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Comment by Arcuru | Hacker News Reader

> it consumes a significant percentage of my municipal taxes.

That's interesting, I assumed it was only a small percentage everywhere. What percentage does it consume? I live in Seattle (King County) and our library system only costs 3.5% of our property taxes.

https://kcls.org/library-funding/

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And that is enormous.

I hope you meant "enormous" as in "commendable" because it's a fantastic bargain compared to what they get for that money.

$151,360,905 of King County's property tax revenue in 2024 went to the library.[1]

From Wikipedia[2]: "KCLS consists of 49 branches, one standalone book locker, the Traveling Library Center, ABC Express Vans, a mobile TechLab, and 11 bookmobiles."

"As of 2023, the library system serves a population of 1.6 million residents and has 3.7 million items in its collection . . ."

"Circulation 21.5 million"

And according to their 2025 budget, employs 842 people.[3]

I encourage you to review those statistics, and then look at the library system's website[4] for a sample of the events, access, and services they provide.

1: 2024 Property Tax Distribution for King County, Washington: https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/assesso... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_County_Library_System# 3:https://kcls.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/2025-KC... 4: https://kcls.org/

$151 million / 842 employees is $179,000 per employee. And have you visited many branches? They are mostly empty except for drug addicts and the mentally ill.

The books promoted by the King County Library system on its website are almost universally far left on the political spectrum. My tax dollars are being used to fund opinions I hate. This is forced speech of the worst kind.

I posted the King County Library System's budget in the comment you're responding to. In 2024, they spent roughly $84,897,000 on personnel expenses, including benefits. As another poster pointed out, libraries have to do more than just pay salaries and benefits, but you can find out where the rest of the money goes by looking at the budget.

You should contact the library to see if they would promote books that you don't hate.

I'd recommend trying to understand what the libraries do as fully as possible before deciding how it should be changed. You could even start your research with the help of a librarian: https://kcls.org/ask/

The money isn't all going to salary. There's building maintenance. Heating and cooling. Power. The stock. Cleaning up all the homeless excrement.

I just read the second of your paragraphs.

Get out of my city.

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