Hallelujah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey. Hey, hey hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Good morning. Welcome to the New York City Council Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup. Please do not approach the days at any time during this hearing. Please place your phone on solid mode. Chair, thank you for your cooperation. We are ready to begin. >> Thank you, Sergeants. Good morning and thank you to everyone joining us today for the committee on cultural affairs, libraries, and international relations fiscal year 2027 preliminary budget hearing. I would like to welcome the representatives from the three public library systems, members of the public, and my colleagues in the council. Our public libraries among the most trusted and widely used institutions in our city. As I convene my first budget hearing as chair of this committee, I must emphasize the critical role libraries play for New Yorkers. Far beyond housing books, libraries are vital community hubs, providing job training, tech access, and educational support, serving as a true lifeline for residents citywide. However, year after year, the council finds itself returning to the same conversation during the budget process. At the preliminary budget stage, the full level of funding libraries require is often absent, creating uncertainty for the systems and the communities that rely on them. I was very disappointed to see that the preliminary plan did not include the one-time funding of $30.7 million added at adoption of the fiscal 2026 budget. I would have liked to see this funline funding baselined. This recurring pattern forces the council to step in each year to restore or add funding simply to maintain existing services rather than allowing the library systems to plan with stability and focus on expanding programs and resources for New Yorkers. This cycle makes it extremely difficult for library systems to plan ahead. Without stable funding at the start of the fiscal year, libraries face uncertainty in staffing, programming, and long-term service planning. Our library system should not have to operate with this level of uncertainty when they are providing essential services to millions of New Yorkers. Today, we will also be discussing the significant challenges libraries face in completing capital projects in a timely manner. Across the city, many library branches require renovations, accessibility upgrades, and critical infrastructure improvements. Yet, these projects often take many years to move from planning to completion. Lengthy timelines, complex approval, and procurement processes, and rising construction costs can delay projects well beyond their original schedules, leaving communities waiting far too long for modernized and fully accessible library spaces. If we want libraries to continue serving as the cornerstone institutions they are, we must ensure they have both the operating support and capital resources necessary to maintain and modernize their facilities. I look forward to hearing from the leadership of our three library systems today about how the preliminary budget impacts their ability to serve New Yorkers and how we can work together to provide the stability and investments they need. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge my colleagues who are present. We have finance chair Lee, Council Member Maloney, Council Member Lewis, and Council Member Hudson. I would also like to thank the finance staff Karolina and Aaliyah for their work on this hearing, as well as committee staff, Alejandro and Regina, for their support. Finally, I would also like to thank my staff, Priyanka and Shaki. I would also like to remind everyone from the public who wishes to testify in person today that you must fill out an appearance card, which is located on the desk of the sergeant-at-arms at the back of the room. Please fill out the slip even if you have already registered to testify in advance. When you are called, please limit your testimony to two minutes, whether you are testifying in person or in Zoom. I am also going to ask my colleagues to limit their questions and comments to five minutes. Okay. So, I will now invite the libraries to testify. >> Good morning. Can you hear me? Good morning. I'm Tony Marks and I'm the president of the New York Public Library and it's an honor and pleasure to be with you here this morning. I want to thank uh start by thanking city council speaker Menon uh as well as deputy speaker and committee chair Dr. Natasha Williams. Congratulations on your new uh on your new post and thank you for those comments. I couldn't have said it better myself. Uh and also thanks to the whole committee and its staff for the opportunity to testify today on the mayor's fiscal 2027 preliminary budget. Over the last several years, the library has repeatedly faced significant cuts to its operating budget. Each year starts with a setback that we spend the subsequent months spending resources to reverse. Last year uncharacteristically started off better. We were held harmless, even allocated an additional $2 million to expand Sunday services by the city council. But we still had to campaign to be baseline. And we weren't, even though our peer institutions in the city were. This is still the budget dance as the chair has referred to it. It is laborious. It is costly and it diverts valuable staff and other resources from our vital offerings in the fight to keep even. This near annual exercise has left us with mostly flat budgets for several years amid rising costs. Naturally, we were learned to th we were thrilled to learn of the then mayoral candidate Zoran Mandani's promise to literally end the budget dance with consistent baseline funding of.5% of the city's budget. His mayoralty represents in his own words a new era for both the city at large and for libraries in particular. We can together turn the page on the past with an administration that understands that libraries are an integral part to a more affordable New York. We've already had some great interactions with the administration. We lent the mayor the Quran that he was sworn in on. We uh hosted him for the city's annual interfaith breakfast. We've discussed future partnership and shared priorities on digital equity and literacy as well as on colllocations of affordable housing above uh new libraries. This positive relationship has extended to encouraging discussions about the city budget. We are grateful for his baselining of the city council's $2 million in the mayor's preliminary budget to maintain the added Sunday service locations from last year. The administration has also been receptive to the impacts of the proposed savings targets for the current and forthcoming year as well as reductions in the FY27 preliminary budget on our offerings. We are aware of the $5 billion budget deficit that the city faces and its ongoing conversations with the state, but we are heartened by the administration's acknowledgment of the outsized returns on investments that libraries provide to all to all New Yorkers. It is still early in the process and we are confident that the mayor is intent on delivering on both of his campaign promises. Baseline funding at.5% stands to transform library services into a resource with a credible presence that New Yorkers never have to question or wonder about. We can fortify our services, which means more hours and days of operations with more of our great staff. And more hours and days of operations and staff means that the branches can provide college and career advice for graduating high school seniors. Our teen centers can do their work for young adults to socialize with their peers. We can provide an open place for kids to drop in a for afterchool tutoring. A trusted place for New Yorkers and we are the most trusted place for all New Yorkers in every neighborhood for all income levels. for instance, to help filing their taxes. The demand for these and other services is very real. Last year, our after school attend Career Resources Fair for teens hosted, 1600 attendees with o over 40 businesses and other organizations. The FY26 PMMR shows a steady increase of program attendance, library card holders, computer and wireless sessions from FY23 through FY25. And in January, the New York Times survey of 35,000 New Yorkers showed more funding for libraries to be their very top choice. We can also address our unmet needs of $24 million, a product of operating on this flat budget along with the rising costs of collections, staff wages, and IT. We hope this commitment to libraries will also include, as the as the chair mentioned, our capital agenda. Our services are of little value if they do not happen in places that feel safe, welcoming, and respectful of New Yorkers rights to knowledge and opportunity, let alone if those spaces are not open. The libraries currently have $1.2 billion in unmet capital needs. 485 million of that is just at the New York Public Library. This is because most of our buildings are aging. They're small structures. beloved but small and aging. The city's capital process also often results in costly budget shortfalls and significant delays. Also, as the chair has has mentioned, Mayor Mandani's commitment to excellence in government makes us hopeful that we can finally address these systemic issues with reform in the near future. We look forward to short ter to partnership in the meantime on short-term fixes. One example, it would be a transformative investment in the 10-year capital plan, much as happened in 2016 with a hund00 million that allowed us to fully renovate five century old Carnegie libraries in high needs neighborhoods in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Stanton Island. Another, as I've mentioned, is the collocation projects, which allow us to take advantage of the air above old libraries, build new libraries with affordable housing above, as we did in the first instance in Inwood. And we can experiment with other ways to streamline our design, construction, and to be and that are already being employed at the new library at Westchester Square. The council has always been and continues to be a most reliable ally. Every time the library has faced significant cuts in the past, it was the library council who took up our cause and joined in the fight for restoration, including the additional funding in FY26. Speaker Menon, a longtime friend of the library, has confirmed that this continues to be the case recently when she stated that libraries are New Yorker's most trusted institutions, as indeed they are. We know and recognize this is a challenging time for this city financially. We understand that these challenges were inherited as well as the intergovernmental dynamics at play. We also know that it is still early. The city council is as always with us and we have a new mayor who appreciates the libraries as an unparalleled crucial public good within the lives of New Yorkers. We are living with a different mayor and a different city council in a different day. Everyone is paying attention. Everyone is committed to investing in the libraries so that we can continue to invest in all New Yorkers. I look forward to retiring my dancing shoes. Thank you, Madam Chair, and all colleagues. Who knew Tony had dancing shoes? Um, good morning. Sorry. Excuse me. I'm Linda Johnson, president and CEO of Brooklyn Public Library. Thank you to Speaker Menon, and to our new chair, Deputy Speaker, Dr. Williams, as well as finance chair Lee, the members of the committee, the committee, and the entire city council for your steadfast support of New York City's libraries. Your commitment to libraries makes it possible for us to deliver the programs, services, and resources New Yorkers count on every day. I would also like to recognize and thank the library workers who make this work possible, including our partners at DC37 and Brooklyn Public Libraries Local 1482. Library staff are the front line of service for millions of New Yorkers and their dedication is the reason libraries are among the most beloved and trusted institutions in our cities. Forgive me, some of my testimony is going to repeat what my colleague from the New York Public Library has just stated, but I think it bears repeating. Um, for years, libraries have endured an annual ritual no city organization should face with or without dancing shoes. Funded allocated as a temporary measure, only to vanish from the next preliminary budget, requiring us to return here to make the case all over again. That pattern has had real consequences for staff morale, for our ability to plan, and for the New Yorkers who depend upon us. The mayor's preliminary budget takes a step toward ending the budget dance, both baselining the $2 million of the $32.7 million increase the council secured in fiscal 2026 and pledging to work with us to maintain service levels. We have had many productive conversations with the administration and they have been transparent about the city's budget pressures. They also understand what the council has long championed that libraries are central to the city's affordability agenda and must be a priority. We are hopeful and we will continue that conversation. I often say that libraries are the modern-day town square, a trusted space to access information, to connect with neighbors and discuss critical questions of our time. We welcome New Yorkers from every neighborhood and every walk of life, and we ask for nothing in return. Your investment last year marked an important step forward for libraries at Brooklyn Public Library. Your support enabled us to open Bay Ridge and Bedford libraries on Sundays, hire additional staff, expand our collections, and address emergency building maintenance. New Yorkers noticed this investment. Brooklyn Public Library 62 locations received over 6 million visits last year. Patrons checked out nearly 10 million items, including books and digital materials. as well as items from our library of things. Borrowing board games, musical instruments, power tools for home projects, telescopes, vinyl records, museum passes, and even artwork. Overall, our circulation is 7% higher year to date over the past fiscal year. Our culture pass program is set to have its strongest year since launching in 2018 with over 75,000 passes checked out between July 2025 and February 2026. Library workers hosted more than 80,000 free programs in Brooklyn alone, including our tax help programs, which helped over 1,500 Brooklyn residents collectively save more than $2 million on their taxes last year. Attendance at our first five years program is up 13%, putting us on pace for our busiest year of early childhood programming since the pandemic. Driven in large part by programs funded through the city council's first readers initiative. The preliminary budget moves libraries in the right direction and I'm optimistic that the adopted budget on the council's fis fiscal will build on the council's fiscal 2026 investment and put us on a path toward greater stability. The challenges are real. The federal prohibition on passport services at nonprofit library alone costs Brooklyn Public Library nearly $1 million annually. Our participation in the city's cost savings exercise and personnel materials and maintenance costs continue to climb. These are real pressures, but they also underscore the importance of investing in what libraries can deliver for New Yorkers. We welcome the conversation about what 1 half of 1% of the city budget would unlock for New York City's libraries in Brooklyn. This means hiring specialists dedicated to every age group across our branches so children, teens, adults, and older adults all have access to the programs and resources they need no matter where they live. It means expanding service hours so working families can visit after work and students have more time to study. It means responding quickly to urgent building needs rather than waiting years for a capital project to wind through the pipeline, keeping our doors open and our libraries safe. It is the level of service New Yorkers deserve and and as a January New York Times poll showed proudly demand. You have Brooklyn Public Libraries capital needs spelled out in front of you. In the interest of time, I won't read all of this, but I do want to note the need facing Brooklyn's libraries is significant as the pro as is the progress we've made together. Council member support for our projects as well as the council's extraordinary capital allocation last year have been essential. To this end, I am requesting the city council alongside the Brooklyn delegation once again allocate $10 million in discretionary capital funding for systemwide repairs, project shortfalls, and essential upgrades at Brooklyn's branches. We are also submitting a capital request to the administration for transformational investment, $150 million for each library system to comprehensively upgrade more than a dozen libraries across the city. It's time to move beyond using expense money for bandage and invest in bandages and invest in toptobottom renovations that save time and money, reduce interruptions, and create inspiring state-of-the-art libraries built to last. