NYC officials plan rally to stop budget cuts to city library systems

Brigid Bergin

and

Christian Santana

Published Jun 22, 2024

Modified Jun 23, 2024

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The Flushing Library

Queens Public Library

Brigid Bergin

and

Christian Santana

Published Jun 22, 2024

Modified Jun 23, 2024

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As budget negotiations between the New York City Council and the mayor’s office continue, councilmembers and library officials planned to rally on Sunday and call for the full reversal of $58.3 million in cuts to the city’s public libraries.

Twin rallies were set to be held at the Queens Public Library’s Flushing branch and the Brooklyn Public Library’s Walt Whitman branch near the Navy Yard on Sunday morning. Both library systems, as well as the New York Public Library system, have had to cut Sunday service, and would likely have to fully eliminate weekend service if funding is not fully restored. Staffing, programs and other services would also be affected.

“That will translate into fewer staff,” Queens Public Library President Dennis Walcott told Gothamist. “It will translate into fewer books and materials. It will translate into the potential of not being able to open libraries that have been under construction. It will translate into repairs not happening as quickly as possible, or at all.”

Walcott said three branches in the Queens library system have been under construction, including two that are ready to open. But Walcott added that the branches haven’t been able to open because the library system can’t hire anyone to staff them.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who chairs the Council’s committee on cultural affairs and libraries, also noted that the sweltering weather played a part in the planned rallies.

“Not only will we be in front of an essential place – a library that people look to for technology services, books, a quiet safe space – but it’s also going to be on a very hot day,” Rivera said.

Libraries make up around a third of the city’s cooling centers, but are closed on Sundays because of budget cuts. And this week, air conditioning outages that officials blamed on deferred maintenance costs led the New York Public Library system to shutter two of its Staten Island branches amid a heat wave. The city planned to open public schools on Sunday to serve as cooling centers instead.

“At most of our libraries, we’re putting the city at a disadvantage in that we don’t have our cooling centers that would be open as a result of these budget cuts, and that will unfortunately continue,” Walcott told Gothamist. “So all these things are piling up as far as what the cuts mean to libraries, but more importantly, what these cuts mean to the public at large.

.Mayor’s office spokesperson Amaris Cockfield said libraries have been told for months they'd lose funding as a result of the city's budget crunch.

“Our administration balanced the budget and strengthened the city’s recovery — without layoffs, tax hikes, or major service disruptions, and we have protected the city’s library systems from multiple rounds of budget reductions and invested $15 million in their teen centers that are now opening across the five boroughs," Cockfield wrote in a statement. "We will continue to work with our partners in the City Council to adopt a budget that meets our mutual priorities.”

A balanced city budget is due by the end of the month, and the next fiscal year starts on July 1

“Right now, the negotiations, I feel, are going as well as they could,” said Rivera. “We have been very clear since we initially put out our budget response that we know the money is there, that libraries should not ever be on the chopping block.”

But Rivera said she felt optimistic that the Council and the mayor’s office would resolve outstanding issues she said the Council had “laser focused” on in terms of its priorities, including libraries, cultural programs, housing and 3-K, an early childhood program for the city's 3-year-olds.

“Next week will certainly be intense,” said Rivera, “but I have a good feeling we’re going to get there.”

This story was updated with a comment from Mayor Eric Adams' office.

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Brigid Bergin

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Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.