How much money will the next Seattle Public Library levy proposal ask for? We’re about to find out

The next major city levy to expire will be the one that provides a third of the funding for the Seattle Public Library system. We’ll find out tomorrow what Mayor Katie Wilson wants to ask voters to approve to replace the levy when it expires at year’s end. The mayor is scheduled to announce her library-levy proposal at 12:30 pm Tuesday (March 10). The expiring levy was put forward by then-Mayor Jenny Durkan in 2019, a seven-year, $213 million levy that in turn replaced the seven-year, $123 million levy passed by voters in 2012. If you want to know how levy money’s been spent, here’s a page devoted to that info. After the mayor’s announcement tomorrow, the City Council starts reviewing it at 9:30 am Wednesday as the Select Committee on the Library Levy; you can comment at the meetings as well as at a public hearing April 2nd.

Andros March 10, 2026 (9:19 am)

There IT department needs money, I’m sure. After the ransomware attack they had, they need to increase funding for sure.

k March 10, 2026 (9:53 am)

I wish SPD was funded via levy, so they would be forced into meetings to explain to everyone where the money goes every year, why Barnes needs such a bloated (and still growing) executive staff, and be subject to public comments nickel-and-diming expenditures and requests for new funding.

The levies would still pass, I’m sure, but it’s crazy that so many necessary services have to go through this whole transparency process and then there’s this one department that just gets a blank check, with no public oversight and no expectation to even stay on budget.