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the preliminary budget. The council has been a longstanding champion of libraries and we are all grateful for your leadership. I'd like to end by sharing a very brief poem by Liv Lusk, a patron of our Marcy Library. It's titled My Library is Loud. with children giggling over picture books with faces that look like theirs. With hushed conversations, a man is rehearsing for his job interview on Friday, the first one since he was incarcerated. With keyboards clacking, a young man is watching a video on how to create the best transit city in Minecraft. With printers spitting fresh copies of a missing cat poster, a father and daughter will spend the afternoon placing them around the neighborhood only for mittens to appear at 6:00 p.m. sharp for dinner. A woman is soothing herself with rhythmic chants because the library is the only place she feels safe to do so. My library is loud and I feel joy. Your continued support ensures our libraries remain vibrant and loud with activity and future generations who will know this joy. Thank you. >> Good morning. Good morning. There we go. To chair deputy speaker Dr. Nantasha Williams, congratulations. It's a pleasure to greet you. Uh to finance chair Linda Lee, it's a pleasure to see you as well. to our Queen's representative as well, Council Member Sandra. A pleasure to the members of this esteemed committee. And to our ongoing supporter, Speaker Julie Mannon, thank you for all of your support. I am Dennis Walcott, president and CEO of the Queens Public Library. It is a pleasure to be here with you today. uh to our great team members who are here from the Queens Public Library to our union President John Hislip who is sitting somewhere in the audience as well. Thank you for your partnership and ongoing support. Uh we are here to talk about our great libraries. It is now 10:03 and I know at Queens people are streaming through the doors coming to receive our services and they're entering looking for hope, opportunity, information, services and just to become better people and we are very very thankful for all the great staff who are working providing the services there. I have submitted written testimony. However, I will forgo reading it to emphasize a few key points. Uh it's a brand new chapter as Linda and Tony have indicated uh for the city of New York concerning our libraries. We have a new mayor, we have a new speaker, we have a new chair, we have a new chair of finance, and all of you are great partners and supporters of our libraries. Uh as a result of that, we've had ongoing relationships with all of you before. We've had ongoing conversations since the start of this administration as far as with the mayor's team, obviously with the speaker, with the chair, and other members of the city council about the importance of the libraries. The city council has always championed public libraries for which we are deeply grateful. And because of your efforts, we were able to secure increases in our fisc year 26 budget that led to the expansion of 7-day service. At QPPL, Queens Public Library, the expanded 7-day locations have seen over 32,500 visits with these expanded services on that extra day, giving even more New Yorkers access to free, highquality collections, programs, resources in welcoming environment. Chair Williams, Council Member Lee, Council Member, you are frequent visitors to our libraries. You are there all the time. We've had joint programs and services as a result of your leadership, your financial support, and just your ongoing support and we thank you for that. And other members of the Queen's delegation have been there on a regular basis supporting our libraries. but also you know the other side of the library where the needs are and you provided money for those needs. But as you know there are still many needs as Tony and Linda indicated and now we have a new administration that also recognizes the value of a meaningful investment in our city's public library system. The mayor has been very vocal about the power of libraries to transform people's lives and to create a more equitable and affordable New York City. before he even declared uh running for mayor. The mayor visited our Broadway library and I just happened to see the mayor recently in passing and he remembered the visit and talked about the aspects of the Broadway children's library children's room and what it meant to him. So we are there for our relationship as far as that commitment. He has spoken about committing 5% of the city budget to libraries. As you know, this funding would be monumental. In past years, at our budget hearings, I've talked about what the city libraries could be if we had increased and sustained funding. We would even be more accessible to New Yorkers across the city. We could extend our hours, hire our much needed important staff, expand our programs to meet demand, and make available more books, computers, and other essential library resources. And we would finally be able to plan effectively for the outy years rather than waiting and worrying, stressing, and not being able to plan properly. This to me is so important. As the budget conversations continue with leadership on both sides of city hall, I remain optimistic about what is possible for libraries. There is great potential for our capital needs, too. Queens Public Libraryies Capital Portfolio has recently celebrated several milestones such as groundbreings for our Rio Park Library, our Basley Park Library, and the oldest library in our system, the Historia Library. This year, DDC expects the administrative construction to start at Laurelton Library renovation and the physical construction of a brand new Douglas Library, moving that library from what was called a Lindsy box of 7500 square ft to a new 16,000 square foot library. And we're looking forward to that as well. And with Rio Park, that will also move from a 7,500 square foot Lindsay box to an 18,000 square foot library. Again, another exciting project. We currently have 41 active projects, a majority managed by the New York City Department of Design and Construction, DDC. We are incredibly thankful to the council for its traditional allocation of the lump sum funding lump sum funding for QPO which is crucial in allowing us to fill project shortfalls as Linda indicated as soon as we are notified by DDC as well as filling those gaps for fiscal year 27. QPPL and the two other systems are requesting again the continued support for this essential capital allocation in the amount of $10 million per system. As Linda indicated, this allows us to plug holes to respond to needs, but also not to tap in to our expense money. Queen's total capital need in fiscal year 27 is nearly $271 million and is comprised of critical infrastructure resiliency and accessibility renovation projects. Our buildings function as social infrastructure, one of the few locations where the public can go to connect with others without barriers to industry entry. Maybe we can get a window cleaner as well at our libraries to help us. I heard the side noise. I said that h hopefully that's a window cleaner, not a bird or something happening there. Our buildings function as social infrastructure and your support is so critical. Library users and staff deserve state-of-the-art, safe, and welcoming libraries that they can count on to be open. With this in mind, the three library systems are requesting, as and Tony indicated, a transformational $450 million investment from the administration and our capital portfolios, $150 million for each system. This investment will allow us to complete comprehensive renovations and to address the most urgent projects across the city. It will allow us to plan. I think we all understand that a vision for a stronger and more equitable New York City must include public libraries. Our communities are facing many challenges today, but at libraries, they have unlimited access to resources and supports without needing to worry about affording them. We are there for the public. All are welcome to get the help they need to explore diverse ideas and perspectives and discover their own voices and passions. An investment in the Queens Public Library, the Brooklyn and New York public libraries is an investment in the future for all New Yorkers. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and we look forward to our continued work together and welcome your questions. >> Thank you. Um, I also just want to note that we were joined by council member. Thank you so much for your testimony. Uh, the first question I have is the library's fiscal 2027 prelim budget totals $491.4 million representing a reduction of $31.7 million compared to fiscal 2026 adopted budget. What are the anticipated impacts to programs and services as a result of this reduction? Thank you. Uh, Dr. Chair, the um the preliminary the mayor's preliminary budget does not restore or baseline the $30.7 million of one-time funding in FY26. Uh, 15.7 million provided by the mayor and 15 million provided by the mayor in partnership with the city council. Uh in addition, the citywide savings targets impact 7.99 million during the current fiscal year and 12.3 in the next fiscal year. Um we are grateful for the $2 million of expanded Sunday service uh that the city council made possible and that the mayor has now baselined and that we hope that the administration and council will fulfill the 0.5% uh promise of the adopted budgets. the um we are still uh working to finalize how to uh achieve the targets that have been set forward. Um we do recognize that without restoration it will simply be impossible to maintain Sunday service across our systems even with the $2 million in the preliminary budget. Beyond the loss of Sundays, we are and we hope not to. This is all things we very we all agree we would like not to see. I know the mayor would like to not see reduce days and hours of operation tightly controlling or fro freezing our hiring significantly reducing budgets for collections for cyber security for facility security for maintenance repairs IT needs pages and overtime. All of that is what we hope to avoid and what I know the mayor hopes to avoid. >> Yes. Um, thank you for the question. We also um are hopeful um that the money will in fact be baseline, but are um the amount at risk for Brooklyn Public Library is nearly $9 million. Um, and we've had many conversations about uh about this issue in particular uh and we're aligned with the understanding that libraries play a key role in the mayor's affordability agenda. Um we are also fearful of the um exercises or the outcome of those exercises to um hit the target savings that have been issued to city agencies um in our operating budget of 2027. A cut of $3.4 4 million, which is the 2.5% cut, um means our current operations will continue to to face challenges that we will have to evaluate service reductions. We are already a lean organization and we have unmet needs before we begin to even think about trimming further. We will um have people, places, and materials um we so that will not be able to be um hired, purchased, and so there's not much room for further cuts. We are too thinly staffed. We suffer shortages in branch coverage, and we may see weight times for our books increase if we cannot invest in the collections or keep up with the increasing costs of purchasing new material. we will see more frequent disruptions which is a really uh critical um circumstance that we want to do everything to avoid. People count on their libraries and the consistency in the delivery of the times that we are open is important to everyone's planning in terms of their use of the libraries and the way that it works into their weekly schedules. um the but disruptions like HVAC problems um have a terrible impact and c and cause situations where we have what we call emergency closings um which is sort of uh the the most critical thing we're looking to avoid. I just want to pick up on Linda's point as far as the emergency closings and I think the dynamic that will take place uh with the uh not restoration of the money as well as the baselining of the money but also as Linda and Tony indicated for this particular fiscal year the 1.5% uh exercise that we're going through as well as a 2.5% uh exercise that we're going through for next fiscal year. It will definitely have an impact on services without question and cutting back on services, cutting back on hours, dealing with Sunday service and not having Sunday service as indicated by the money that the city council put in last year, but also I think the correlation between uh what we may have to do with deferred maintenance as well uh and the balancing act and that we have old buildings like we've talked about and you have boilers that break down or in the summertime you have the air conditioners that don't work and as a result of that we have to plug those holes with the expense dollars and not having that money available will make sure that we don't plug them in a way and a timely way that allow the libraries to stay open which has a direct correlation impacting the people who come through our doors looking for those services. So on one hand you have fewer services but also you may not have buildings available to provide the fewer services that would be available as a result of either the exercise or the not baselining or having that money available. So all those things will impact on the future of our ability to serve the public and that to me is the most tragic thing. So we have to be very conscious of that. >> Um random question listening to what you all just said. How often on average like like on a yearly average do you have to do emergency closings? >> I'm sorry I didn't hit to do >> Yeah. I was just wondering how often like what is the cadence of emergency closings >> within a year or however within a month I don't know how you can estimate >> yeah take it >> in the case of Brooklyn Public Library um we can have as many as a thousand hours which is really significant >> basically the same for us I mean it impacts in a way where we have to shut down and not have the library open and emergency closings really impact us in a way where the public is not gaining that information >> and the thousand hours in a year you saying average >> last year. >> Okay. Um I had some other questions about overall budget reduction but you all mentioned the cost savings. So I'll skip to that and ask um so as we all know OMI has asked agencies to identify savings for fiscal 2027. What specific savings targets were requested of each of your systems and what proposal have you submitted? I think it's due in two days. Um yeah, and and another add-on to that is did OMB provide any guidance on which areas should be prioritized for savings or where the library systems left to determine where reductions would occur? We uh have I think until tomorrow the next day to submit to OM what the exercise will result in and we didn't really to my knowledge get any particular guidance and we have to get back to OM but again it impacts on uh the potential of uh hours it impacts on uh the issue of uh hiring and we all have to slow down our hiring. So there are many variations on how we're looking at that particular exercise especially for this year. And I want to just reinforce an important point and that for this particular year we're dealing with 1.5% for a threemonth period of time. It's not on an annualized basis and as a result of that that's squeezing in any type of reaction in a way that's just not good for planning. So that's for this particular year alone. So, I'll just reiterate what Dennis has said. You know, when we see those kinds of you, we have till another day or two, I think, to give that final proposals. We'd like to I think we'd all, including the mayor, like to avoid this actually happening, but it means less money for staff, which means less hours. It means less money for uh expense money to do the band-aids, which we prefer to do with capital funding, which we also need. It means uh less technology. It means um it you know it means less library less library services less reliable library services. Uh and you know I think the city council has made it clear the mayor has made it clear that's the exact opposite of what we hope to uh hope to provide. And madam chair with apologies I should have jumped in. Uh the New York Public Library in FY25 lost nearly 1500 hours for emergency planning building repairs services and maintenance. Again, with constant funding, with the ability to plan, as Dennis and Linda have made mention of, we can avoid those kinds of unexpected closings, which are frustrating for the staff and frustrating for the public who show up at libraries and find closed doors when they should be open and welcoming to everyone. >> Yeah, I I don't have much to add. I've touched on this in my last answer, but I would just um reiterate what's been said. What a cut of this magnitude would mean is cutting the purchase of materials, a hiring freeze, uh, and, um, a reduction of hours. All things that we strive hard to avoid. Okay, I'm going to ask one more question. Um, I'm going to skip around a bit to capital needs and infrastructure. If the city granted permanent self-management authority today, would the library system be able to manage your entire capital plan? >> No. >> I I don't even have to turn around and look at our team to get the answer to that. >> That's a no. >> That's a no. >> We're not real estate developers. Um and we have uh an extraordinary number of projects that are underway across the system. In some cases, we have more individual projects than we actually have libraries because we're working on several um several projects within a single branch at the same time or not at the same time uh depending on how things unfold. But and we really don't want to be fixing our own boilers and roofs. We want to be building new buildings um and taking a hold of the projects that have a strong aesthetic component aesthetic component. Again, we are not currently