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West Lebanon library outlines $500,000 bond plan to update HVAC, lighting and children’s space
Summary
Library leaders told Warren County commissioners they plan to seek approval next month for a roughly $500,000 bond to fund lighting, HVAC, window work and a basement children’s area; municipal advisers said issuance fees reduce proceeds to about $365,000 and estimated a roughly $49,000 maximum annual payment that restores levy to 2025 levels.
Sarah Carell, bond counsel with Icemeeller, told the Warren County Board of Commissioners that the West Lebanon Public Library is in the early stages of considering a bond issue to finance building renovations.
Carell said the library will need to borrow about $500,000 but expects roughly $365,000 in net proceeds after issuance costs. “Libraries are a little bit different in that their boards are fully appointed and not elected,” she said, noting state rules require a fiscal body to review such debt before libraries can issue bonds.
Dana Allison, the new director at the West Lebanon Library, summarized the capital needs the bond would cover: updated lighting, replacement of aging HVAC systems, resealing or re-cocking windows and converting the basement into a children’s area. “It’s been 20 years so it just needs to be updated,” Allison said.
Lisa Huntington, the library’s municipal adviser with Baker Tilly, walked the board through the financing estimates. She said the projected repayment term is about 20 years, with total principal and interest roughly $780,000 and a maximum annual payment near $49,000 — a level intended to restore the tax levy to 2025 levels. Huntington said the estimate assumes rates provided by the Indiana Bond Bank and cautioned that issuance costs (legal, underwriting, trustee fees and municipal-adviser fees) reduce available project funding.
Huntington illustrated taxpayer impacts using Warren County median home value figures: the median homeowner at $182,500 would see an estimated increase of about $32 per year, or roughly $3 per month, for the library levy under the proposal. She emphasized the library’s plan is largely to replace maturing debt so the levy would return to previous levels after the current bonds are paid off.
Commissioners asked technical questions about fee levels, whether the county could help improve credit access, and options such as pooling through the state bond bank. Huntington said the most likely path is selling through a pooled program that captures the state’s credit rating, but that options will be analyzed and returned to the board when the library seeks formal approval.
The library team said they plan to return to the commissioners at the July meeting for formal approval and that today’s presentation was intended to make the request familiar to the fiscal body ahead of that vote.
