Lies they tell about the Library
Here is a list of misinformation that has been coming out of city officials regarding the nature of the Detroit Public Library and its current status.
The reason I'm choosing to call these lies and not misconceptions or errors is because normally when a public official says something inaccurate as a result of being misinformed, they retract their statement once they have the correct information. The difference here is that there has been no detectable effort on the part of these officials to our knowledge to correct their false statements. Don't fall for this stuff!
The reason I'm choosing to call these lies and not misconceptions or errors is because normally when a public official says something inaccurate as a result of being misinformed, they retract their statement once they have the correct information. The difference here is that there has been no detectable effort on the part of these officials to our knowledge to correct their false statements. Don't fall for this stuff!
LIE #1: "The DPL is financially unsustainable, or failing."
This one comes from Councilman Scott Benson. On April 26th and May 12th of 2022, Benson made arguments before the rest of City Council that governance of the DPL should be taken over by the city because it is "no longer sustainable," and stands "at a precipice" where it could "go dark in the next ten years." This is completely false, and he made these statements without any officials from DPL present to correct the record. There is no imminent danger to the DPL, other than being looted by tax captures, but even that hasn't been enough to threaten its continued existence. The commission proceedings and financial reports of the DPL are public information, and Benson presented no evidence to back up his wild claims.
Unfortunately, many local media outlets inadvertently feed into this lie when they use statements like this one:
"DPL also anticipates funding shortfalls of $3 million in the upcoming fiscal year, growing to a $3.5 million shortfall by the 2026 fiscal year as it struggles to reopen branch locations closed during the pandemic."
The problem with this is that it leaves out why the library is dealing with "funding shortfalls"—namely because their budget has been getting looted by $3-4M in tax captures every year! The DPL's revenue streams would be perfectly adequate if the Downtown Development Authority would stop stealing from it. Look at it this way: if you got robbed, you wouldn't tell the police that you are "experiencing budgetary shortfalls," you'd say you got @#*$% robbed! On a side note, during the municipal bankruptcy the Detroit Public Library was the only city institution that was in fact financially solvent at that time. During bankruptcy the emergency managers were looking at the DPL as an asset to sell off (like DIA's art) as part of the Grand Bargain. This was halted by then-Library Commission President Russ Bellant, and the fact the DPL was a legally separate entity from the city under state law.
The problem with this is that it leaves out why the library is dealing with "funding shortfalls"—namely because their budget has been getting looted by $3-4M in tax captures every year! The DPL's revenue streams would be perfectly adequate if the Downtown Development Authority would stop stealing from it. Look at it this way: if you got robbed, you wouldn't tell the police that you are "experiencing budgetary shortfalls," you'd say you got @#*$% robbed! On a side note, during the municipal bankruptcy the Detroit Public Library was the only city institution that was in fact financially solvent at that time. During bankruptcy the emergency managers were looking at the DPL as an asset to sell off (like DIA's art) as part of the Grand Bargain. This was halted by then-Library Commission President Russ Bellant, and the fact the DPL was a legally separate entity from the city under state law.
LIE #2: "The DPL has a $31M budget surplus."
Now, I know what you're thinking...didn't Councilman Benson just say that the DPL was financially failing? Why is he now claiming that they have a $31M budget surplus?!
Well folks, all I can say is that he really puts the "LIE" in LIBRARY. The fact is that the DPL does not have a budget surplus...they have a $31M budget. As in, that's their entire budget. It has hovered around $30M annually for years, and there has not been a surplus...because of tax captures! Again, the commission proceedings and financial reports of the DPL are public information. Benson spewed this lie before the entire City Council at their Evening Community Meeting at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on February 21st, 2023, and no one batted an eye. Once again, no library officials were present to correct the record. Benson told this lie as part of his retort to a member of the public who had just called for better funding for our libraries and an end to tax captures, and he rudely instructed the woman to go to the DPL Commission meeting for redress, "since they have a $31M surplus."
Similar library “surplus” numbers were reportedly cited in the District Detroit Neighborhood Advisory Council meeting around the same time, by Chairman Chris Jackson.
In a March 2023 Detroit News article Mayor Duggan was quoted as saying,
“One question I wish you would ask is: Who wrote the library a check for $30 million in the last year when the libraries have been basically closed? What did the libraries do with $30 million? This is what I can’t get my mind around. I don’t know what they spent it on, and why are you saying you need $3 million more?”
Not only is the statement completely unsupported by any evidence whatsoever, it damages the reputation of the DPL by allowing the mayor to imply that they mismanaged their money, or are corrupt...which dovetails right into the mayor's agenda to set the DPL up for failure so it can be taken over or privatized. The fact that the News allowed this statement to be printed verbatim without any fact-checking, and without allowing the DPL Commission to respond directly is highly irresponsible. If you repeat a lie enough times it becomes truth—and that's exactly why Duggan and Benson keep hammering on it. And the Detroit News is giving oxygen to this propaganda.
