Crawford County has our own library district, which means our library tax stays in our county, supporting our three libraries: Steelville, Cuba, and Bourbon. The library district is overseen by a five person board that sets the library tax rate. At the present time, it is at .20 which is the maximum it can be.
The library has surplus funds that are wisely invested in CD’s at Town and Country Bank in the amount of 1.3 million dollars, after paying for the building in Bourbon.
Employee salaries have doubled over the last 5 years, in part due to increased staffing to be open more hours for the public. Library employees enjoyed a 3 to 5% raise in 2025 and a 7 to 10% raise this year. Due to the minimum wage increase, it was necessary to increase certain employees wages by $0.25 to meet the $15 minimum wage. However, the library board went beyond that and decided to increase everyone’s salary by $1.25 per hour PLUS a 2.7% COLA raise. Now they are considering retirement for employees.
The majority of the library's revenue is from our tax dollars and the past couple of years they have put over 500,000 a year into CD’s. While this is a great thing, it also shows that we could lower the tax rate without losing any programming.
The Library Board will have their tax hearing Aug. 24 at 10 a.m. at the Steelville Library. It is open to the public, and your comments matter. Or you can e-mail them at: board@crawfordcountylibrarydistrict.org
Cathy Boero
Bourbon
