Jamestown Public Schools District voters last week overwhelmingly approved an increase in the 529 tax revenue that will be provided to the James Prendergast Library.

It’s the first increase in 529 funding for the Jamestown library since it was first approved by voters in 2020 as a way to replace funding that was being cut from the Jamestown city budget. The library hasn’t sought an increase in funding in the ensuing six years before asking for a $70,000 increase from school district voters last week. That request was approved as expected.

It’s worth noting that the vote wasn’t highly contested as was the case in 2020. It’s also worth noting the 529 vote didn’t receive as much support as the Jamestown Public Schools budget that came in with no tax increase.

There are two problems, in our opinion, with the 529 tax program. The first, as we noted six years ago, is that the tax can never go down. The program doesn’t allow the tax revenue to be decreased if the public revenue isn’t needed, as is the case with a school or municipal budget.

But the more important issue is the seemingly never-ending nickel–and-diming of the general public at the expense of public entities. The library tax – admittedly at a relatively small increase this year – comes as many layers of government are increasing taxes and fees on a regular basis. It’s easy for taxing jurisdictions to justify tax increases noting their particular increase is “only” a few dollars a year for taxpayers. That’s true, but there is never a realization that each individual increase compounds for taxpayers. Taxpayers are feeling the same cost pressures governments and tax-supported nonprofits are dealing with. Now, in addition to dealing with the same fuel, heating and grocery bills, they’re paying more to support government and taxpayer-funded non-profits like libraries as well.

There was a case back in 2020 for using 529 funding to replace the funding that the city of Jamestown could no longer afford to provide the library from the city budget. There was a case made that cost increases merited a 20% increase in library funding this year. Obviously a majority of taxpayers agreed this year. The decrease in support from the school budget to the library tax indicates to us more taxpayers are feeling the squeeze. Eventually there will be a year when taxpayers will be squeezed too hard.