Joliet library seeks $3.5 million loan from city for Black Road branch

The Joliet Public Library is asking the city for a $3.5 million loan for a remodeling project and an increase in the library property tax levy to pay it back.

The money would be used for interior remodeling of the Black Road branch, a project that the library wants to do in 2025.

“It’s 22 years old, and it really needs a face-lift,” Executive Director Megan Millen said of the library branch building.

Among plans for the building are a new children’s section to provide more separation from the adult areas of the library, rooms for private study and collaboration, and new paint and carpeting.

The Black Road branch saw 183,520 visitors in 2023 and gets the most foot traffic of the library’s two branches, library officials said.

Millen presented the loan request to the Joliet City Council Finance Committee on Tuesday and said she will be back in front of the full council with the proposal in November.

Although it has its own governing board, the Joliet library is a unit of city government.

The annual property tax levy that funds the library must be approved each year by the City Council, so council approval of a library levy increase later this year will be needed for the loan to go through.

The plan is to loan the money on terms that would provide the city the same return it gets now from reserve funds invested with banks.

Finance Director Kevin Sing said the city would charge an interest rate on the $3.5 million loaned to the library. That interest rate would be set at a level to provide the city the same investment return that it would get from keeping the money in the bank, Sing said.

Taxpayers would pay off the loan through an increase in property taxes starting in 2025.

Sing said the library is seeking a 20-year loan.

Millen said the tax increase needed will depend on the interest rate charged by the city.

But if the interest rate is 4% on a 20-year loan, the library would need $254,000 a year. That would translate to $1.70 a year for the individual taxpayer, Millen said.

However, the library also is asking for additional levy increases over the next three years, which Millen said are needed to make up for a lack of increases in past years and the library’s low tax rate.

The levy increases sought by the library are 8% in 2025 to $6.8 million, 6% in 2026 to $7.2 million, and 5% in 2027 to $7.6 million.

The 8% increase in 2025 is estimated to cost the individual taxpayer $3.38 a year.

The levy represents the total amount of money the library collects in property taxes in a given year.

Millen said the library has had no levy increase for 10 of the past 15 years.

The library’s tax rate of 0.14 is the second lowest in Will County, with only the Peotone library district being lower, she said.

The plan for the Black Road branch follows renovations completed at the Ottawa Street branch downtown in 2022.

The city issued bonds to provide $6.3 million for renovations at the Ottawa Street branch. The library paid back the city after getting a $6.3 million state grant.

The library also contributed $4.2 million of its own reserves for the downtown branch renovations. The project cost $10.5 million.

The Black Road branch project is estimated to cost $4 million, and the library currently only has $500,000 available to put into the project, Millen said.

Millen said she has sought state funding for the Black Road branch remodeling, but because of the size of the $6.3 million grant for the renovations at the downtown branch, the most the library could get from the state is $360,000. That money is being used to pay the architect.

The city funded construction of the Black Road branch, which was built in 2002.