It’s my intention to take a hard look at our budget during Tuesday’s budget hearing to see where we can find a minimum of 5-10% savings so we can keep the millage at .1612 to ease the burden on the taxpayers, while also being fiscally responsible and limiting the impact to our emergency reserves.”
The library board does not broadcast their meetings live. We will be at the meeting tonight to carry it live for you.
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The Four(4) things this very small Barrier Island (FMB) does NOT need or can continue to afford, build / replace, or maintain are as follows :
– a Library 👎🏻
– a School of any kind 👎🏻
– a Community Pool 👎🏻
– Boat mooring for the homeless 👎🏻
I am a property owner on FMB, but I do not live there full time. When I am there, I use the library often, checking out books and attending craft classes. I have found some wonderful bargains in the shop on the 3rd floor. When I am not in residence, I use the Libby app to get books online, and I often find titles that I cannot find in my home library. I LOVE our beautiful facility.
After reading these comments I’ve come to the conclusion most of these people would benefit if they visited the library.
Well I just watched the meeting. There was no hard look at the budget at all. There was “we can remove these items from the budget” because we over budgeted utilities, and if we collect less taxes we pay less fees to the tax collector. And we added an employee to do IT work, we’ll take that out. So apparently when they added an employee to the budget they did not reduce the expense paid to the IT vendor. So when all that was done the budget expenses were increased by 6%. No one is being asked to justify expenses based on any metric whatsoever. They did say they should look to increase revenues. And I wondered where that would come from, but I didn’t have to wonder for long. They said we can look for more grant money or large donors. Grant money typically comes from another pot of taxes. In the end, they congratulated themselves on doing a great job.
The library district reports usage statistics, like number of visitors, to the state of Florida . But the fiscal year numbers for 2025 have not been posted yet. Perhaps they are not due yet. For the two prior fiscal years the number of library visits was reported 0 due to the hurricane and then a year delay to obtain and install an elevator. Of interest is the number of FTE employees and how much salary and benefits were reported paid those years when library visits were reported at 0. I hope the library board is transparent in sharing those numbers at this meeting. The fiscal year is October to September, so impact of Ian is FY 23 and 24.
I am a 30-year property owner/tax payer, a 20-year resident, and a retired 10-year local business owner. My wife and I raised our daughters here where they are proud the beach school. I only recently signed up for a library card and searched for 10 titles with the following results:
1 title was checked out.
3 titles were unrecognized in the computer system.
3 titles were recognized but not carried.
3 titles were available.
I then went to the lakes park branch of the lee county system, obtained a free library card, as any resident of lee county is eligible for, found the first title, checked it out and left.
This is not due to mismanagement, but rather the lee county system, according to a google search has 1.5 million items spread over 13 locations compared to our one big beautiful buildings 77,000 items and the Bookmark Café, something that I doubt turns much of a profit. As a card holder of the lee county library system their entire collection is transferable between branches and even mailed direct to the card holder.
I believe it is time to close down the Beach Library. It should have been done after the storm and sell or repurpose the building. A less harsh measure might be to take the old building, partition it off and offer it to the lee county library system. I am not a political person but the choice seems awful easy. I drive by the building a couple of times a day and seldom see any cars. CLOSE IT DOWN. There are too many other things to spend MY tax dollars on. Please feel free to forward this post to the board.
as a Beach resident your mill rate is less than half Lee County’s rate and you can check out from both libraries
Then why do we need 2 library systems
I never thought we needed such a huge library on the Island. It was supposed to hold up through a direct Category 5 hit, but it didn’t. Now that we hardly have any residents left here on the beach, and everything is online to read, can we just keep it as it is, without spending more $$ on it? You are using these excuses to not build the pool back, when you have another entity on the Island soaking up money. Just build the pool back the way it was without making it more expensive. Maybe build a tall seawall around it in case of future storm surge. The library was rebuilt without a fight, so should other long standing amenities for the locals.
