Mayor Todd Gloria is proposing a nearly 5% cut to San Diego’s library system, a $3.4 million reduction that the head of Library Foundation SD says will reverberate across quality of life in the city.
Patrick Stewart, the head of the nonprofit foundation dedicated to the city’s library system, said residents should expect to feel the cut hours, reduced services and eliminated programs well outside the walls of their local branch.“Cuts to the library are cuts to the arts, cuts to public safety, cuts to economic development, cuts to public infrastructure,” he said.Gloria and the City Council are looking to close a $146 million budget deficit. Proposed cuts, including eliminating arts funding, have generated a swift backlash.For libraries, the largest cut comes from closures and reductions in hours at branch locations across the city — though officials have not yet specified how or where they’ll implement those closures.
Options outlined in a report from the city’s Independent Budget Analyst include preserving current operating hours at one branch each in three “historically underserved” council districts (4, 8, and 9) while curtailing hours at other branches; reducing Saturday or Monday hours at all 17 locations currently open on either day; or some combination of the first two approaches.
Budget savings also come from eliminating positions with a program for youth success that is housed within the library department. The city would also cut spending on gallery exhibitions, training for library staff and security at branch locations. It will also end a grant that libraries used to bring in matching private donations.Gloria’s proposal would bring the department’s budget to $73.2 million — roughly what the city spent on libraries three years ago.“Programs and service hours have been reduced resulting in a hyperfocus on core services such as literacy, workforce development, accessibility,” reads the proposal, in a section on its effects on equity.
But public libraries have never been just about books, Stewart argues.
“Teenagers with nothing to do is shenanigans,” said Stewart, “and shenanigans leads to police intervention…. I don’t think that there’s been an ounce of creativity that’s been employed not to balance this budget on the backs of children and teens.”
Research backs up the claim that libraries themselves reduce crime. A study out of Kansas City, Missouri in 2023 showed a drop in “crimes of opportunity” — crimes that aren’t planned out beforehand — in a three-mile radius around a new library after it opened.
Researchers attributed the lower crime numbers to better street lighting around the building, more pedestrians and the fact that it gives young people something to do.
There’s research to back up his argument on economic development, too. Libraries aid job seekers with both services and computer access, and offer workforce development materials and classes. But they can also produce spillover spending.
“When people spend time at the library, they spend money at nearby businesses,” said a report from the California State Library. “The ‘halo spending’ effect gives restaurants, retail, and services that are close to library branches an estimated 23% more in spending from library visitors.”
That same report cites a study estimating that between two dollars and ten dollars are returned for every dollar invested in public libraries, with the most common return being between three and six dollars.
Stewart said the budget not only downplays the economic boons libraries provide, it also the long-term benefits they confer.
“We’ve never had this conversation that says look, young people, this is what it’s going to look like tomorrow — or five years from now,” he said.
San Diego isn’t alone. Budgets are getting cut to the bone all over the country, and public libraries are often first in line for cuts.
Now, with the city’s budget process underway, offering a chance to lobby the city to find another place to cut spending, the Library Foundation is reaching out to the community.
“There’s a lot of conversation between now and then,” Stewart said. “I just feel like what we were given to start with was really an unfortunate starting point.”
The Library Foundation is holding “office hours” at the Mission Hills Library Shop on May 2 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m, with representatives present to discuss the library budget and how it might affect residents, as well as how to get involved and advocate for the institution.
The organization is also offering pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes for people to write the mayor and councilmembers urging an alternative.
“They get flooded with thousands of them and I hear from them every year that’s one of the best ways we know people want the libraries to stay open,” said Stewart.
But if you don’t have funds or time to donate, there’s another option that’s equally valuable, Stewart added.
It’s “always a good time to go in to your local library, check out what they’ve got and do a high five to a librarian,” Stewart said. “Visit your library and tell your librarians that you love them.”
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