Last April, then-candidate Zohran Mamdani pledged to commit 0.5% of the city’s budget to public libraries and to end the annual "budget dance" around library funding. This funding increase is the core demand of NYC PLAN, and it would help ensure that every library location in the city has the staffing and resources to provide robust services to their communities. Unfortunately, in his Preliminary FY27 budget, he allocated only 0.39% of the city’s expense budget to libraries.

NYC PLAN is asking all City Council members in NYC to commit to fighting for increasing public library funding to at least half of 1% of the annual city expense budget in each financial plan released while they are in office.

As the demand for library services continues to grow, sustained funding is essential for stable infrastructure and library services. In addition to the essential reading materials and public programming they offer, the NYC library systems are critical civic infrastructure. As extreme weather intensifies and free and open spaces become vanishingly rare, they offer valuable public space that is needed now more than ever. While the expansion of seven-day service will absolutely help communities who don’t yet have it, we take seriously the concerns of library union locals that represent library staff, who warn that already underpaid workers are stretched beyond their job descriptions just to meet regular six-day service demands. We strongly support the union’s call for higher wages and the hiring of more workers to correct this before seven-day service is expanded. We demand increased funding, and will continue to act and organize for the future of our library systems. Our libraries deserve more than stagnation – they deserve our enthusiastic and material support.

NYC PLAN continues to demand that at least one-half of 1% (0.50%) of the total New York City expense budget be committed to our library systems, both now and in the future. This is a realistic but significant number which will allow libraries to better serve NYC.

Join NYC PLAN as we continue to fight for dedicated and sustained library funding.