As a group of Whitefish citizens pushes for secession of the Whitefish branch library from the Flathead County Library system, county Commissioner Joe Brenneman on Monday morning asked the burning question.

"From a pragmatic standpoint, if Whitefish wants to take over [its own library], wouldn't we be better off without them?" Brenneman asked.

"Yes," replied Library System Director Kim Crowley.

But, she added later, breaking away from the county system "would not be the best thing for the citizens of Whitefish."

Crowley gave the commissioners a run-through of information she and the Library Board planned to present at a Monday work session with the Whitefish City Council. Two weeks ago, the Whitefish citizens group made its secession pitch to the council.

Whitefish branch employees receive $114,744 a year in total compensation. Removing Whitefish from the county system would allow the county to keep that money and reallocate it to other branches, Crowley said.

Of the $1.28 million collected annually from the county's library mill levy, Whitefish taxpayers' portion of the tax collections is $119,535.

At the Oct. 19 Whitefish City Council work session, Whitefish attorney Jake Heckathorn and Jerry Hanson, a former county Library Board member, said they're researching the tax issue to see if there's a way for the Whitefish library to retain the money Whitefish residents pay in county taxes for the library.

County Deputy Attorney Jonathan Smith told the commissioners that according to state law, he believes the county would keep all of the library mill-levy collections. Whitefish "would have to start from scratch," and perhaps would need to levy its own taxes to operate the Whitefish library.

There are other ways the Whitefish library benefits from the county system, Crowley said, pointing to about $9,000 annually that's donated by Friends of the Flathead County Library to fund programs and materials systemwide and Flathead County Library Foundation funds that pay for programs, publicity, furniture, technology and fixtures throughout the county system.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has given $28,000 over the past two years for the Big Read program that benefits all branches.

"There's a huge cost of services we provide," Crowley said, listing library administration, materials processing and selection, cataloging and legal services among the services provided to branch libraries.

Crowley said the Whitefish citizens group objects to management decisions and has argued the Whitefish library doesn't get its "fair share of the pie." But according to library materials distribution data, Whitefish actually is getting more than its fair share of new materials, she said.

Customary distribution of materials is 10 percent for the Bigfork branch, 20 percent each for Columbia Falls and Whitefish and 50 percent for the main library in Kalispell.

"We're really careful about that" distribution, Crowley said.

To date in 2009, the library system has distributed 9,077 new materials, with Bigfork getting 850, or 9.4 percent, Columbia Falls 1,748 or 19 percent, Whitefish 2,092 or 23 percent and the main library 4,308 or 47 percent.

The city of Whitefish owns the Whitefish library building and pays for utilities, but the county supplies and owns the computers, copy and fax machines, self-checkout machines, projectors, bar-code scanners and other equipment used at the branch libraries.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com