Public libraries in New York City are to open their doors on Sundays again, having suspended the practice in November 2023 during a massive illegal immigrant inflow that placed pressure on the city’s finances and endangered services deemed nonessential.
In recent weeks, city officials have publicly quarreled over how and where to raise revenues to cover various costs.
That would have imposed $15 tolls on drivers entering the city below 60th Street.
But on June 27, Mr. Adams and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced an agreement to allocate $58.3 million from the city’s $112 billion budget to its three public library systems, providing them the means to restore Sunday hours beginning in August.
Before this agreement, libraries in the city stood to lose $58.3 million in the final fiscal year 2025 budget.
The shortfall meant that they would have to operate one fewer day per week. This would mean that most libraries would open their doors on only five days because most are already closed for one day.
This prospect elicited vocal opposition from Brooklyn Public Library President Linda E. Johnson, Queens Public Library President Dennis M. Walcott, and New York Public Library President Anthony W. Marx.
They and other advocates of continued strong funding for libraries delivered testimony before the city council in May, drawing attention to what they see as the vital role of libraries in the cultural, intellectual, educational, and general civic life of the nation’s largest city.
“We should be delighted, but instead, we may be forced to further reduce hours and programming—potentially losing yet another day of service—just when our patrons need us most.
“Our city leaders know how much New Yorkers depend on their libraries, and we are hopeful that together, they will come to our aid and fully restore library funding.”
City council member Chi Ossé was also among those vocally opposed to gutting funding for the libraries.
“We must recognize the unparalleled contributions to education, public safety, and community-building that our libraries provide and commit to full investment in them—and absolutely never any cuts,” Mr. Ossé stated.
The agreement to fund the libraries to the extent that permits resuming Sunday hours reflects a broadly optimistic outlook on the city’s finances as the devastating pandemic recedes ever further into the past.
On the job and tax revenue fronts, the city is experiencing a modest boom, its ongoing illegal immigrant crisis notwithstanding.
By April, employment in the city stood at a record 4.74 million jobs, 26,000 higher than at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020, the report states.
The report projects an increase in citywide tax revenues for the new fiscal year, up to $76.59 billion from $73.64 billion in the previous year.
The increase offsets a slight decline in federal and state grants.
The report also cites record levels of tourism in the city, as evidenced by hotel and restaurant reservations and Broadway ticket sales.
According to the latest available yearly data for tourism in the city, the overall “economic impact” of tourism in New York City in 2022 stood at $53.8 billion.
Ms. Johnson’s office did not reply by publication time to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
