(The Center Square) – Seattle property taxes for libraries could double or go even higher under proposals floated by Mayor Katie Wilson and the city council.
A $410 million tax levy Wilson proposed to fund the Seattle Public Library for the next seven years is almost twice as much as the levy back in 2019. Amendments proposed by city council members this week could bring the total amount of the levy to $468 million or more. Some of the council proposals don’t yet have a price tag.
Under Wilson’s $410 million library tax plan, residential property owners in Seattle with a median house value of $850,000 would pay $163 dollars per year in library taxes from 2027 to 2033. That’s up from the average $85 annually that homeowners now pay from a 2019 levy, which expires this year.
The $410 million levy also calls to establish an office of inclusion and belonging for $2.4 million. The office will focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, a library proposal on the levy said. However, the library said on its website that a director of inclusion and belonging was hired back in 2025.
The levy is expected to go to the voters on Aug. 4 after the city council determines its exact amount later this month.
The 2019 levy was approved by 71% of the voters. It funds about a third of the library’s budget.
The library levy is a small amount of the more than $8,000 in taxes a Seattle resident with a home assessed at $850,000 pays. Still, it could affect every resident in the city, whether they have set foot in a Seattle library or not.
With the passage of a $410 million library levy, without any additional amendments that would add to the cost, the city would be nearing a state-mandated property tax cap of $3.60 per thousand of assessed valuation.
Library versus street funding
That means there might not be enough money to fund other levies that must be approved by voters, such as fixing Seattle’s streets and roads and pre-school programs when they come up for renewal starting in 2031, said City Councilwoman Maritza Rivera at a committee meeting on the library levy on Tuesday.
Seattle’s budget, like those of other cities under Washington state law, can grow only by 1% a year. So the additional levies are way around the state law, but there is a limit on those extra taxes.
“It is fiscally irresponsible to increase the proposal, given the city’s other needs,” Rivera said, citing upcoming renewals for transportation and low-income housing levies that will also compete for taxpayer dollars in coming years.
The original $410 million library levy plan, introduced last month by Wilson, focused primarily on keeping the system’s 27 libraries operational.
However, several council members argued at the March 31 meeting that the Mayor’s baseline budget ignores critical library needs in a city that is both growing and is seeing a massive spike in demand for digital books and other library services.
In total, if all the amendments were to pass, the levy would go up to at least $468 million.
The $410 million levy also only partly funds maintenance needs, including repairs to broken elevators and escalators in the main library and branches, library officials said at a committee on the library levy on March 25.
The maintenance plan in the new levy currently allocates $10 million to maintain elevators and escalators in ten libraries and other maintenance over the next seven years, a figure that library officials say falls tens of millions short.
Maintenance money needed
Library spokeswoman Elisa Murray, in an email to The Center Square on Friday, said the institution estimates about $40 million in total is needed to address maintenance over the next 5 years.
“We anticipate that more than half of the new $10 million investment for priority and deferred maintenance would be needed to address priority elevator upgrades at the Central Library and four branches: the Capitol Hill, Douglass-Truth, Columbia, and Greenwood branches,” she said. “We also have work to be scheduled on escalators at the Central Library.”
At the March 31 meeting, committee members added amendments to the legislation, allocating new funds for elevators and other maintenance.
Councilman Dan Strauss didn’t set a dollar amount for his amendment to fix the library’s elevators and escalators.
Strauss’ amendment, which left the dollar amount needed blank, called for improving physical accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act by repairing or replacing library elevators and escalators.
“The intention would be to address deferred maintenance and to make long-lasting improvements rather than short-term fixes,” he said.
At a community meeting on March 19, hosted by the councilman, several senior citizens complained about the lack of working elevators at many library branches. Strauss told the meeting that the $410 million library levy won’t fix the problem and additional levies would be needed.
Other council members at the March 31 meeting called for more library programs.
Councilwoman Dionne Foster and her co-sponsor, Councilwoman Debora Suarez, said they wanted $4.5 million to expand a multilingual preschool program to improve non-English skills as well as a program to teach English to non-native speakers.
Other proposals to increase the levy add more ebooks to the library and popular best-selling books.
Murray said in her email that the DEI office “seeks to improve a sense of belonging at the Library for our community and our staff.”
She said the $2.4 million will fund the already-hired person for the next 7 years.
DEI office questioned
Murray said the office’s primary initial focus areas will be on leading the Library’s efforts as part of the City’s Race and Social Justice ordinance, improving language access for speakers of languages other than English, developing equity training plans for Library staff and leadership and conducting reviews of Library policies and hiring practices to reduce potential biases.
Paul Guppy, senior researcher at the free-market Washington Policy Center, said the inclusion and belonging office is a step in the wrong direction.
“They’re wasting money on a political agenda instead of providing literary services to the public,” he said.
Guppy said the library should focus on the basics to serve the public, including adequate funding for essential building needs like working elevators.
The library levy city council committee is expected to finalize the amount of the final library levy at its April 8 hearing before sending it to the city council for approval.