Just a few of the events planned weekly at the FMB Public Library:
Island Matinee
Fort Myers Beach Public Library 1:00 pm
Friday September 25
Kids Island Cinema
Fort Myers Beach Public Library 1:00 pm
Knitting Circle every Tuesday 1:00 pm
Mah Jongg Tuesdays at 1:00 pm
Book discussion groups, condo board meetings, Estero Historic Society meetings, FMBCF Board meetings, Town Council candidate forum, and so much more. Go to their website for all the guest speakers, meetings, etc. that are scheduled. You will be surprised and amazed. For all you naysayers, stop in on a Wednesday morning to see 20-30 children attend story hour, take home a craft, and get a coupon for a free used book at the Friends of the Library gift shop/used bookstore on the 3rd floor.
As a former beach resident, I love knowing that so many children are attending story hour, taking home a craft, and receiving a coupon for a free used book at the Friends of the Library gift shop. When I lived on island, I was on the Friends Board for a while. It was my pleasure!
Where exactly all all these children that need a school and library? The streets, outdoor playgrounds (expensive Bay Oaks Facilities) and the beach are devoid of any children!!!! Do we really have a census of these deprived children that lack an elementary school, library, etc. We are old people here and the families have long become adults and left the island even those whose handprints are in front of the school!
I live on the island year round and I have never seen all the vehicles parking there to carry all these supposed people to these events. I would love to see the attendence records and where are all these children coming from? Aren’t they in school? We don’t even have that many kids on the island. This just sounds like a made up event schedule. There is no reason for us to be paying for some over-sized library. It should have been closed down and turned into town hall but no, that would make too much sense. Instead we have an vacant lot that the old townhall sat on sitting empty. God only knows what they will decide to do with that. Then we had to buy a new building for townhall and rebuild that to move into and the 7-11 lot we had to buy as well. Then Byron will win and since is wife owns a charter school business, we will have to build a new building for 40 kids that don’t even live on the island. Once bad decision after another.
The library seems to always be empty. Don’t know why we just didn’t move city hall to replace the library. The library technology is out-dated… nice building, but just taking up space. My opinion.
If you notice, all our assessments on our homes went up. Market is still down and only a handful of homes sell each month, yet suddenly there was an increase in our homes assessments. Note that this happened before they all started to line up for tax increases. Very clever. Let’s ask some of the local Realtors if the selling prices have increased and how long the homes are languishing on the market.
What A Waste of my tax dollars! The town only wants the Library and School in order to take more taxes from us and milk Lee County even more. Both of these sit empty and unused. Those spaces can be used for more restaurants, stores, public parks, a residential home development, or even a Parking Garage to alleviate the parking situation. Am I the only one that sees this? Why don’t all the residents stand up and speak against the Library and School?
Why does the library board NOT broadcast their meetings? It’s a public forum, do they want to act independently and not seek comments from the residents?
We pay a mill rate of 0.1800 for FMB library . If we got rid of our library we would pay Lee County Library District’s mill rate of 0.4218. Which would you prefer?
The posts are people who don’t live here and are ignorant of how the taxes work here. I’ll take the .18 over the .42 all day
Although harsh, that is a good point. As a newer owner, I didn’t have the historical context on the .42. That being said, it a sad state that we have to waste money to save money.
I don’t believe that automatically happens. It appears the Legislature would have to get involved to dissolve the Fort Myers Beach Public Library District. Lee County would have to expand its boundaries. A referendum may be required as well.
What a waste. Why was it even built?
Trim some fat or sell the property.
Shut it down. No one uses it except a handful of old people and any homeless lurking aroun. We all walk around with a full library in our hands with our smart phones. That building should have been used as the elementary school. I would love to get paid for sitting around a big empty building doing nothing for my job. Close it.
This island is only old residents and people on vacation. What part of Wisconsin are you in?
I am a full time resident/home owner on FMB.
Old people huh?… You better strive to get there.
More obvious question. Why does a small island with less then 10K permanent residence need a “public library”? What are the actual numbers on how many visitors there are to the library? Along with the library, can this island really afford it, the pool and throw in the school as well. These are all bonus items, not things a struggling island actually needs or for that matter, afford.
GET RID OF THE LIBRARY ASAP! IT’S OVIOUS MANAGEMENT CAN’T BALANCE A BUDGET. MEET BUDGET OR LAY OFF STAFF!
Good point! What if businesses could raise the mil rate to give their employees a raise or to meet their budget?! Hmmmm