have the capacity to handle half a billion dollars of capital improvements. Um, we we when we do our own capital improvements, >> um, we do know that those go at twice the speed and cost half as much, which is a great benefit to all New Yorkers and to the budget of the city of New York. Um, but that requires putting money up front that we don't have necessarily. Um, we have opened conversations with the mayor, uh, happy to have those conversations with the city council as we have in the past about whether there's a different way to do business that provides consistent funding for capital needs um, so that we can do planning, which means we can deliver effectively working with DDC or a reformed DDC or other bodies as we have. We've partnered with EDC and others to get better results to see whether we can provide to New Yorkers the kinds of capital improvements on budget that everyone wants to see including the mayor is eager to see. So I just want to add one other point and I always use this example to a question like this in that no I agree with Linda and Tony as far as we don't have our internal capacity yet at the same time when we do manage those few projects we do it a lot better and I always use the example and a lot cheaper uh of one of our libraries that had the boiler breakdown and it was in the dead of winter and if we had to go through DDC god knows how long it would have taken how much it would have cost we had to put our expense money to actually do the job. We did the job in a short period of time and for half the cost. I mean, those are the types of things we do. Uh we're in a position every now and then of getting private money or state money where we can do a project on our own and we do it well. But again, the sheer size I talked about in my testimony, the number of projects we have uh going on right now with DDC and we could not do that. But at the same time, we know there has to be a better system to do it. So that way it's not done in an eight-year period of time. And it's so frustrating. Uh when we announce a project and people are looking at us as far as why is this project taking so long and some of my Queen's uh council members here know about projects within their respective libraries that are not being done in a timely manner that can be done a lot more efficiently. And as a result of that, we're looking for that that nirvana as far as how we can put a system in place that allows the projects to be done efficiently, effectively, and cost effectively, and to get turned around in a faster period of time. >> I also suspect that the half half the time and half the money is not really the full story, that it's more dramatic than that. >> I think you can tell from our answers, Madam Chair, that we are eager to have this conversation. We've been eager to have this conversation with past administrations. We now are hearing from this administration and openness to get serious about uh finding a better way to do business. Let me just give an example. When the city gave us a significant additional investment into the 10-year capital plan, which is back in 2016 and was for the first time in living memory when that happened. We It enabled us to plan. It enabled us to deliver on budget. Five amazing Carnegie branches redone top to bottom in neighborhoods of need and that has produced incredible results for those neighborhoods. When we find a different way to do business that enables us to plan, that enables us not to go through the sort of the the sequential processes of DDC. so that we can do things all together so that we can um get to a result that doesn't take twice as long. We can deliver amazing results for New York and everyone benefits from that. >> Can I just put into the record as well, Chair, and I think it's so important since we're on this topic, we should not forget that several years ago we had to absorb a capital PEG that was never restored at all. And as a result of that, we then were starting even further in the hole with the capital money that was allocated for our libraries. And so that then took us a step back. And even though they talked about with that capital peg, it's in outyear projects, the outyear projects always get closer. And as a result of that, they were left to fend as far as how we plug some of those holes. So all of these things intersect as far as both the efficiency but also the ability to plan to really provide our public with the type of libraries they deserve. >> Thank you. Um I will follow up with a few more questions, but I wanted to turn it over to my colleagues who may have questions. Um Chair Lee, do you have any questions? >> Yes, really quick ones. actually it's about the capital needs and infrastructure and um uh deputy speaker knows that I have this uh lovehate relationship with our procurement system in the city. Um and I feel like this is something we talk about all day um when it comes to uh capital needs and how long the process takes. Um when I was at my former nonprofit, I think we got awarded funding in 2018 and they still have not started or I think they are just about to start. So and and what ends up happening is as the costs increase, the amount of the dollars stay the same. And so what ends up happening is you just have to reduce the scope which doesn't help anyone and it it in in fact it um negatively impacts the public the most and the people who use the services. So I I totally hear you on that. Um and actually one of my former board members brought up this idea about building housing and affordable housing above the libraries as a potential way to build more housing. And this was a a long many many years ago actually. Um so just on that subject uh when affordable housing is built above a library how are the capital costs typically allocated between the housing developer and the library system and what portion of the library construction costs can be offset through those partnerships. >> Um we've done a few of these in Brooklyn and everyone sort of has its own flavor. Um uh and the there are at least five or six sources of funds in each of these projects. Um so it's hard to um state with any kind of specificity exactly what the allocation happens to be in I'll give you just an example uh of Sunset Park which was a Lindsy box that was bursting at the seams and in had probably close to $20 million in deferred maintenance. So that library was knocked down. Uh we provided temporary service uh nearby. The uh developer of that project was a nonprofit developer. Um we contributed the land. Uh we being the library in the city. Um and the building yielded we got a library that was twice the size of the original ones. We were quite happy with that. We were responsible for fitting out the library. Um and the um and there were 49 units above the library um that were added to the Sunset Park housing stock. The first time there had been truly affordable housing um offered in that community for I think 40 years. um and the demand and when I say these numbers I always think I must be making a mistake because it's so outsized but for those 49 units I think there were like 40,000 applications yeah >> if I if I can also jump in here look the um the air has always existed above the libraries u but we hadn't focused on how to use those to benefit libraries and to benefit all New Yorkers who are clearly in need of affordable housing. So, we got creative because the libraries can innovate. We can be creative. >> And we started with Inwood, the neighborhood that I grew up in. Um, a much beloved library there that was way past its uh its date for needing to be replaced. We partnered with EDC instead of DDC with all the benefits that we've already talked about. We partnered with Robin Hood and an individual donor to supplement the the funding. And we and we partnered with a developer who built a uh we so we got as a result a uh a 20,000 square foot brand new amazing library as well as a prek center an acts center and job training and 174 units of 100% affordable housing with the s kind of demand for it that Linda has already said >> that was a learning process. process. It took us some time to get to it, but the results are truly phenomenal. And I love that library. I love all our libraries, but that one is really spectacular and has encouraged us. So, we are now in planning for doing the same in GR Grand Concourse where we envision 114 units of affordable housing. Uh Bloomingdale is in planning on 100th Street on the west side that could yield up to 850 units of housing. >> And uh well it's a it's a site of major development. Um >> and we have identified Parkchester together with the speaker and the mayor as possibly the next round. We are looking at all the libraries that need to be renovated that are not the landmarked Carnegies. Obviously we can't do that. uh we can't do this there but we're looking at every opportunity that is possible to do this kind of colllocation because we get great new libraries. >> We get it at uh at the you know at at reasonable rates if you will and because we get this done with EDC or other partners and the city gets more of the affordable housing that everyone so desperately needs. >> It's a great model. Um, and I hate to say it, it's a little facicious, but it probably takes the same amount of time as if we were to just give you regular capital dollars to finish the libraries to build a whole new building. Um, quick question because I remember when I was at one of the DDC hearings, I was talking to the then commissioner about their new design build program and I one of the questions I'd asked was which agencies they could potentially partner with to pilot this more because they're very interested in expanding it. It's it's a lot faster in terms of the timeline because you're not doing things sequentially. The the front loading part of the design and the building and all of that is happening in the in the beginning with the architects and the contractors all at the same time. So there's, you know, I was actually really impressed by it. And so just wondering if you've had conversations at all with maybe using some of the models um that you've mentioned as a pilot or part of that process. Again, we have had great uh uh track record working with EDC. Um yeah, >> and we continue to talk with them about possibilities. Um I I think this is an example of where we all need to be open-minded. Um we know that, you know, DDC was created for particular reasons at a particular moment in history. Mhm. >> Uh we're all grateful to our colleagues at DDC, but we all also recognize the limits >> um and the ways in which, you know, adding twice as much time, twice as much cost does no one any good and that we need to be creative together and to work together with the city council and with the mayor to find systems that will work better, which I think are eminently possible. >> Yeah. >> So, we have two projects in Queens uh with DDC and design built. So we're exploring to see uh how we may look at others as well. And I think there are still questions even with what you said chair Lee as far as front end and the potential efficiency uh what the extra cost may be to us and what they may charge us for those uh type of projects and whether the cost is worth the return on the efficiency of delivery and so we're exploring that as well. >> Okay, perfect. Brooklyn as well. We have a project um at Spring Creek and uh DDC is pitching a second one, but we're all we're at a wait and see. >> Okay. And just lastly, um can you just outline which library branches are currently in the capital plan for full reconstruction or demolition and replacement and whether any of those projects could accommodate mixeduse development such as affordable housing? >> Um >> so I'll jump in. Go ahead, Linda. >> I mean, um, we're in the process of, um, putting a list together and the one that's out front, uh, is the new UTI library, but there's others that, um, that could follow. >> Yeah, Linda and Tony, New York and Brooklyn are ahead of us as far as all the various collocation projects. So, we're exploring internally as far as those libraries that may qualify. And then we'll be working with both the mayor's office and the city council and the speaker as far as those projects that we're proposing. But we've done some internal analysis and so we're still refining that. >> Yeah. There's also a communications issue here when when these projects go into um uh production. We're closing libraries down for a significant period of time. And so there's a sort of delicate um process of community engagement that we like to go in before we start announcing um you know where they are. >> I I've already mentioned the collocation ones that we're looking at. Those conversations continue to see what else we can do. They are as Linda's just mentioned require intense conversations with the communities as they should. So, for instance, at Bloomingdale, the question of sort of what percentage are affordable or or other mixeduse uh apartments is an ongoing conversation. I'll just say very quickly, recently completed capital projects at New York Public Library, Fort Washington, County Cullen, Hunts Point, Port Richmond, Richmond Town, HVAC Replacement, and Muenberg. Um, and uh in progress, Hamilton Fish Park, Yugenot Park, Westchester Square, long time in the in the works. uh Woodlon Heights, Castle Hill, Edenwald, Seawward, Seward Park, Tomkins Square, and West New Brighton. >> And there is more that we need to do, >> right? No, thank you so much. >> It's like a never ending. >> Yeah. When we get through, we each have Well, Tony has 90 some branches. We each have 62. >> I have 66. >> There's never There's never an end to the work that needs to be done. >> Y definitely. Thank you so much. Thank you chair. >> Thank you. Um, Council Member Hudson, >> thank you so much, Chair, and good morning. >> Um, you all mentioned the libraries being um the most trusted institutions and also we know that they are most the most democratic institutions and at a time when our democracy is under threat um I think the impact on these most democratic institutions cannot be overstated. And so each of your library systems provide direct services, community stability, and innovative programming. Can you share how potential service reduction would disproportionately impact neighborhoods that rely most heavily on on libraries for internet access, study space, and educational programming? >> U, thank you for that question. Um, of course, we agree with all of your sentiments. um and and we'll do the very best we can to make sure that cuts um would not disproportionately affect neighborhoods in greatest need. To the contrary, we're sensitive to um to where the demand um has the deepest impact on a community. Um but also aware that um in because our operations are complex, it's difficult to um tailor specific um reductions in service to particular neighborhoods. Um so there's also at the same time a competing effort to be um somewhat um evenhanded about it. Well, I think that's a a good and important point to note is that any reduction would make it extremely difficult and could unintentionally have a disproportionate impact on some of the the communities with the greatest needs. >> Yeah, no question. I mean, one of the beauties about our libraries is the deep relationships that our librarians have with, you know, individual members in their communities, right? uh and trying to um be sensitive when cuts um they know will affect somebody in particular. >> Right. >> Can I just add we we uh we absolutely share your sentiments that we live in uh challenging days challenging to the fundamentals of our democracy. Uh we we respond to book bannings by unbanning books for here in New York obviously for folks nationally. Uh we're mindful of the possibility of uh ICE putting a chill on particularly the immigrants who come to our branches. We are providing the largest free English language instruction outside of the schools of CUNI. Uh and we don't want to see that diminish. We want those communities to feel welcomed and respected and not to be fearful. Um we uh we provide wireless access. There are million and a half New Yorkers still without broadband at home. And we are working to solve that problem. Not just in the branches, but finding ways to project wireless beyond the branches. We would like to see a utility level of free broadband so that people can >> do the work of democracy, communicate with each other. And then lastly, I'll say the libraries in our time have transformed themselves from passive spaces, much essential and beloved places to come read, to have HVAC, to have wire, have have computer access and collections and access to our amazing librarians, but they are all now also now education centers. um millions of visits to education programs which simply didn't exist before from early literacy to afterchool to tutoring to computer skills to English language essential for the immigrant community uh who we all need to be protecting and serving. Anytime there's reduction in funding, anytime there's a reduction in hours, anytime a branch needs to close for lack of capital investment, all of those offerings are diminished. We live in a moment, I know you feel this way, I know the mayor feels this way, in which we need to be doing more, not less, given the challenges that we are all facing. >> Absolutely. So, just to pick up on the point that Linda made in her testimony, and I know all of us are experiencing this, our metrics are up right now. I We're seeing people coming back from COVID and our metrics are up. And I use a figure of with our Wi-Fi usage. We've seen a 