Seattle voters face a choice around the future of the Seattle Public Library (SPL) this August, as they decide how to vote on a seven-year renewal of the city's library levy. And while voting to support public libraries will be an easy choice for many Seattle households, supporters of the library system aren't taking any votes for granted.
On May 21, library advocates gathered in Green Lake Park – across from the newly remodeled Green Lake branch library – to celebrate the kickoff of the Yes Seattle Libraries campaign. Among those showing up to highlight the investments that would come from the $480 million package were City Councilmembers Dan Strauss and Dionne Foster, and leaders with the Seattle Public Library Foundation and the Friends of the Seattle Public Library.
While the current library levy was approved in 2019 with 76% of the vote, this renewal has prompted considerable scrutiny, in large part because of forces outside of the Seattle Public Library's control. Though the library levy makes up a relatively small portion of Seattle's property tax rate, the $0.07 bump for every $1,000 of assessed property value will push the city further toward a state-imposed hard cap at $3.60 per $1,000 in assessed value.
If voters say yes to libraries, that rate will sit at $3.07, and future levies will be inching close to the cumulative cap. That fact, along with more broad concerns about increasing Seattle's property tax rate, will likely be put front and center in this summer's levy campaign.
But with the levy set to cost the owner of a median-value home around $193 per year, the library levy is poised to make up less than 3% of the average Seattleite's property tax bill if it's approved on August 4.
Without the approximately $68 million per year that this levy represents, SPL wouldn't be able to maintain existing services, including operating hours across all branches that are still lagging behind where they were pre-pandemic. Nearly half of the levy's funding will go toward operating expenses and programming, and that includes a bump in dollars for all-ages literacy programming, including story times and classes.
"This is a city that loves to read, and it relies on its library. So, it's very important that Seattle knows that the levy is not just additive, it's essential to the daily operations of the library," Seattle's Chief Librarian Tom Fay, visiting the rally on his lunch hour as a City employee, told the crowd at Green Lake. "Levy funding touches every part of the organization, from books to buildings to staff."
Fay acknowledged that the library was more dependent on levy funding that ever.
"This year, levy funding makes up one-third of the library's overall budget," Fay said. "That percentage has grown every year since the original levy passed in 2012, and due to the ongoing challenges with the city's general fund budget, that growth is likely to continue. The library will continue to rely heavily on levy funding to operate. The levy currently represents the primary mechanism for the library to expand services in a way that matches an increasing population, growing costs, and patron demand."
Across the seven-year levy, $134.1 million will fund building upgrades across the 27 branches, including a seismic retrofit of at least one branch. Next in the queue for those long-overdue upgrades is the 1909 Columbia branch, followed by the 1910 West Seattle branch. SPL also has $33.2 million in priority or deferred maintenance issues, which it has determined it cannot address with current funding levels, including replacement of end-of-life systems and infrastructure and branches lacking full ADA-compliant infrastructure.
Thanks to an amendment sponsored by Foster, that amount also includes a $10 million set-aside intended to pay for a major renovation at the Central Library, a 2004 building that is quickly showing its age as a highly used civic asset. The iconic building's unique features cause considerable maintenance challenges including six stories of escalators and four elevators, which have been experiencing more regular outages in recent years.
"Our libraries are special places in our community, and I'm here because I love them. I think about this moment that we're in with this library levy as an opportunity to make sure that we are investing in our future, we are investing in the buildings and the infrastructure and the places that we are investing in the people," Foster said at the rally. "I don't know anybody who hasn't had a special moment with a librarian in their life, whether that's connecting us with our favorite book recommendation or whether that's helping us navigate social services."
Seattle's newest citywide councilmember said libraries are an important part of addressing the city's affordability crisis.
"Our libraries are critical, and they're also a part of affordability in our city," Foster said. "I think about the times when I've walked into a public library and seen a parent walk out like this [miming a full armful] with books for their family, or a student who's there getting books from our public library, so they don't have to buy them. Without libraries, we lose that kind of access."
Due to an amendment put forward by Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, the $69.4 million set aside for library materials in the levy will fund the expansion of the popular "Peak Picks" program from physical books to e-books. In 2025, SPL ranked 10th in the entire world for digital checkouts via the OverDrive and Libby platforms. That popularity has contributed to long wait times to check out digital books. With Peak Picks, a certain number of high-demand titles are available for immediate checkout, with a shorter timeframe for books to be returned to prompt quicker recirculation.
Library advocates also invited Susan Lieu, a Seattle author and storyteller whose book The Manicurist's Daughter has been featured at the library as a Peak Pick, to the May 21 rally. Lieu shared her own personal connection to the library, both as a patron and as an author, and emphasized the importance of supporting the Seattle Public Library's levy.
"Librarians are our frontline workers in our community," Lieu said. "They know the pulse of what's going on. They're also shelter social workers, they're referrers, they are people who are stewards to make us all feel welcome and belong in our community, and it's the library is one of the few places that all classes, all socioeconomic backgrounds are welcome, and that is a rare thing."
Ryan Packer
Ray Dubicki
