NEW YORK — After a protracted campaign enlisting Hillary Clinton, rallies with City Council members and a whole lot of memes blaming Mayor Eric Adams for cutting Sunday service, the city’s three library systems will be getting $58 million in cut funding restored.
The Thursday night announcement from the mayor and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams came as tense budget negotiations neared a resolution. The informal accord also included assurances that a group of city-funded cultural institutions will be getting $53 million in cut funding restored.
“These institutions are a critical part of New York City’s social fabric, which New Yorkers depend on for their children’s growth and the vibrancy of our city,” Mayor Adams said in a statement. “The budget will ensure these essential institutions will have what they need to serve New Yorkers and attract visitors every day of the week.”
The agreement — which is expected to be memorialized in a handshake deal Friday and then passed by the Council ahead of a Monday deadline — will also include an additional $2 billion in capital for affordable housing over the next two years, according to a person familiar with the blueprint. The additional capital funding was first reported by the Daily News.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City Ballet and affiliated institutions previously celebrated with the mayor an earlier announcement of $22 million in additional funding ahead of the release of his $112 billion executive budget. Then they went right back to lobbying his office and rallying in public for additional funding to be restored — and achieved their goals.
The library systems, however, were unsuccessful in reversing budget cuts until a final deal began to jell, with the mayor suggesting on multiple occasions that the institutions dip into their endowments rather than ask the city for more cash. The deal announced Thursday means libraries will get an increase in baseline funding to $43 million in future years, according to Gothamist, which first reported the deal.
The restorations cap a tumultuous budget cycle that featured the mayor announcing multiple rounds of cuts, citing fiscal challenges, then restoring the funding in response to improved revenue projections.
The strategy came at a steep cost. Massive outcry ensued after the mayor first unveiled the spending reductions in September, with especially strong disapproval of library cuts. The mayor’s poll numbers suffered as a result.
The mayor has defended his earlier proposal as fiscally responsible. He said fiscal cliffs caused by decisions made during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, as well as the unexpected and substantial costs of housing and serving more than 200,000 migrants over the last two years, left him no choice.
The Council has maintained the mayor’s budget office was being overly cautious in its revenue projections, pointing to evidence that it projected $12 billion less last year than actually came in. And throughout the process, the speaker was adamant that cuts to libraries, cultural institutions and other corners of the budget were unnecessary.
Thursday’s deal represents a political win for her over the mayor amid a period of heightened tension in their relationship.
“The Council has consistently championed funding restorations for these institutions as a top priority, and we’re proud to reach an agreement with Mayor Adams and the administration to successfully secure these critical investments for them in the city budget,” Adrienne Adams said in a statement.
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