51% increase in the people utilizing our Wi-Fi. That's based on the extended service that we give for people to be able to take advantage of that. But we see our program services uh numbers going up. any type of cut or even a threat of a cut then impacts that as well because then people wonder what's going on or our waiting lists get longer and longer which is one time good because people are coming to us but then meeting that demand is not good because the money's not there or the threat of the money is not there and it doesn't allow us to plan and our goal is to make sure we empower our team members to plan appropriately knowing their particular neighborhoods. So all of those things have an impact as far as services are concerned and the impact of any type of cut on the services that we've been providing. >> Um if I may chair, thank you. I just have one other question which um you've sort of already answered so it's a a great segue. Um but according to the PMMR, participation in programs has increased. if you can each maybe just talk about which types of programs are experiencing the most growth and how libraries are prioritizing programming to meet community needs. Um, and then I think what you've answered and I I'm sure that the other two folks will agree with your sentiment um that uh does the current preliminary budget allow you to sustain your current level of programming or will communities see fewer events and educational opportunities though you've already alluded to. um a cut that would uh threaten those programs. Thank you. >> Yeah. Um certainly um any cuts of this magnitude would definitely have an imp impact on the on the quantity of programming that we would offer. It's just sheer logic. You're not open as many hours, you don't have as much staff, you can't offer the same level of service. um sadly, but our business is very labor intensive and um and and being thinly staffed um just doesn't isn't sustainable uh is really the problem in terms of um which programs are um seeing a surge. Um I think uh our focus has certainly been in outreach services um services to the immigrant communities um services to you know zero to five is sort of our bread and butter. The other focus that we've really um been um very disciplined about maintaining is on teens. We believe that um the programming if we get it right in the libraries that we offer to teens is a lot healthier than what they might be attracted to um elsewhere. And there was a natural rhythm to library use where you would come with your parents or your caregivers when you were small that as things became uh more interesting elsewhere, you sort of drifted away from the library and ended up coming back when you had your own children. and we're trying to reduce the amount of time that we lose people um in their sort of lifelong learning cycle. >> So the Queen's gate count is up by 4%, circulation's up by 25%, e-irculation is up as well. Uh attendance is roughly flat for us. Uh Wi-Fi sessions, as I indicated before, is up by 51%. Computer sessions are up by 17%. So again, it's just the trend numbers are just up and up and up. Uh we're seeing an increase in or we have a mailbook program. The circulation is up for that as well and our visits are up. So I mean we just see the numbers in program services and with ESL uh services that we're providing that's up as a result of both private funding and city funding as well. And as a result of Sunday service, our visits are increasing. So any way you look at it, slice it, the services up. People are saying we want you. We are glad you are there. The demand is there and we want to have the continuity of being able not just to respond to the demand but to increase the programmatic services we provide to meet the needs of the public at large. >> The log logical conclusion I draw is that funding should also be up. >> But go ahead, Tony. >> We are we're in heated agreement. the um can I just add um so again it's worth noting what a li because a library has become now proactive space it also means people are coming and staying longer they're not just coming in grabbing a book they are still doing that >> but they are also staying for these programs >> and these programs have become really uh mainstays we see for instance in our school age children and after school a 25% increase in attendance and 6% more sessions from 25 to 26. College and career pathways, teen programs, as Linda mentioned, um other programs for school age kids, our language access, um ESOL, we have 15 over 15,000 ESOL class seats filled and we have still 1500 to 2,000 names on the wait list. that we want we don't want weight lists. We want everyone to get the services that they are eager to get from us. We live in a moment when the immigrant community in particular is feeling threatened. That's when new and I know you agree I know the mayor agrees absolutely that that means we need to step up not step back so with the funding so that we can provide those services and and be clear to the immigrant community that they are welcomed and essential members of this city and of our community. I I just want to add something which you probably already understand, but there's a common thread. Um, and that is that we are the largest providers of free Wi-Fi in our burrows and that being on the wrong side of the digital divide is not where you want to be right now. Um, and it's only getting worse because with the advent of artificial intelligence, the divide will only widen. And so when we're not opened and people cannot uh bring their own devices or take advantage of our public access computers, it's very limiting and makes living in this complicated city of ours much more difficult. >> Absolutely. Thank you all. Thank you, Chair. >> Thank you, Council Member Maloney. >> Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you all for being here today, for the work that you do and your testimony. A shout out to the New York Public Library whose main branch is in my district, District 4. So, thank you for being here. Um, I had a similar line of questioning to council member Hudson. So, just want to reiterate the importance of libraries in closing the digital divide which plays a key role in economic development too, right? These are people using the internet for economic mobility, for learning. Um and uh I also want to echo the unseen costs of unpredictable funding cycles where there's human capital costs that come with that um with uncertainty, the starting and stopping of projects at a time when uh you know the end result is costing t taxpayers more to deliver less. So it's time to hang up the dancing shoes. Um on the seven-day service, can you clarify how many branches currently operate with seven days, seven-day service or Sunday service? and if there's room to grow in expanding that program. >> Uh in Brooklyn it's 12 >> branches. Um uh and we can't even think about expanding that while we're under threat of curtailing services during the week. >> Everybody's whispering the numbers. >> Go ahead. >> Uh sorry. So um we add added five additional branches for Sunday services. three in the Bronx, one Manhattan, one Staten Island with thanks to the city council. >> And um we uh that's in on addition to Jefferson Market, SAS, uh the Schwarzman building, the Nearos Foundation, Washington Heights, Parkchester, Bronx Library Center, Grand Concourse in the Bronx, and Todd Hill uh in Staten Island. Uh we select these sites based on locations of services, access to public transit, number of visits, uh school proximity, uh all of that. We are eager to do more, but we have to have the funding to do more. It costs us time and a half. Those are because of agreements with our great partners at DC37. So we need to be respectful of that, but also mindful of the costs involved. Um, and I just want to go back, if I may, council member, to what your comment about uh, and Linda's comment about the digital divide. It's just, it's just crazy to think about a million plus New Yorkers still being in the digital dark. I mean, imagine in the pandemic if you didn't have access to schools, you didn't have access to jobs, you didn't have access to the internet at home. Now, you know, here we are, you know, five years or so later, there's still those folks uh, um, uh who are without we we saw an increase of wireless sessions in the libraries jump from 1.3 million in FY23 to more than double that 2.7 million in FY25. The demand is real. We are meeting those in the libraries, but we are all increasingly looking at and my colleagues are working at and we're partnering with HPD and others to find ways to use the libraries capacity to provide broadband, free broadband at a basic level to all New Yorkers. That's what I know the mayor is aspiring to and it's what we are all working towards. The days of digital dark should be long behind us. Uh in response to the question, uh we have eight in Queens. Uh so we added five in addition to our three and then we also had added a Saturday hour in Q Gardens Hills making that 7 days a week. So uh we've seen the numbers as I indicated in my testimony with 32,000 uh people coming through our doors for 7-day services and we love it. Uh but at the same time, I think as Linda and others have indicated, Tony and I have indicated that it's all connected also to the 30.7 U money being baseline because you just can't do seven days service and have that extra Sunday. >> I just want to ask one more question in my last 50 seconds here, but Okay. Right. No, I um I just wanted to explain because maybe it's not evident, but the reason that Sundays are such a sticking point um is that it's um more expensive to deliver service on Sunday and that we staff buildings on a volunteer basis on Sundays. So, it's more difficult to get people to um sign up for those hours. >> Makes sense. Um thank you, chair. Uh on the point of savings, I wanted to ask about the energy efficiency initiatives that were in the preliminary budget. Um the solar panel installations and lighting audits if there is any expected cost savings you see from those investments or if you've realized any savings from those investments in the past. >> Yeah, the city sees the >> we are al always looking for uh being more energy efficient. We live in in a time when that is essential for society, for the globe. Um it is worth noting that the city pays our electric bills. So when there are savings those go to the city which is great but they don't come they don't affect our budget. >> And at Queens we uh have a project where we have installed yet not seen the results yet at Peninsula Library. But also just real quickly like imagine like Tony and Linda uh we're going through our strategic planning process and so energy savings resiliency is a key part of that as well. And so we've been working with Dcast around special funding and also taking a look internally as far as how we become more efficient to so savings. >> I I should have added we're particularly proud of our solar panels at the Charleston Library. So >> us as well Coney Island. >> Thank you very much and thank you chair. >> No problem. Um okay I have a few more questions on staffing and workforce challenges. Does the fiscal 2027 prelim budget affect hiring, retention, and staffing levels across the three systems? And if you could just share your current vacancy rate for each of your systems. So, we are continuing to hire, but taking a very detailed look at the hiring that we're doing. So, we have an internal hiring panel that looks at where our vacancies are and making sure we continue to staff, but again, as indicated before, the 1.5% savings exercise that we're going through may have an impact significantly on that and definitely the 2.5%. As far as the vacancy rate, um 83 right now. >> Our our current vacancies uh at both research and branches is 105. Um and uh you know we are eager to continue to fill those vacancies. Obviously, if we have uh if we face the kinds of cuts that have been proposed and that we know everyone is hoping to avoid, um then we won't be able to fill those vacancies when instead we'll be freezing. >> And and Brooklyn Public Library is at about a 100 vacancies. >> Thank you. I have a question about state funding. So each of New York City's three library systems receives funding from state under formula aid provided to every public library system that meets minimum standards set by NIC. How is the level of state aid level determined? Does it include census data as well as local needs? Yeah, it's by formula >> with the exception of occasional uh particular investments by the governor or by by members of the legislature. It's basically by formula uh and it has seen an increase uh in the last year. Let me get that number. >> Do you know the methodology of the formula? Like do you know >> based upon population? >> Okay, thank you. Is the current level of state aid adequate to meet the needs across the five burrows? No, that's the easy one. No, I mean I mean and then and >> you know there's there's libraries in every municipality in New York State. So >> So our folks collectively have been up advocating as far as more money as well and we see it from the legislature more sign than the governor's office, but then it evens itself out. But the answer is no. In fiscal 2026 enacted state budget, how much did libraries receive statewide? What did each of the systems receive? So, how much got deposited for all libraries across the state? And then how much did New York City libraries receive? >> I I can I don't know the statewide number. We'll get that for you. Uh Madam Chair, I know that the New York Public Library uh received $21.9 million. uh the large in FY25 the largest part of that was or signal largest part of that was through the formula aid but there was also designated aid and other state aid involved. >> We can get you that information. >> Yeah, I think the total is about $103 million for libraries across the state and Brooklyn Public Library received uh just over $8 million. >> And again, it's based on uh demographic, based on population. >> Yeah. And we're around the same as Brooklyn. How much did you say Brooklyn got? Sorry. >> Um 8.7 precisely. >> Oh, okay. I was supposed to say how did you get more but I realized New York has multiple burrows >> like 20 million in the city but you're not just New York. I know. I know. I know. I know. That's why I didn't say anything. >> I know that sounds like 8.7 from from Brooklyn. That's like not right. They're the large b largest burrow. You have three burrows >> and we love Brooklyn and Queens. Let me just be very clear. >> Has 90 libraries to our 62 and >> Listen, I got it. I didn't even ask. I made the correction myself. >> Okay. Um, do you know how much funding the governor is proposing in this current budget for the library systems? Um, and do you have any sense of of what you all are expecting to receive? Uh so we know that the state budget as you know has not yet been enacted and I know the mayor is very conscious of that and that's part of the discussions that are that we look forward to uh positive results on. The governor's proposed budget at the moment calls for a very small increase in expense funding for the three library systems about 200,000 of which would go to the New York Public Library. >> I will have to get you that. >> No problem. Okay. I'm going to turn back to capital needs and infrastructure and I feel like you all alluded to this, but if you could get any more specific that would be helpful around um obviously some of the regular maintenance, the aging and significant repairs um that you have to do yearly. How does the current capital funding pipeline address deferred maintenance and modernization across the systems? Um I I'll start and everyone can feel free to chime in. Um >> the issue for all of our systems um is that they are in some cases we're dealing with Carnegie libraries that are you know date from the early 1900s um and are more expensive to repair to what uh Dennis was referring to as Lindsy boxes which were libraries built during the Lindsay administration which put service in every corner of our burrow. Um but they were all built at the same time and frankly um inexpensively um built and all sort of limited in terms of size and because they were all um coming online at about the same time they're all degrading at about the same time. The deferred maintenance numbers are staggering and when I first came to this job kept me up at night but nobody else seemed to be losing sleep over it because they become they become they become inure to it. So, in Brooklyn, uh, it's over $350 million in deferred maintenance. And the the risk that that puts on us is these, um, un unplanned closings. Um, the the we have over 1.1 million square feet of real estate. And the city is a we're asking the city for 10 to 15 million dollars a year to take care of that um footprint which is not nearly enough to make any kind of um uh you know improvement in the in that number in the deferred maintenance number. And just uh one of the reasons that these projects, these overhauls make so much sense is that if you take a library with a significant amount of deferred maintenance and you decide to do a complete overhaul, you completely wipe out that deferred maintenance and you deliver to that community a library that is in good working condition that is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And perhaps most importantly, you have the opportunity to build an inspiring space where people feel proud and can do their best work and presumably uh will be in good shape for years to come. >> Uh so I'll just add to that. Um