This is deliberate disinformation of Trumpian proportions. Think about it...if "someone" had "written a check" to the DPL—or any city institution, for that matter—that was equal to the size of their entire annual budget, don't you think that would have been a news story on its own? Who would even do something like that though? The entire concept is totally preposterous...so implausible that there is no way you could argue the mayor was just mistaken—he knew it was a lie when he said it. He was clearly referencing the library's $30M fund balance of unspent money resulting from closing several branches for the pandemic, but that is definitely not the same thing as a budget surplus, and it certainly wasn't a check that "someone" wrote!
When I called the News staff to ask them to correct or amend the article, they fought me on the phone for 20 minutes to keep it in print. I have a feeling that if a library official had said that Duggan has pink hair, or some other similarly ridiculous claim, they would have pushed back pretty hard on that. The average reader doesn't know enough about the library budget to know that Duggan's statement was patently false—they will take a quote from an authority figure like a mayor at face value, unless it is immediately followed by a correction. It is in fact the media's job to protect the public from misinformation and disinformation. But this is the state of corporate media in the New Detroit.
LIE #3: "The DPL had the opportunity to opt out of tax captures, but either failed to do so or chose not to."
This lie usually comes from the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) or its supporters, but the DPL's executive director has stated in a Free Press article that this is untrue, and that furthermore the DPL is actually excluded from being able to opt out of tax captures, thanks to a sort of loophole in Public Act 57 of 2018.
In a March 24, 2021 Free Press article, the DDA was quoted as claiming that back in 2013 "the library did not properly or timely opt out of the capture in accordance with the statute," and that instead, the DDA "agreed to enter into a tax sharing agreement with the library with respect to tax increment revenues generated in the expanded area of the development area (...). Under this tax sharing agreement, since 2014, the library has received tax increment revenues generated in the area surrounding the LCA that the DDA would have otherwise been entitled to receive."
Not only has the DPL not received any tax increment revenues fro the DDA, the DPL's Executive Director Jo Anne Mondowney said that the DPL was essentially "carved out of the opt-out situation," pointing to the DDA’s agreement to help move the Detroit Pistons to Detroit by changing the boundaries of their authority district in 2017.
PA 57 is the law that provides the legal framework for tax captures. The language in Section 125.4303, subheading (6) describes the opt-out opportunity regarding the changing of DDA zone boundaries. It also says that any library that is funded by a millage enacted before 2017 (such as the DPL) is exempt from capture—if the DDA's bond obligations are paid. The DDA has continuously issued new bonds, so there is no way the DPL could be exempted from tax capture under this clause.
LIE #4: "The DPL is managed by, or gets its budget from the school board."
This is one that I have heard casually mentioned in City Council committee discussions regarding the nature of the DPL, Mayor Duggan also said it during a speech on potential uses for ARPA money, etc., and he was quoted saying it again in the Detroit News as recently as March 2023.The DPL has been legally separated from any other entity since the passage of Local Act 314 of 1881, and it has been financially separate from any other entity since the passage of Local Act 359 of 1901. The only relationship between the DPL and the school board (DPSCD) is that the members of the Library Commission are appointed by the school board, one per year. The only relationship that the DPL has with the City of Detroit government is that the city's Finance Department serves as the fiduciary administrator to its bank accounts...in other words they enact the expenditure recommendations of the DPL Commission.
Furthermore, 89% of the DPL's budget comes from the "Proposal L" millage of 2014. The remaining 11% of the budget comes from grants, fundraisers, revenues from library’s assets, applicable penal fines, shared taxes, state aid as a sole member of the Detroit Library Cooperative, and federal aid through the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). The DPL receives no money from the City of Detroit, or its school board.
All of this is clearly outlined in the April 26, 2021 report of the Detroit City Council Legislative Policy Division, entitled "Detroit Public Library Relationship," so there is no reason why any councilmember or representative from the Legislative Policy Division should be speaking anything to the contrary on the floor of Council.
LIE #5: "DPL was supposed to submit a proposal to the DBRA for funding assistance, but has failed to do so."
I noticed the following passages in an attachment to the City Council agenda for February 28, 2023, regarding a presentation on the District Detroit project (item 8.2):
The assertion that the DBRA are waiting on the DPL for certain actions is a lie. DPL has been waiting and asking for years for any kind of remuneration for the tax captures, only to be ignored. Former DPL Commissioner Russ Bellant is currently working on a statement addressing this.
The parts of the Council agenda document for Feb. 28 where I took this screenshot from have since been removed from the city website; one may note that the document's page count comes to 782, but only 18 pages are currently viewable as of March 4, 2023.
Russ Bellant does a great job of dispelling much of the misinformation around the fight for the libraries in this interview with podcaster Khary Frazier, from February 2023:
