From the 2026 budget audit
Libraries serve more than culture — they are civic infrastructure for those without home internet.
4.2 billion Ft for county-scope city libraries is frozen at its current level: the civic-access function is real, but digital substitution is advancing and expansion is not warranted.
About 1,040 Ft per taxpayer per year — 4.2 billion Ft total — holds library operations at their current level, with real-terms pressure from inflation encouraging supplementary local revenue over time.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: library access for lower-income residents without home internet or reference resources. The unseen: the slow accumulation of digital substitution — services that residents could access otherwise — that makes an expanding central library grant harder to justify year by year.
Objection
"Libraries aren't just books — they're a lifeline for people who can't afford broadband or private services."
Answer
That is precisely why the classification is a freeze rather than a phase-out. The civic-access function — public internet, document access, reference for residents without alternatives — is real and distinguishes libraries from pure cultural allocation. The freeze holds the funding flat, applies slow real-terms pressure through inflation, and lets libraries develop supplementary revenue where their electorate values the full range of services they provide.
Share if you think libraries' civic-access role deserves honest recognition, not indefinite expansion.
The analyst's verdict
Support for the tasks of county-scope city libraries
Rationale
Funds the county-scope city libraries. Libraries carry a stronger claim than museums or cultural programming: beyond their cultural function they serve as access points to information, public-document access, digital connectivity, and basic civic infrastructure, particularly for lower-income residents without home internet or reference resources. That function is closer to a general civic-access service than to a discretionary cultural allocation, and the case for an abrupt phase-out is correspondingly weaker. At the same time, the line is not a rights-protection or constitutional function in the strict sense, and the digital substitution of many traditional library functions means expansion is unwarranted. The classification that fits is a nominal freeze: hold the allocation flat, let real-terms erosion apply slow pressure, and let municipalities and libraries develop supplementary revenue and local funding where their electorate values the service. The freeze avoids both stranding a genuine civic-access function and treating library subsidy as permanently expandable.
Transition mechanism
Hold nominal allocation flat; real-terms erosion at 2–3% inflation provides gradual pressure to modernise and develop supplementary revenue.
Affected groups
County-scope city libraries and their staff; library users, particularly lower-income residents relying on the civic-access function.
Free Society Institute
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