Antrim and Kalkaska Conservation Districts, plus Traverse Area District Library are asking for millage renewals on August ballots. IPR breaks down both below.
Conservation districts
Voters in Antrim and Kalkaska counties will have the choice to approve more money for their conservation districts on the August 6 ballot.
Both conservation districts help manage invasive species, work on shoreline restoration and give forestry advice to private landowners – and both rely heavily on millage support for their operations.
“Frankly, without this millage, there would be no conservation district,” said Melissa Zelenak, executive director of Antrim Conservation District. “It pays the salaries and wages of multiple staff. It's education, outreach. It pays [for] our electricity, our cell phones, our utilities, the toilet, the water, everything that we need.”
In Antrim County, the conservation district’s support comes from a mixture of the millage, grants and county funding.
In Kalkaska County, as much as three quarters of the conservation district’s budget comes from the millage.
Both millages were last approved in 2020, and neither proposal this year would raise the rates. (In Antrim, it’s 0.1 mills, in Kalkaska, it’s roughly 0.25.)
Library
The Traverse Area District Library is asking for a 10-year renewal of its millage a year early, to avoid holding a special election in 2025.
The money is for six branches across Grand Traverse County and accounts for 90 percent of the library’s funding.
Grand Traverse County voters, plus the small slice of Traverse City voters in Leelanau County, can expect to see the proposal on August 6.
It would restore the library’s millage to its original amount passed in 1983. Michigan law required reductions in the years since.
The library says the renewal would cost the average homeowner about $124 per year.
Michele Howard, library director, says the money supports nearly all of the library’s work: from books and games for checkout, to providing resources to the community, to in-person programming.
Absentee and early in-person voting has already begun, day-of in-person voting is August 6.
