As a candidate, Zohran Mamdani promised to fund the city’s three library systems with half of 1% of the city’s budget, vowing to end the usual budget dance and financial uncertainty that put libraries at the middle of tense negotiations with the City Council.
But as mayor, Mamdani’s executive budget proposal coughs up just .42% of the budget — less than his predecessor, Eric Adams had budgeted — and advocates young and old say the annual budget cha cha is still playing.
Members of the NYC Public Library Action Network, or NYC PLAN, rallied Tuesday on City Hall’s steps ahead of an executive budget hearing on the libraries. The organization is made up of library workers and others pushing for more money for the Queens, New York, and Brooklyn public library systems.
“We demand that you keep the promise that you made,” Anastazia Neely, a librarian at the New York Public Library’s Countee Cullen branch in Harlem, said at the rally. She and others say libraries would receive an additional $97 million with the 0.5% Mamdani promised.
“We demand 50 cents of every $100 for libraries — not by the end of your mayoral term, not at some date in the future, not in the next cycle, but right now,” she said.
Under the current executive budget proposal, libraries receive 42 cents for every $100 in the city budget. That’s less than the current budget set by Mayor Adams, which gives libraries 45 cents for every $100.
“If you let him out swag you on this, we will never hear the end of it,” Neely said of the former mayor. “We demand those eight cents.”
Lauren Comito, co-founder of Urban Librarians Unite, said she believed Mamdani when he said he would end what’s known as the “budget dance” of cuts and restorations during the budget process.
“I have a hard time saying how heartbroken I am, that I believed the promise, that after 26 years of cuts and fighting, that I believed it,” she said.
A spokesman for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment.
Mamdani released his executive budget earlier this month, and he held an event at a Brooklyn library to celebrate the $31.7 million he added to the budget for the three systems.
But that fell short of his promise of 0.5% of the $124 billion budget — a goal he said will still be met, someday.
“I absolutely think that there will be a point at which we get there, because it’s a goal that I continue to believe in, and it’s one that I’ve said that we will accomplish by the time that I’m done being the mayor of the city,” Mamdani said, although he didn’t commit to a specific year.
The heads of the three library systems all testified at the City Council on Tuesday, cautiously hopeful for money for staff, programs, and maintenance while also thanking the mayor and Council for their support.
Dennis Walcott, the president and CEO of Queens Public Library, said their unmet need is in the tens of millions of dollars, including operating and capital funds.
“We face escalating costs, such as contractual and insurance premiums, supply and maintenance needs, inflationary pressures, and unexpected expenses,” he said. Circulation at the Queens libraries rose 25% last year, and they need money for new print books and e-materials, he said.
Tony Marx, the head of the New York Public Library, said that between July 1, 2025 and the current year, his branches had lost 182 hours of service due to emergency repairs and maintenance.
“With more funds in our emergency repairs budget, we can limit these losses to provide more consistent, reliable service,” he said, also citing increased demand and costs of both physical and e-books.
Their plea for more funding in the Council aligned with that of half a dozen kids who patiently waited for their chance to speak at the rally earlier in the day.
Isla Sobh, 9, is part of the social justice art club at her elementary school in Brooklyn.
“Whenever I wanted something from a bookstore or an online library, the bookstore is too expensive and the online library is on hold,” she said.
Logan Vanhoutte, 9, said that “without libraries, so many things will fall apart.”
And then, she offered a warning to the mayor — notwithstanding city term limits.
“One thing for sure, in 2036, I will be able to vote, and other fourth graders will too,” she said. “Mayor Mamdani, if you don’t finish this promise that you promised us, we will remember.”
Our nonprofit newsroom relies on donations from readers to sustain our local reporting and keep it free for all New Yorkers. Donate to THE CITY today.
The post Librarians, Kids Throw the Book at Mamdani Over Broken Funding Promise appeared first on THE CITY – NYC News.
