ROL: Extricating itself from the Monroe Free Library has forced Kiryas Joel to raise its tax rate for the first time in nine years.Every year since 1997, the village tax rate has been $14.14 per $1,000 of assessed value, an impressive budgeting feat for a community with expanding services and a litany of big-ticket building projects, including a $14.5 million sewage treatment plant.

But the streak has finally ended.

This year, the village tacked another $2.18 onto its tax rate to pay off a debt to Monroe and continue planning its latest public enterprise: a library.

Last year, Kiryas Joel severed ties with the Monroe library because the Hasidic community’s leaders thought it was unfair for their citizens to pay taxes for a facility few of them use. They proposed creating a library in Kiryas Joel that would include materials in Hebrew and Yiddish, the primary language spoken in homes in the village. In return for being removed from the Monroe Library District, Kiryas Joel agreed to pay Monroe $150,000 to lessen the resulting tax increase for property owners in the rest of the town.

The village’s new budget earmarks $210,000 for library purposes, of which $150,000 will go to Monroe. The remaining $60,000 is set aside for unspecified “general expenses.”

The Kiryas Joel library remains little more than a concept. No site has been chosen yet.

Kiryas Joel’s rare tax increase comes to $87.20 for the owner of a home assessed at $40,000. But it might be an increase on paper only. Village Administrator Gedalye Szegedin says the apparent rise is offset by the decrease in town taxes that came with leaving the Monroe library.