it's simply the fact is the current pipeline doesn't address these priorities which is why we're here uh discussing it. It's also why it's so important for us to have a significant investment in the 10-year capital plan >> so that we can plan to avoid these closings. There will still be occasional emergencies that we'll need enough uh additional expense funding to cover the the band-aid approach that that Linda described, though we'd like to minimize those uh because they're so dislocating. But the simple fact is we have century old libraries um that require significant investment to keep them open. It's why we have asked the city council to consider a $10 million lumpsum request of capital to each of the systems to get out of this problem. Um and again these all these issues connect. If we have a branch that has to close, we cannot provide the services that New Yorkers look to us to provide. We need both the expense funding to pay for those services and the capital funding to make sure that we have the buildings in shape and open in which we can provide those services in every neighborhood. >> So, just excuse me to pick up a point that Tony made earlier about the Carnegies and Linda made as well. So we have a story library that's closed now because we are putting major improvement there and also making it ADA accessible as well and Atoria is built probably around 1902 1905 and part of our challenge is that with deferred maintenance it really is deferred. We have a ranking list at Queens as far as those in most need, those in some need, and those in very serious need. And all of those have need and all of those will be impacted. All of those will have, especially the Lindsy boxes, closed down at some point in time. without this significant investment that all of us have talked about, then we're just putting little band-aids on and those band-aids will eventually come off and we can't afford to have that happen. So all that is to say is that the comprehensive money that we will ask for and we continue to ask for is important because it eliminates those deferred needs and putting major projects in place that as Linda indicated will then give the community a library it deserves. >> Thank you. Um, and again, you did allude to this when I asked my original question around your working relationship with DDC to ensure library capital projects are completed on time and within budget, which we know they're typically not on time and oftent times you have to come back to us because they're also not within budget. Um, so I don't know if you had anything else to add and I know this is an ongoing conversation that requires certainly more time than we have at a hearing, but anything else that you might want to add in terms of what you've described as a different way to do business. Um, I know that we're also in the council equally interested in working with you and the mayor's office to figure out how we could address this issue. >> So, I'll respond a little differently than normal in that I think one As indicated in our testimony, this is the perfect opportunity to finally address this problem both with new leadership on the exec side and new leadership and continued leadership on the city council side and really doing a detailed analysis of the why it's taking so long or it takes so long to do it. I mean, I don't know if I've actually seen we know the impact of what happens to us, but a real big breakdown of each city agency that has a hand in delaying this capital work. And then what can be done from a management point of view or even a legislative point of view to minimize the problem if not eliminate the problem that takes place in taking so long. And once that's up there, it brings it in the public. It opens it up for review and analysis and response as far as how it improves the system for specifically for us as libraries because you know when I was chancellor I always use this example. We had one of the most complex projects ever in building three schools up in the South Bronx that was on a rail yard that was contaminated and building an athletic field. We had to remediate that and through the SAS SCA we were able to build three schools and athletic field remediate the ground in a three-year period of time. That's what it should be, not a 8 to 10 year period of time for libraries. So, that's one of my ways of suggesting that we open it up, find out what's happening, and then Linda knows and she's been really focused on this as far as how we then change it around to benefit the libraries. >> Um, you know, we sort of beat this uh to a bloody pole, but I would just add two things that we haven't said about this problem. Um, one is that the city's reimbursement structure is very slow. And so when we are funding our own projects, um, it we end up in Brooklyn having to borrow money to pay our vendors because otherwise we fear that they won't be able to continue the work. So, we're actually paying interest uh on money that we need because the city's reimbursement structure creates a lot of lag time between the beginning of the project and when the money starts to flow. And that would be really helpful to fix. The other thing that I want to add that hasn't been discussed is the impact on morale um to the people who work in branches that are in bad condition who are sort of for forced to do their work day in and day out with one hand tied behind their back because they're chillers in the middle of the floor to you know provide cooling during the summer or because there's leaks in a building that's filled with paper and books. Um, so it it makes it, you know, we want our librarians to love their work and they do. They love their patrons, but we're making it tough in some cases. >> Madam Chair, you've clearly hit a nerve again. So, um, again, with all due respect and gratitude to the work of our colleagues at DDC. Uh, DDC was found was created in the Giuliani administration for particular reasons at a particular moment in history. It has become large and bureaucratic. um it cannot be responsive and nimble in the way that we are describing and I think the track record makes that clear. We have talked I in my position I have talked to three previous mayors about this. Everyone rings their hands. Everyone understands that the rules and requirements uh are for self-managed projects are too ownorous. Um everyone has said we need to revisit this. We've talked about uh passroughs but again the process by which we get reimbursed is not staffed sufficiently. So we end up you know with a lot of paperwork and uh not not getting reimbursed in a timely way creating financial constraints upon us. Uh we need to restructure the design contract as a whole. We've worked with EDC and other organizations that have proven there is a better way to do this. We are eager to work with the new administration who I know are eager to exactly to solve this kind of problem that has been handcuffing us for way too long. There are solutions to this. We would love to roll up our sleeves and find those solutions together with with the with the mayor and with the city council. >> I mean, I think truthfully, and Dennis mentioned this, you know, someone needs to take a deep dive and look at what's going on. I suspect it's no one thing. We can't really know what's happening inside DDC. It's not our, you know, um, organization to run, but my guess is that there are a host of problems there. All working at odds. Um, and, uh, and it's deeply affecting um, our it's deeply affecting our ability to do our jobs. >> And just to add one more thing to what Linda just said in that it's not just DDC. That's why I say we really need to take a look at all the city agencies that have the connection to this OMB as well. It's issues of bonding what it actually means. I mean there are host of intersection of agencies that are involved in this issue and the challenge for this issue and it's a great management project to really tackle to claim. I solved the delays of DDC for the people of New York City. It's a great project for someone to tackle to say these are the ways we need to analyze these issues. These are the intersections of these various city agencies and how it flows downstream to impact the people of New York City. It's a great time to do it and this is the perfect group of individuals on both sides of the aisle to do it. Okay. Do any of my colleagues have any more questions for the libraries? You can ask a question. We have some time. We have a whole 15 minutes before DCLA is supposed to be here. Okay. Well, we've been joined by chair chair council member Stevens. Um All right. Well, thank you so much. I do look forward to working with you all. I do like these project management projects personally. So hopefully we can try to do what we can in the next four years to chip away at this issue. So I do look forward to working with you and thank you so much for joining us this morning and thank you so much for all you do for New Yorkers who rely on the library systems. Thank you so much. >> Thank you for your leadership. >> Thanks. I guess now we'll take a little minute break before DCLA at 11:30. And just FYI, public testimony will be after DCLA's testimony. >> Hold on. Linda's >> always in the middle. >> Always in the middle. You're just noticing that. >> Thank you. >> Great job, guys. Thank you. >> All right. I'm stealing his stuff, though. Are you will I will Okay. Can everyone please have your seat? We're going to start. We're going to start. Please everyone have your seat. Also, please do not approach the DS at any time. And please silent all electronic devices. Please silent all electronic devices. Please have your seat at this time. We are going to start. Thank you for kind cooperation. All right. Good morning again and thank you everyone for joining us today for the committee on cultural affairs, libraries and international relations fiscal year 2027 preliminary budget hearing. I would like to welcome the representatives from the department of cultural affairs, members of the public and my colleagues in the council. As this is my first budget hearing as chair of this committee, I want to begin by acknowledging the vital role that arts and culture play in shaping New York City. Our cultural sector is not simply an amenity. It is one of the defining forces that makes New York the global capital of creativity. Cultural organizations, artists, and institutions are also powerful economic engines for our city. They are driven. They drive tourism, activate commercial corridors, create jobs, and generate billions of dollars in economic activity each year. From our worldrenowned institutions to the small community-based organizations that anchor neighborhoods across the five burrows, the cultural sector supports thousands of workers and contributes to the vitality of our local economies. At the same time, we must recognize that the spaces where culture happens are theaters, museums, rehearsal studios, and community arts centers are essential infrastructure. These are the places where creativity is nurtured, where communities gather, and where the next generation of artists is developed. If we want a thriving cultural ecosystem, we must treat cultural spaces as the infrastructure they are and ensure they receive the sustained investment necessary to survive and grow. Yet, many artists and cultural workers are struggling to remain in the very city they help define. The affordability crisis facing New York City is deeply felt within the cultural community. Rising rents, shrinking rehearsal and studio space, and the high cost of living are pushing artists out of the city and threatening the diversity and dynamism that make our cultural sector so extraordinary. Today's hearing is an opportunity to closely examine whether the preliminary budget meets the needs of DCLA and the broader cultural community. While New York City's arts and cultural sector play a vital role in our econom economy and in the life of our neighborhoods, the level and consistency of investment from the city has not always reflected that reality. I was very disappointed to see that the prelim plan did not include the 30 million one-time funding added at the adoption of the fiscal 2026 budget. I would like to see that funding baseline to appropriately account for the needs of the city's cultural institutions and artists. Today we'll be looking carefully at how the prelim budget supports cultural organizations, whether it provides meaning support meaningful support for artists and whether the city is doing enough to preserve and invest in the creative spaces that are essential to our city's identity and economic vitality. It is essential that the budget that we adopt this year is transparent, accountable, and reflective of the priorities and interests of the council and the people we represent. This hearing is a vital part of this process and I expect that DCLA will be responsive to the questions and concerns of C council members. I look forward to an active engagement with the administration over the next few months to ensure the fiscal 2027 adopted budget meets the goals the council has set out. Um, and before we begin, I will acknowledge my colleagues again, council member, Hudson, and Stevens. And again, I want to thank amazing staff, Cararolina, Aaliyah for their work on this hearing, committee staff, Alejandro and Regina for their support, my staff, Priyanka and Shaki, and I just want to remind everyone from the public who wishes to testify in person today that you must fill out an appearance card, which is located on the desk of the sergeant-at-arms at the back of the room. Please fill out the slip, even if you have already registered to testify in advance. When you are called, please limit your testimony to two minutes. whether you are testifying in person or on Zoom. I'm also gonna ask my colleagues to limit their questions and comments to five minutes. And I also just want to thank the sergeant-at-arms and I will now turn it over to the committee council to administer the oath to members of the administration. >> Good morning. Could you please raise your hands? Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in your testimony before these committees and to respond honestly to council members questions? Thank you. Uh, as a reminder to all of our witnesses, please state your name prior prior to your testimony for the record. Uh, thank you. And you may begin. Good morning, Deputy Speaker and members of the committee. I am Deputy Commissioner Alton Murray from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs here today to testify in regards to the agency proposed fiscal year 2027 preliminary budget. I am joined today by our general counsel Lance Pali and other colleagues from the agency. I will begin today with a review of the numbers from Mayor Mamani's 20 Fiscal 27 budget for DCLA. In FY27, the budget allocates a total of 215.6 million in CD funds to DCLA. This includes 52 million for the cultural development fund, also known as CDF, 52.9 million to cover energy costs for groups on city property. 100.6 million for operating subsidies to cultural institution groups, also known as CIG, 8.2 million for agency staffing operations, and 2 millions for createenyc and other initiatives. Please note these figures do not include any one-time funding allocation such as the city council initiative that are typically added at budget adoption each year. By comparison, at this point in the process last year, the preliminary budget for FY26 allocated 164 million to DCLA, 52 million in the process last year, 52 million less than we currently have allocated for FY27. We look forward to working in the months ahead towards adopting a budget for FY27 that build on the strong record of support for arts and culture that our agency has historically provided. Our FY26 expense budget remained at a record setting 300 million for our agency. This robust funding has allowed us to support affordable, accessible, diverse cultural programs across the city. Recently, we publicly announced the FY27 CDF awards. Awards notification went out in December. This cycle, we saw more than 74 million in grants for public programming to over 17 1,171 cultural organization. More than 84% of these applicants receive awards and 96% of the funded organizations offer free subsidized programming. Over half of these grantees are receiving multi-year awards following the recent reforms that expand elig eligibility for a multi-year support providing greater financial stability to organization across the sector. The FY27 CDF budget also maintained a 15% increase for the city borrow arts councils. Funding also delivered 2.1 million in increased funding to 283 organization in lower income neighborhood together with continued safety net funding for longtime grantees. This initiative reflects the city ongoing commitment to strengthening a diverse, equitable and community rooted cultural sector. I'm delighted to report that the application period is now open for the next cycle of CDF. The agency has worked hard to launch the process as early as possible in the fiscal year so that our awards notification can go out sooner. We understand that this is a priority for the field and for our new commissioner and we want to shout out our hardworking team at DCLA programs unit for moving this process forward. FY27 CDF applications are due April 2nd and webinars are also posted bumping up on March 25th. For anyone who hasn't been able to join a webinar, we've also posted a recording on our website. It's the most informative 90 minutes of information available on our website at citygov at nycv.c/culture. DCLA capital unit has also been hard at work on advancing our capital construction and equipment projects for cultural groups across the city. Requests for funding for projects including funding from the borrower presence office were due on February 19th. All other capital requests are due tomorrow. Eligible organizations are invited were invited to two capital funding seminars earlier this year, both of which were at capacity. We also we are also excited to continue the capital feasibility planning program into its fourth year. The program matches consultants with small organizations to help them define, plan, strategize and strategize successful capital projects. Applications to take part in this program will open in April. The New York City create in place program which is an inter agency collaboration based at DCLA continues to open up new pathways of support for smaller organizations beyond direct funding. As part of this work, the create in place team has organized a series of webinars which starts tomorrow. The webinar series will bring together experts in finance, legal services, government, and nonprofit consulting to provide practical guidance for creative small businesses and nonprofit arts organization. Participants will learn about strengthening organization capacity, accessing capital through grants and financing tools, and connecting with proono legal services tailored to the creative sector. If you're interested in joining an upcoming webinar webinar, visit nyc.gov/create inplace. DCLA public art team is continuing to bring extraordinary community centered installations to neighborhoods around the city. Last month, they joined partners at the parks department and DDC to unveil the new Charlie Chisum Rec Center in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. This new facility is the first ever rec center in central Brooklyn and features a remarkable permanent installation by artist Vanessa German commissioned by our percent for art program. German's artwork the East Flatbush People's Museum of Love and Wonder is a component of in is a component are installed throughout the center celebrating the people's places and connection that illuminates the community with love and wonder. Through our poet public art and residency or pair program, artists are working with a variety of agencies to bring their creative practice to bear on a range of civil challenges. Our pair with the commission on human rights, Caitlyn McCain, has been working at the intersection of theater and housing policy. She has been leading a series of fair chances performance in areas of Brooklyn where residents are at higher risk of housing dis displacement. Caitlyn is working with both professional actors and New Yorkers directly impacted by the criminal legal system to collaboratively develop this performance. This work dramatized the barriers former incarcerated individual face when seeking housing and rehearses strategies to dismantle them. In partnership with both CCHR and MOM, we're also releasing a series of videos acting out McCain's Fair Chance performances. These are integrated into the city's resources to aid tenants. As you might know, Commissioner Vidge co-ounded the unled pair when it was established at our agencies our agency over 10 years ago and the mayor have expressed admiration for the program. So we look forward to building on the success of Pier in the new administration and continuing to work with artists to explore possibilities of creative practices in public service. DCLA amazing materials for the arts program also continues to foster greener and more affordable arts landscape for our city. Last fiscal year, MFDA provided 4.1 million pounds of materials valued at nearly 17 million to $2,500 members organization, school, and agency across the city. That's an average of roughly $6,800 worth of supplies provided to each member completely free of charge. Recent donations facilitated by MFTA include 50 high-end office chairs donated by Morgan Stanley which went to the Martha Graham Dance Company just this week. A premium valet valet curtain donated by the Met Closter went to Tiatro Lata where it will now be draped over the theat's incredible production. Thanks to MFTA and their generous partners, these highquality donated item avoid a fate in the landfill and instead help arts groups and educator educators stretch every dollar. Tomorrow, March 19th, will also they will also open all night I hear the noise of water sobbing and a solar exhibition featuring recent work by artist Mary Matenley at MFDA's as MSDA's artist in residency. Matenley has unlimited access to MFDA warehouse of donated supplies where she has collected found objects to create the installation featured in our solo exhibition. We hope you can join us for the opening tomorrow or see the exhibition at some point before it closes this summer. We've been delighted to work with the mayor's office and the new administration to both highlight existing and create new opportunities for all New Yorkers to experience the joy and connection that comes from engagement with the arts. In January, Mayor Mandani partnered with the Under the Radar Festival to offer free tickets to the festival performances, ensuring all residents can afford to enjoy the unmatched experience of live theater. He broke ground on the Temple Terrace, an existing new housing development in East Harlem that will also provide a permanent home for Balongo, the Afrolatin Jazz Alliance funded by DCLA. for Black History Month. He worked with the Lewis Armstrong House to offer free tours and joined the Brooklyn Museum for their free first Saturday program. We were also honored to join the mayor to cut ribbon on the restoration project of Weeksville Heritage Center historic hunterfly houses which once anchored the free black community of Weeksville. Together, these show a clear direction that we're excited to explore further with our new commissioner. We want to foster a city where a cultural organization can thrive, where our legacies and heritage are honor, and where every New Yorker has the opportunity to feel a sense of belonging, purpose, and inspiration that only culture can provide. Thank you for giving this opportunity to testify today, and we're happy to take any questions you have. >> Thank you so much. Um, DCLA's fiscal 2027 prelim budget totals $215.9 million, representing a reduction of $83.7 million compared to fiscal 2026 adopted budget. Beyond initiatives previously supported by the council that are not included in the prelim budget, are there any anticipated impacts to the department's programs, services, or cultural organizations as a result of this reduction? Thank you very much for that question, Deputy Speaker Williams. It's great to be here today and to get to have this important hearing about the FY27 preliminary budget. We want to highlight something in response to that question noted in our testimony, which is that we are really proud that our FY27 preliminary budget actually includes more than $50 million more than our FY26 preliminary budget. This reflects the hard work that everybody in this room did, including the council, all of the organizations and advocates sitting behind us, and the department of cultural affairs working in partnership with OM and city hall to deliver a 45 million baseline increase for arts and culture in FY26. We are confident that the money that you have noted that is not reflected in our budget, including the $30 million added at adoption, is going to be part of ongoing budget negotiations over the course of the next few weeks. We look forward to our partnership with the council and coming forward and out of this process in FY27 with an adopted budget that delivers for this sector. >> Thank you. I think I was confused about something that you said. So you said that there was an increase then we see a decrease. You were talking about from last fiscal year. You said you were proud of the budget. Can you explain that again? >> Of course. >> When we were at the preliminary budget last year for FY26, we had over $50 million. >> So you're saying that you're starting with more than you did last year? >> Yes. But it's still a reduction. >> Well, it's not >> from >> FY26 adopted, >> but that's because there will be one time ads and adoption. >> Okay. >> Funny funny uh math messaging you did. Okay. Which programs or initiatives will experience the most significant funding changes as a result of this decrease? >> As noted, there is no decrease. It's just the stage that we're at in the budget negotiation process. We look forward to our ongoing negotiations with the council um and to arrive at a budget that delivers for um for >> Okay, so I reframe the question. What programs or initiatives did you impact last fiscal year that you may not be able to think about right now because that additional money wasn't included as it was last year? >> I understand the question. You're saying if we were not to get $30 million added at adoption like we did in FY26. >> Like I get it. I know it's semantics. We like to say that the money is not there, but it's not that the money's not there. It's that we put it in one time. It wasn't baseline. So, like I get the semantics, but like the onetime money you did something with it, I hope. And so, if you don't get the onetime money this year, what are the things that you use the onetime money for last year that if you don't have it this year will be impacted? >> It was about an even split 15 million for the CIGs and 14.8 million for CDF. >> Okay. DCLA has a budget headcount of 58 in fiscal year 2027 prelam plan. What is the AY's vacancy rate? >> Our agency has budgeted headcount for 58 and we currently have uh 49 people working at DCLA. So we have nine vacancies. >> Does the agency believe it has sufficient headcount to meet the needs of the cultural community? >> Yes. you guys just be lying under oath. But um anyway, just lies. But okay, >> Deputy Speaker Williams, we have the hardest working team in city government. >> I do believe that all city workers are hardworking, but we also know that city workers typically tend to be the most worked workforce as well. And they wouldn't be as worked if there were more people to share in the load. So I get that >> our our agency could always do more with more but we are confident that is like the agency talking point across all agencies. I get it >> to work hard to deliver. >> Okay I'll pause um to go to council member questions. Council member on. >> Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Assistant Commissioner, uh we have heard from Botanical Gardens that receive city council funded community composting support through their obligation plans now that DCLA is pushing to restrict the reimbursements to what it defines as educational expenses only. And this has resulted in the denial or delay of funding for essential operation costs for composting like tools, insurance, fuel for utility, vehicles, and payroll costs. Given that the compost processing is fundamental to any meaningful compost education program, can you explain why DCLA is drawing this distinction? >> Yeah, I think that's a a great question, Council Member, and thank you for for flagging that issue. We've been working very closely with the gardens that received this initiative funding for compost outreach and education over the last many years, but especially it's been a focus over the last two fiscal years. And we've been working in partnership with council finance to really define what the the boundaries are for these funds. Uh and we're happy to continue working with you and your office to see if there are additional expenses that should qualify. Uh but at the end of the day, council of finance has worked with our office to define what the parameters are for your initiative and we are executing based on the partnership that we've formed with council finance. So just to follow up on that, this is you this is not a final determination. And this is something you're working with kind council finance about because composting is very important in the communities especially of course in the botanical gardens. So it's very hard for uh the botanical gardens to carry on these programs if they're not going to be reimbursed for what is um educational purposes. >> We we completely agree. And so it's all a matter of defining the exact scope. I think we can all agree that car insurance probably isn't fundamental to composting outreach and education. Maybe there are certain handheld tools you're describing that maybe come closer to the border. We're delighted to meet with your office and talk about any examples that you think are closer to the border of education outreach um that are currently not being funded and to see if there's something we can do about it. >> Thank you. We will be doing that. Thank you, >> Council Member Maloney, followed by um Council Member Stevens. >> Thank you so much, Chair. Um I wanted to look at uh payments. So, the preliminary mayor's management report indicates that only 70% of operating support payments are made on time below the 90% target. uh what challenges do these delays cause and how do they affect the financial stability of the cultural organizations that you fund and support? >> Yeah, thanks a lot, council member. My understanding is that that particular statistic primarily is about payments made to our CIG institutions and we've looked into this ahead of today's hearing and much of it is just about the process through which the obligation plans are submitted by CIGs. Our team then reviews the um the obligation plans that we receive from each institution. Sometimes there are mistakes or as I was speaking about with council member, maybe something um is an impermissible expense that's listed on an on an obligation plan. So there's some ongoing engagement and back and forth between our CIG unit, which works incredibly hard to review all 39 of these each month, and the institutions. Once they finally have one that can be approved, we process the payment and get them out promptly, but that back and forth can sometimes take a little bit of time. And what are some of the issues that the organizations face as they're kind of dealing with that back and forth? >> Yeah, it's very difficult for the organizations. They're trying to make payroll. They're trying to pay for their programs um and their ongoing operations. So, we are dedicated to working with our CIG institutions to try and speed this process up as best we can. Um and it really is all about this continued engagement dialogue between our agency and the groups to get the paperwork correct and as soon as it is then we can process payments. >> Thank you for that. Uh I also wanted to dig into visitor attendance. The report shows that attendance is declining at cultural institutions in the most recent reporting period. How is DCLA taking this trend into account in the funding decisions and what challenges does this create as we manage reduced city support and also declining attendance at at these cultural institutions? >> Well, I would say that if you look at our last several adopted budgets, our city support has been increasing, but there's no doubt that this is a time of crisis for the field. We're looking at a moment in which, as the Independent Budget Office has noted, over $30 million in federal funding has been taken away from cultural institutions in New York City. We have declining foundation support and private philanthropy and extremely high escalating costs. And that's what really makes this an emergency situation that we at the Department of Cultural Affairs want to ring the bell on. And it's part of why we've been so proud of our partnership with the council to really deliver for arts and culture in our last few budgets. And we're hoping that that ongoing engagement and dialogue is going to result in a budget that all of us can be really proud of for arts and culture. And I think that if we can, we can start to think about and partner with these institutions to ask about what's going on with attendance numbers and to try and make sure that all New Yorkers, visitors, tourists have an opportunity to to enjoy, engage with, and benefit from the wide diversity of arts and culture institutions in New York City. >> Are there any efforts on reversing that trend? >> And sorry, go ahead. >> We're also doing our part to highlight opportunities for free affordable um free and affordable opportunities for New Yorkers to visit institutions. We recently set up a program with the American Museum of Natural History so that New Yorkers who have certain benefits cards can also attend the museum and see special exhibitions for free. So we are out there trying to promote these opportunities and these institutions that they not only are not just always price prohibitive, they are also free to New Yorkers. >> Thank you. That's something I think would be worth investing in. Um, one last question is on uh the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which borders my district. The and as as the chair mentioned, city support in the FY27 preliminary plan is reduced. Um, if you can speak to how this reduction will affect the institution's operations and the impact it will have on public programming, etc., and also how we think about the smaller and more resource constrained organizations that might be disproportionately impacted by the funding reductions. With respect to the Met, uh, the Met is a wonderful institution and a a jewel of public museums throughout the world, a place that is visited and enjoyed by New York City public school students, members of the broader