Fitting that a few days after Valentine’s Day, New Yorkers may be reaching the end of their Mamdani honeymoon. Earlier this week, the Mayor released his preliminary budget for the 2027 fiscal year, and New Yorkers and library advocates were shocked to see lower proposed spending for the public library system than what Mayor Mamdani had promised on the campaign trail.
In his election platform and subsequent public statements, Mayor Mamdani backed the NYC Public Library Action Network’s demand that 0.5% of the city’s annual budget be allocated to public libraries. But the Mayor’s budgeting proposal for 2027 includes only 0.39% funding for libraries, which is not only below his promise, but also below what Mayor Adams proposed for 2026.
A tenth of a percent might seem paltry, but library budgets are on a tightrope (they nearly always are) and we’ve seen during previous funding deliberations that libraries need to quickly cut services and hours in response to even the smallest budgeting fluctuations. The Adams administration’s 2023 cuts eliminated Sunday service citywide, for example, and as of last year only around 30 branches have recovered to open seven day a week.
Libraries are a model for the kind of publicly minded, livable communities that electeds like Mayor Mamdani so eloquently advocate for. I’m writing this from a New York Public Library, surrounded by neighbors and a few tourists who are working, reading, and resting. I can see laptops, notebooks, open magazines. Parents and babies are toddling in for a read-aloud in the back, there’s a table nearby where people are picking at jigsaw puzzles, and a guy in a lounge chair across the room keeps saying “wow” at the art book he’s flipping through. These spaces are more than just an archive of objects and services, they are the city itself in miniature.
As PLAN member Mamiame Kaba wrote, “we are not customers at the public library” which, as spaces that don’t demand we spend, are “a basis for reclaiming a grammar of the commons for the average person in the 21st century.” The power of Mayor Mamdani’s candidacy and early tenure have been rooted in this same communal rhetoric of a city that works for everyone. If New York is to be a model for the nation of how a progressive city can work, we can’t neglect public libraries.
These things aren’t set in stone, thankfully: the city was rightfully outraged when former mayor Adams wanted to cut $58 million from the libraries, and the cuts were reversed in a subsequent budget deal thanks in part to organized public outcry. If you’re moved to send a letter, make a call, or get involved, PLAN has more information on their Instagram and on their website.
