Saying the Lawrence Public Library had been underfunded for years, the Lawrence City Commission on Wednesday tentatively approved a 21 percent increase for its 2005 budget.

“This was a great day for the library, and more importantly, for the community of Lawrence,” director Bruce Flanders said after the commission study session.

The increase, from $2.07 million in 2004 to $2.5 million in 2005, would bring Lawrence from near the bottom to the middle ranks of Kansas cities in per capita library spending — and comes as city officials are considering expanding or moving the library in the next few years.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me for us to talk about a major expansion of the library if we’re not going to support the library we’ve got,” Commissioner David Dunfield said.

But he warned: “All of these decisions are provisional, in terms of, we have to see what that (total budget) bottom line is going to look like.”

According to a state report on libraries, Lawrence in 2002 — the most recent year for which information is available — ranked eighth out of the nine largest Kansas cities in per capita library spending. That year, Lawrence spent $26.23 per person on its library, more than Wichita at $19.33 per person, but far behind Hutchinson ($46.41), Salina ($50.80) and Topeka ($80.52).

Flanders said the average per capita spending among all state public libraries in Kansas was $35.39.

At one point, spending on books and other materials was so low Lawrence nearly lost grant funding from the Northeast Kansas Library Service. That news made library funding a minor issue in the 2003 Lawrence City Commission campaign.

“To me, that’s the single best sign of relative community support for a library,” Flanders said of per capita spending.

The new $2.75 million budget — which also includes income from grants, the state and overdue book fees — would raise per capita library spending in Lawrence to $33.70 per person.

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“I think we’re playing catch-up here,” Mayor Mike Rundle said.

Flanders said the money would be used to improve technology and expand the collections of books and other materials at the library and to increase salaries of library employees.

The increase, however, would require a nearly half-mill property tax increase. A mill is $1 of tax for every $1,000 in assessed valuation, meaning the library increase would add about $8.25 in property taxes for the owner of a Lawrence house appraised at $150,000.

“It’s possible we can find some other mill levy decreases to offset it,” Rundle said.

That increase, though, made commissioners Boog Highberger and David Schauner nervous.

“I think, on a per capita basis, our library has been underfunded for a long time,” Highberger said. “But I’m not sure we can make up a half-mill in one year … I’d still like to see us get away without a mill levy increase this year.”

The commission resumes budget discussions at a study session set to begin at 8 a.m. June 30.