New York City community and a place that people visit from all around the world. Um, we're really proud of our partnership with the Met and their role as a leader within the CIS. Um, we have been working with the Met on a number of capital projects and we're really proud of the work that they've been doing on the Michael C. Rockefeller wing. Um their chiller plants are projects that we've been um supporting with city capital dollars and have been successful projects that we've partnered on together. They have um all sorts of uh landmark preservation uh requests that our office partners on and their ongoing CIG subsidy payments. So, the Met is an institution that we are in touch with all the time. They have a terrific senior leadership team in place at the Met today and I have no doubt that we can continue our partnership to make sure that they continue to be successful long into the future. Um with respect to what would change if they didn't receive this 30 million at adoption uh they would be uh subject to I don't have the exact figure but an equal percentage of that 15 million spread across uh all of the CG. So that's something that I think we'll continue to partner on as we work towards the FY27 adopted budget. Thank you. Thank you, chair. >> Thank you. Um I'll ask a few more questions and then um come back to council member Stevens. I will talk about the cultural institution group. Five new SIGs were added in fiscal 2026 to bring it to a total of 39 SIGs in fiscal 2026. What was the process to determine the operational subsidy for each of the new SIGs? Uh we are so proud of the five new CIGs that joined the cohort in late September of 2025. It was an enormous achievement for our agency uh that had only let in one new CIG in 2019 and very few before then. Was the largest expansion of the CIG since the 1970s. And so just what an achievement for our agency and for the city to be able to provide steady, reliable funding and operating support to these five new institutions, one from each bureau. In terms of their operating subsidy, each one was based on their overall operating budget, their current set of needs, comparing the type of organization to other CGs, and making sure that equitable funding went to each of the five bureaus. How is DCA DCLA working with all of the SIGs to ensure financial stability and workforce retention? I mean, I think that we are working with each of our CIGs and keeping a close watch on their financial stability, most importantly by serving as an exopicisio member of each one of the 39 boards of directors. That's a really good way to get a sense of the financial health of each of the organizations. We make sure that someone from our agency, sometimes the commissioner, sometimes a member of our CIG unit attends each and every one of the board meetings for all 39 of those groups. That's where big fiscal challenges come up. But of course, that's not the only way. We're also in regular dialogue with each of the CIGs. They come to us for administrative support um to serve as a thought partner and we are really glad to play that role. These are critical groups. They're a diverse set of groups and they really help for our overall cultural ecosystem in the city to thrive. Given that the number grew and the current um request from the mayor for each agency to find cost savings, do you have any thoughts on how that would impact funding for the SIGs given that the number grew specifically in FY26 and then now you're being asked to reduce in this new fiscal year? >> Yeah, it's a good question. I I'm not worried about the growth of the CIG cohort having an impact on our FY27 budget. The $3 million allocated in FY26 for the CI expansion has been baselined and so that $3 million will be there going forward. So I I don't worry about being able to support the needs of the new CIGs. As for the remainder of the CIGs, we're very proud of the increase that they got through the $45 million baseline increase. They got 21.5 million baselined in the FY26 budget and so we know that will uh we are of course knowing that that will be part of their baseline uh going forward and we will fight together with the council to to try and make sure that uh that there is a strong ad at adoption that adequately funds and supports the sector. Um, what is I'm turning to the cultural development fund now. What is the proposed funding level for the CDF in FY27 compared to FY26? I don't have that exact figure in front of me. What I can tell you is that just over 74 million was allocated in the FY26 awards. Uh in the um FY27 preliminary plan, 51.96 million has been allocated to CDF. So about 22 million less. >> Okay. We passed that budget though. So I do look forward to hearing about what the proposed plan is for this year. Um, okay. Just a few questions on capital budget and cultural infrastructure and just want to acknowledge that we've been joined by Council Member Brewer. Um, so how many cultural capital projects are currently delayed and what are the major barriers slowing projects? I couldn't give you an exact figure on number of capital projects that are delayed. You know, we work hard on all of the capital projects that are in front of our agency. And uh at the moment, going to see if I can get you the total number of projects that we're currently working on. I think um this also adds to my next question which is the coordination between your agency and DDCA since you don't have any information on the current delay. So if you could just share like what is the nature of the relationship and how do you coordinate with DDC around capital projects for the cultural institutions? >> Yeah, I'd be happy to talk a little bit about that. We are um really thrilled about the close partnership that our agency has with both of the city's capital construction agencies, DDC and EDC. Um both of them are really wonderful partners on these capital projects. Terms of what our partnership looks like um we work with organizations to come up with the scope of a potential capital project that they'd like funding for. They apply to they can apply to the admin to the council and to the burough president's office for funding for that potential project. In each adopted capital budget, they are allocated a certain amount of funding towards those projects. Once a project is fully funded, that's when the process can really start between our agency and DDC. and we can do a managing agency switch to move the project from our agency where it was getting fully funded over to DDC to start with the design and construction process. Uh there are a number of steps once DDC has the project. First they want to really flush out the scope through their front-end planning unit and all the steps that that they take to to figure out what a cost estimate is going to be, how much time the project is going to take to do and they get their engineers and um >> the DCLA staffer though like with DDC along that process. Okay. every step of the way. When that front-end planning report is done, it goes to the DCLA capital project manager who's helping to oversee the project. So, we make sure that we are overseeing everything that is happening. Then, they're going to pick a design company, a design firm that's going to generate the design for the capital project. We are heavily involved in those regular design meetings with the institution that receives capital funding. Uh that can go on for um quite a while as they go through the design process. Once they have a complete design, then they're going to bid the project out and pick a a contractor to build and deliver on the project. With with the contractor, same thing. There are going to be regular construction meetings. Our capital project manager is going to be at each of those meetings, as is the institution, as is DDC. Um, so that's how we do our DDC managed projects. There's a >> DLA has a someone on staff that whose title is capital project manager. >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. So, you were going to give me the information on the number of active capital projects you have and it would be helpful if you also share the number of delayed projects. I mean given that you all based off of what you just said seem to be working handinhand with DDC I think that your agency should also have the number of delayed projects as well. Yeah, I think the question would be what the definition of a delayed project is, but what I can tell you is we have 390 active capital projects with 212 organizations. >> You know, I'm I have like a few projects. one is being managed by DDC. It is not a cultural institution, but from what I know from the parks department and DDC is like they typically will say this should be done by fall 2026. And so for me, so we're clear on definition if the project is still in design after fall. If they say design should be completed, they at least give those timelines as I've seen. I don't know if DCLA runs the timeline process different with their cultural institutions, but from what I've seen from the projects in my district, they typically will say give a timeline rough estimate. They don't give an exact date, but they'll say by fall 2026, design should be completed. So to me, so we're on the same page about like what I would define as a delayed project. If they're still in design after fall 2026, then that to me becomes a delayed project. So, if you could get information based off of my definition on delayed projects, I think that would be helpful out of the 390. >> Thank you, Council Member. We will. >> Okay, I'll turn it over to Council Member Brewer for questions and then Council Member Stevens. >> Thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Um, just I know that um there are other organizations that are SIGs, but we just don't have the funding to bring them into the family. is that do you know how many other organizations would be part of SIGs if in fact the funding was there and I just wanted to know how much it would cost to bring you know South Street Seapport uh Chinatown's museum etc they're all on city land >> so what would be the general number and what would be the cost because obviously I would love to see them be part of the SIG family >> completely uh so we weren't thrilled to to grow the CI cohort by these five new members last year. >> I know it only too well. I wasn't thrilled with the Bronx group that's really from Manhattan. Keep going. >> Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. >> I'm telling you like it is. >> The Bronx Children's Museum is very much a Bronx group. >> No, I'm talking about the Manhattan. It's really in the Bronx. Go ahead. >> Is a a theater in Manhattan. >> Yes, I know. But they do a lot of work. I keep going. I want the whole list. >> Okay. I don't have my list the full list. I know it's >> I know the list. I want to know what you have. Go ahead. >> We call that set of groups the energy coalition right? >> Groups that are on city-owned property but are not members of the CIG. Um so that that set of groups is where we pulled from to identify these new CGs. And as you're saying, the the key is funding and whether the group is an appropriate new ad to the CIG cohort. Um, it also is a substantial amount of work within our agency to attend all the board meetings for five new groups. If we were to add all of the additional groups on um on city owned property as cig, it would add additional um workload and we may need additional capacity to to do that. >> Okay. >> So I I think you're right. The the total set of groups it's under 10. >> Okay. 10 to be added if there was the funding and the capacity and so on is what you're saying. >> I'm saying okay they're >> And do you have some sense of how how much that might cost just generally? Obviously, it's power, light, and staffing, I assume. >> So, well, the the heat, light, and power we're already paying for, right? >> Because they're members of the energy coalition, >> but not the operating and some of the other cost. >> Exactly. >> So, to give you a rough estimate, we brought on five new members, >> right? >> And we got $3 million added to our baseline to support those five new groups. So, that that gives you a rough >> six million. Six million. That's not very much money to put in groups that could desperately need it and would benefit economically to the city and to the cultural community. Six million. Okay. We need $6 million for that. Um the other question I have just in terms of we love the groups of course that um end up in CDF in terms of their amazing capacities and interests and um how many do you have a sense of how many get left on the table don't get funding should get it's all a funding issue. I don't think anybody can say that these groups that apply aren't fabulous from my experience anyway. Um, do you have some I just wish we had more money for cultural. I think we all need more money for everything, but cultural in particular in my opinion. So, what would be, you know, how many get left behind? I've sat on those panels, so I know them well. Do you have some sense of how much is left on the table? I guess budget-wise, more than numbers. Um, in so many cases, I know Manhattan has the most uh in terms of the panels, etc., etc. Um, Brooklyn thinks they're big, but Manhattan has more groups. I just want you to know that. And more than every other burrow, but we and I want to know. So, that's the idea. How much more money would we need to do a better job of serving more of these fabulous cultural groups? That's my question. So we funded >> we funded 84% of the applicants this year. >> Okay. >> And and it's not just the money factor, it's also the quality of the >> correct. I agree. >> So more we can do more if we had more money. This year we had an increase in budget. So we had brought in more groups. But it's based on the percentile, their score and the number of applicants. >> Okay. But what I'm I know some of them don't fit the bill. I've seen the applications. My staff sits on the uh panel and does a review very religiously, but do you have some sense of what you know it's hard to say not every group is up to par, but for those that are because there are some left behind that are fabulous and you feel terrible about telling them there's no support for them. Do you have some sense if you had X dollars what would be helpful for some of these groups? I mean, I know that's a broad question, but we're all trying to come up with some budget and darn it, cultural needs. You know, they really do need more. Go ahead, >> Council Member Burr. You are not going to get any fight from us about >> I know, but I'm trying to get some culture needs more funding. >> I got one. I got a $6 million number for six, but I have some sense for the groups for the CDF. >> We did not say six million. We gave you a >> I got six million out of it. I can do three plus three. I know how to do that. We would need to look at the operating budgets. >> I know, but that's a ballpark. It's a ballpark. >> Get a sense. >> Okay. How about for the for the >> CDF? Again, I want to emphasize what our deputy commissioner just said. >> It we have a competitive grant making process. Correct. And part of how we're able to use a grant mechanism instead of a procurement mechanism is because of that competitive process. We prioritized funding as many groups as possible in FY26, which is part of how we got to funding 84% of them. That's a really high percentage. >> No, it some of them didn't get as much as they got the year before because funding concerns are there. Well, so >> the funding grew by we had an extra 14 million in in the FY26 budget for um CDF that we didn't have in um in FY25. So the pot was significantly bigger. That's how we were able to spend 74 million. Instead, what changes and part of those fluctuations are based on the score that each group receives through that competitive panel process. And so sometimes even a group that does phenomenal programming just has a year where the the application is not as strong as it was the year before or two years before that. Okay? And that's part of why we have our program officers going out into the field, doing site visits, meeting with the groups, answering questions that they have about how to strengthen their application from the prior year. That's how groups can get more. >> So what's the to maybe it's here. What's this total for CDF? What is that panel total that they can spend for the panels? >> The panelists don't get to pick the amount of money. >> No, I know that, but I'm saying what is the amount that you allocate for CDF? What is the amount that you allocate for all of that? What is it? >> 74 million. >> 74 million. Okay. >> That's what we were able to do in FY26. >> Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Council Stevens. >> Oh, thank you. I guess you guys remembered I was here. I have some questions. Um, you know, just to kind of piggyback off of what Council Member Brew was saying, although she did take some shots at the Bronx. I I'll let it slide though. Um, >> you don't have to let that slide. I let it. She knows how I feel about Manhattan. >> Um, but I think, you know, and I've said this to a lot of the Sigs and things like that. Um, they're a gener gener a city revenue generator and they don't act as if they are. People typically come to New York City to go to cultural institutions. And so, you know, they are necessary for the city to thrive. And sometimes, and I'm saying this to the organizations, you guys don't act in your power. Because I've said this multiple times, if you guys all say, "Hey," then we won't open for the Christmas break. We won't open spring break, that