HOUGHTON — The Portage Lake District Library is looking for a renewal of its operational millage.

On the August primary ballot, Houghton and Portage Township voters will decide whether to restore the millage to 1.9606 mills, the amount voters approved in the last renewal seven years ago. Since that time, the millage had dropped to 1.8633 mills through Headlee rollbacks, which automatically reduce millage rates when property taxes increase faster than inflation.

“We are technically adding that percentage, that bit back in as new millage,” Library Director Katrina Linde-Moriarty said. “But to us, it’s not a true increase. It’s a restoration back to where we were.”

The millage covers things such as staff, books and other materials, and the library’s programs.

If approved, the library would collect an estimated $617,000 in 2025, the millage’s first year.

Taxable value is generally half of the market value of the property. A family with a property valued at $150,000 and having a taxable value of $75,000 would pay about $147 a year, the library said.

Nearly all the library’s funding comes from locals. The operational millage provides 84.6% of the library’s revenue, far and away the largest share. Other local funding, including donations and membership fees from non-residents, contributes about another 12%.

“Oftentimes, millages are the only time people can vote on the taxes that will be applied to them,” Linde-Moriarty said. “Other times it’s happening at the state or federal level. But millages are such an efficient use of tax dollars, because every dollar stays here. So we are spending and reinvesting here in the community. Whereas others might be going off to the state and then disseminated back down, those dollars that are invested stay here.”

Not all of the district will necessarily get to vote. Due to a clerical error by the ballot vendor, the millage was left off the ballots for Portage Township’s Precinct 4, on the southern end of the township. Linde-Moriarty said there had been a miscommunication about the difference between school districts and library districts; unlike the rest of the township, Precinct 4 falls within Baraga Area Schools. During the previous millage renewal vote, about 100 Precinct 4 residents cast ballots.

Under state law, if the millage fails, the library can ask the county clerk to prepare a ballot for precinct residents who voted in the primary to see if it would change the result. That ballot would be sent out through the township clerk.

“It’s not necessarily the outcome that we want, but that’s what the guidance from the state is,” Linde-Moriarty said. “We couldn’t even wait until November to retry because it was already out in the public through absentee voting. So that’s why we needed to stay and commit to August and do our best to communicate to the public what happened.”

Throughout its more than 25-year history, the millage has passed handily, last getting about 89% of the vote seven years ago. If it is defeated, Linde-Moriarty said the library would try again in November, while also reaching out to the public to see what concerns it might have missed.

“There would be a possibility of getting it onto the ballot, but we would hope that we’ve done our roles in the last seven years, that people feel informed to make a decision for this one,” Linde-Moriarty said.

Libraries are there to fill the informational needs of the community, Linde-Morirarty said, whether that’s through children’s storytimes, community meeting rooms, exploring hobbies or partnering with other organizations.

At the end of the last fiscal year, the library reported more than 67,000 visits, a 15% increase in door count. Over the past year, it also held 206 programs, drawing nearly 9,000 people.

“Oftentimes libraries get called the living room of the community, the third place of the community,” Linde-Moriarty said. “I know some are seeing a push toward more of a community center atmosphere. I still think there’s room for books even in that future. I think one of the true values of libraries is the fact that they are adaptive, and at any point in history, you can go back and see how the libraries adapt their services — some better than others, certainly — to meet the growing needs. Sometimes that means sunsetting some stuff and bringing in new stuff, but I think there’s a consistency in trying to strike that balance between the traditional and the new.”