RAPID CITY, SD — The budget issues faced by the Rapid City Public Library are a continuing issue which has stoked the flames of passion in the hearts of both members of the public and officials alike, however those uninvolved with the issue may ask themselves “what’s the big deal?” obviously a decrease to $81,000 from 475,000 on previous years is a significant downturn, but those who only know the modern library as a hole where books sit and sometimes circulate might understandably assume that it can’t take that much to keep said hole-o’-books intact.

What does a library need except a place and books?

A library, of course, needs librarians. Librarians, contrary to popular depictions, are not simply the old lady behind the counter (though they aren’t not that, at times) you see in movies, nor is everyone staffing a library a Librarian. Librarians are college-educated managers and curators of the library collection, archives, and staff, with library associates below them to handle day-to-day activities like directing patrons, reorganizing shelves, and checking out materials. All of these people of course need to be paid – Ideally, they should be paid at least enough to live, as being alive is a thing most of us find preferable. As it is with most establishments, staffing is the greatest single cost.

Utilities are an obvious cost, and maintenance therein. A steaming-hot library or a frigid cold one are both equally bad when it comes to both books and people, and so this is a fairly important cost; perhaps a bit obvious, but nonetheless significant. Equally important and equally obvious is the cost of books, and new copies of those books.

However books and light and heat and people who are able to make enough to keep themselves afloat are one thing, and libraries are, by and large, considerably more than one thing. Libraries in our time of course often have computers, which necessitates a connection to the internet. This allows online research, checking out books which may not be at this particular library, but which are available through state and national library systems as well as other community uses such as allowing a stable connection for those without an internet or computer to apply to jobs online. 

They additionally often have archives. The Rapid City Public Library’s archive specifically contains a record of Rapid City History in photos, books, and articles stretching back to the 19th century, including original images and news articles from the historic 1972 Rapid City Flood.

This is without mentioning local services available to people in Rapid City and Pennington County for free currently like the children’s summer reading program, the seed library, and 7-day-a-week free space for individuals increasingly starved for choice when it comes to places to spend time with their friends and communities that won’t cost them money.

So How Much Does This Cost?

In June, the Library Board of Trustees reviewed proposals for their 2026 annual budget. This budget was, as with previous years, to be funded by both the Rapid City government, and Pennington County (whose non-Rapid-City residents formed about 20% of the patrons of the library) property taxes.

The proposed budget? Around 4.7 million dollars total.

Now, is that a lot of money for any one person? Absolutely, but we need to keep in mind the costs we listed prior, and add that up. 2.4 Million of this goes toward wages and salaries for library staff, which totals 36 as a payroll posted by Commissioner Ron Weifenbach helpfully showed. These 36 make anywhere from around 17k per year for a part-time associate to 148k per year to Terri Davis, director of the library, assuming the accuracy of the spreadsheet Commissioner Weifenbach posted.

Around 1.1 million goes toward costs which the library has little control over due to federal law or non-negotiable costs; social security, medicare, retirement, insurance, aforementioned utilities, as well as interdepartmental charges (an amount of the budget allocated for services like IT, mail, etc. regular charges which may come up over the course of operation). 

Both of these make up around 2/3rds of the proposed budget, and serve to keep the location functional and staffed, neither of which the library could do without. 

As you may expect, the next biggest cost is for books, with $437,139 allocated toward both physical and digital materials acquisition. $30,000 is additionally allocated to the purchase of DVDs, as well as $12,000 allocated for “Board games, video games, puzzles, seeds”. 

Other major costs such as repairs, costs of database upkeep, and software-related contract costs fill out much of the rest of the proposal, with miscellaneous costs ranging from $50 for rarely-used overtime to $32,596 proposed for two additional part-time pages (book shelvers) to be theoretically hired on taking up the rest. Near-universally, funding provided by Pennington County is anywhere from a third to a half of what the city contributes. Prior, Pennington County funded around 10% of the total budget prior to its 83% decrease.

Why Does This Matter?

If you’ve decided this issue doesn’t matter to you, there’s nothing anyone can do about that, however issues of finance are wrapped all too often in obfuscation and the human minds’ staggering limitations when it comes to large numbers. A popular example of this being that a million seconds is around 11.5 days and a billion seconds is 31.7 years. People, quite frankly, are not wired to comprehend large numbers effortlessly, and thus often when we see numbers larger than we deal with on a regular basis, especially money, we default to one of two options: either the number isn’t actually that big, or it’s unreasonably massive. This is largely dependant on the disposition or perspective of a person, However, when we break it down, we can potentially add nuance to the discussion that did not exist there prior.

Is $4.7 million a lot for a single person, and what if it’s split between 36 people? Is a single person who’s been with the library for 20+ years making 50k a year fair? Are these reasonable uses for this budget? What would you do, if you suddenly had to choose between keeping services and the wellbeing of existing staff? Is it more worth it to ask everyone to chip in a bit with their extant taxes if it means county non-residents get to avoid being charged to use the library, or the cost of buying all the books they might want to read themselves?

The answers will only come with public discourse, and discourse with officials. Ultimately, it helps no one to approach this issue blind to details.