is millions of people who won't have places to go. And so until you guys start acting your power, we can't either because it is true everything council member Brewer is saying, you guys are the heartbeat of New York City. And so I think it's important that, you know, we're funding these institutions in that way so that more people can come and just see the beauty of it. But I'll jump into some other questions. I'm going to talk a little bit about workforce development. Um, and I believe I asked this question before. Um, and I I guess the answer wasn't necessarily adequate, but New York City is the artistic and creative center for the country and in the world. And in 2022, the creative economy employed an estimated 274,000 people in New York City. Yet, the city approach to workforce development and career training programs leaves the culture sector out. How did DCL DCLA plan to support greater workforce development initiatives and help launch careers in the arts? >> So, council member, we have this fantastic program called the community culture core and it's a program that allow New York City college students to get real life work experience. We support this program because we believe it is a vital path to careers for folks from underserved community. We continue to highlight and support other nonprofits that have workforce development such as theater roundabout theater who do careers in non-traditional arts um jobs. So we we are out there promoting our program and supporting and funding other organizations who are running these job programs. >> Yeah. And and I think I said this before where we really need to get in the habit of like exposing young people to all forms of not just the art but the behind the scenes. um work as well because so often young people don't know what they don't they can't see. So if they don't know about jobs or being a curated and things like that, they don't know. And so we really need to get into a place of like having young people exposed to those things. And I think that those those two things you mentioned sound great, but how is that enough? How does how does a young person in the Bronx know about those programs? How do they understand getting into them? And so for me it's thinking about how do we continue to broaden that conversation around making sure people are exposed to different forms. And another critique that I typically have is even when I'm looking at a lot of the culture institutions, there's a lot of people of color working in non-management positions. How are we having pathways to people and young people to get into these leadership role in a lot of these cultural institutions? And I would love to see being more being done in that in that realm. Yeah, there are other cultural institutions that are doing the work like WCS program in the Bronx. So, they have a workforce development program and the SY program. So, there are >> So, don't get me started with the SYP program, you know, nobody knows that better than me and that is not necessarily a gateway because yes, we have places like the Bronze Zoo who has takes in more kids than most places, right? I think you what are you guys up to? 1,900 students that they're taking in, but those are typically folks coming in doing some of the lower level things. And so that's a great way to work at our art institution, but like those numbers don't reflect what I'm talking about actually creating a pathway into um the workforce. >> I I completely understand and we need to do a better job of recruiting organizations that can fund workforce development programs. Um the current administration will also be looking at opportunities and ways to engage high school students in cultural activities. So that should open the path for more career and and enlightenment to what's out there. >> And I'm happy to work with you on that as you're rolling those things out to be a thought partner because I do think that it's really important that we're exposing these young people to the different opportunities and not just the traditional roles that we see. Um I'll move on to the next question. in New York City arts education paying um paying for professionalism um reports in New York City teaching artist compensation and employment and roundts found that teaching artists in New York City face significant financial challenges with many earning incomes that are alarmingly low alarmingly low relative to the city's cost of living. The report emphasized that the need for sustaining multi-year funding and difficulties for reimbursement based on contracting and rigorous procurement policies that prevent substantial pay rates um and inconsistent year-to-year funding. How does DCLA support more substantial salaries for teaching artists? And what is DCLA doing to ensure that C CDF and city council discretionary funding is distributed faster and in more consistent in a more consistent manner? >> So there are two questions there. >> Yes, two questions. >> So we'll answer the second. What are we doing? Um this year we announced released the application a month and a half earlier than we did previous year. So, we're trying to work towards getting back on a more normal cycle where we do the announcements in early fall. We continue to work with our team to figure out ways to streamline other opportunities, creating more multi-year grants so we don't have as many applications and grantees to review. So, we are continuing to figure out ways to continue bring the timeline back to the way it was in the past. It's a cycle. So if something must end for something to start, so we're figuring out ways to get it quicker and sooner and faster. So in a few years, we'll be back on a more normal cycle. Um the second question about repeat the question. >> Um well, you were talking about the discretionary funding, so that was the first question that you probably want me to repeat. Um how does DC DCLA um support more substantial salaries for teaching artists? We are very much aware that outside of teaching artists, all artists are really, really, really challenged to live in this city because of the affordability crisis. We try to fund and work with high performing organizations who hire teaching artists. We do not have control over the salaries of teaching artists. The organizations are independent entity who apply for the grants, but we raise awareness that to the affordability crisis. We try to encourage opportunities and provide more opportunities for artists to earn a living in New York City. >> And even to go back to the procurement funding that you were talking about, you know, I think it's really important for us to make sure that we're uplifting that. We really need to make sure we're investing in Mox, right? And that's an organization that I think we are always so passionate about talking about um getting the money, but getting access to the money has been a real hindrance. And so, you know, I think we have to continue to highlight and I think DCLA folks actually appreciate you guys a lot more than other agencies um throughout New York City because you get money out the door a lot faster. But I think even saying getting out faster doesn't necessarily mean timely, right? And so it is still it's it's a major concern of mine and something that I've been really passionate about of thinking about how do we actually hunker down and really kind of like remove some of this red tape that we have. And just in the last question, um it finds that accessing a critical critical benefits um and medical insurance and retirement plans are lacking across the field. While 88% of the teaching artists reported having health insurance, only 6% received it through employers. Um would DCLA consider supporting a um benefit pilot for freelance and self-employed artists as described in the Center for Urban Futures Creative New York City's report. our new commissioner highlight that's one of our important initiative to explore. It's a conversation. We do understand housing and health are such vital to artist thing in New York City. So in the few coming months we'll be having those discussions and conversations. One of the first things our commissioner mentioned that she's interested in exploring that as an option. As someone who has been underground working with artists, she's keenly and highly aware that this is necessary. >> Well, I look forward to hearing more details about that as that is being rolled out. Thank you, >> Council Member Lewis. >> Thank you, Chair. Good to see you, Deputy Commissioner Murray and Lance. Um, I have two questions. Uh, given the significant drop in cultural programs funding from 106 106.8 million and FY26 and 53.9 million and FY27. How is DCLA planning to mitigate the compounded impact on nonprofits that may simultaneously face federal funding cuts? And is there a contingency strategy or reserve funding to prevent service reductions, layoffs, or closures among smaller community-based nonprofits? >> Yeah, I think it's a a great question, one we think about a lot. We are hoping to work together with the council to build an equitable budget that delivers for arts and culture in New York City. And if we do that, we're hoping to make sure that there is sufficient funding for the field so that no one is feeling cuts in FY27. It's obviously a very difficult fiscal environment right now and I think that's going to be part of the ongoing dialogue through the budget process is how we can work together to ensure the best possible budget for DCLA and FY27. >> We look forward to you guys working with the chair on that. Um, my last question, we have consistently heard from nonprofit providers, they're probably here in the room, that cultural the cultural de development fund application and reimbursement process has become increasingly burdensome, particularly for smaller organizations without dedicated administrative staff. What specific changes is DCLA make making in the budget to streamline the application, contracting, and payment processes? and how are you ensuring that smaller community-based organizations can equitably access funding without being disadvantaged by administrative barriers? And in your response, if you could just include the timeline for the upcoming panel and the awards component. Thank you. >> Okay, >> thanks. >> I think I've got it. That was like a four or five partner. Um, at the beginning it's about are we willing to make any changes to the application, not for the FY27 process because that application's already been launched, but for FY28 to take a look at whether there's a way to curtail some of the questions to make it a shorter application so that it would be more accessible to smaller arts organizations that maybe don't have a grant writer on staff, right? and and can't deal with that burden. I think it's a terrific question and one that our agency really needs to think about and look into much more closely. So, I think that process would have to start almost immediately because it takes a very long time to change the application the way that it's loaded into our electronic platform. >> And so, I can commit to you that we will be having those conversations and look into that issue promptly. In terms of the contracting issue, uh, and getting the money out the door, that's one where, as Council Member Stevens was just highlighting, DCLA operates on a a grant model as opposed to a procurement model, right, which actually gets 80% of our funding out the door immediately. Um, as opposed to waiting for completion of services and then applying to Mox to to get that money back as a reimbursement from the city. So, that's a tool that we're using to try and get our money out very quickly. In exchange for that, there is a certain amount of paperwork that we need, including an executed grant agreement. There are conflicts of interest forms that need to be filled out, um, and another a number of other forms. We need those so that we can make sure that we are adequately protecting the city funding and making sure, um, that we are doing all the appropriate things we need to as an agency to make sure we never put our ability as an agency to use grant making in jeopardy, >> right? You never want to compromise that, but it would be good and I think we've had these conversations in the past to maybe have like a dedicated staffer or a rep that could walk nonprofits through the process. And although you may you made mention that FY28 may be the time to start the process, I think in FY27 you could start thinking about some ways um in the meantime. And if you could just share a little bit about the panel component like when is that starting? >> It should start early June, early summer. Um to go back to another point, so we have also moved a lot more organizations to multi-year grants. So it reduces the burden of the process on our nonprofits as well as for our employees. Um our program officers also are a great resource for underserved communities to make sure that they're part of the process. Last year they went out to community board meetings to talk about the process and they are very helpful in helping shepherd organizations who if they do not receive funding year they've reached they reach out to them to give them counsel on how to make their their application more viable for future funding. So we're doing our part to just to be on the ground to talk to small organization grassroots organizations going out going out to communities to give them insight into how they can be more competitive. All right. Thank you, chair. >> Thank you. Um, just a another question on the capital stuff. Pull it up. Okay. Capital construction process has been plagued with inefficiencies and in recent years slowed to a crawl with many projects taking two years to simply get underway and an average of 8 to 10 years to complete. How is DCLA working to improve the capital process for cultural organizations? What is the average timeline for a capital process? We're saying 8 to 10, but wanted to know if you have more accurate information on the average timeline for a capital process. I don't think we have the stat in front of us to tell you the the current average length of a DDC capital project >> start to finish. But what I can say is that these projects do take a long time. Part of why they take a long time is that the city dollars that are put into them come with a lot of other burdens and requirements. and that's to protect the bonds that back city capital investments. So, we understand that part of that is always going to be the city's capital process. Other parts of it are things that we are continually in dialogue with other city partners about trying to identify ways to improve timeline delivery um and satisfaction of the cultural partners who are the recipients and the ultimate client for any of these projects. I think we have a lot more work to do. I think that it is really exciting uh to be partnering with leadership in this new administration as we think about where there are some key tools and areas in the process that um that may be able to speed things up. I'll highlight just one for you that that may be um a note of optimism, which is that DDC was able to get legislation passed in the state budget last year and that new state law gives them additional tools that they are now deploying, including something called CM build. And um and we've already started deploying this with uh at least one cultural group, and we hope to bring it to more soon. which does speed up timelines, decrease cost, and increase the strength of the project delivery. This is a tool that DDC was fighting for for many years and took a big big push to get it passed by the state. And I think that as DDC keeps looking for these additional um resources that other construction projects not part of the city have at their fingertips, they're going to see even more ways that they can increase those timelines and improve project delivery for organizations. So, I again want to thank all of the dedicated public servants at DDC who work with us so closely every day and tell you that in light of that gratitude, we still are talking to them, thinking with them, and trying to identify capital process changes that can increase the speed. >> Thank you. Uh just um pivoting to the chief savings officer. So, was your chief savings officer given any targets by OM? Um, and I know you have like a few days to submit it, but if you can share with us um any savings that this officer has found and any potential impacts to the AY's performance. >> We do we do have a target for 1.5% for this year and 2.5 for next year. We're in discussion with OM and the um on where we land and we've identified things but there's a continuing conversation. We expect to have our submission on February March 20th which is when it's due. >> Okay. So you're not able to share with us. >> You're not able to share. >> Okay. Um does DCLA have a long actually let me ask this other question was this relations to this. has DCLA planned to implement well I kind of asked this but who can you just share actually who is the cost savings officer in the agency >> I currently holds that role and I work with our finance team >> so you're the CSO >> I'm the on record >> okay >> but there's a team that is actually analyzing okay >> um the cost savings >> okay and have you asked DCLA about the $30 million that wasn't baseline from last year. Have you made any requests on your end to OMB? >> We always advocate for more particular the 30 million. We >> we haven't had that conversation yet. >> And do you have a long-term strategic plan for cultural investment in New York City? I know sometimes it feels yeartoear for us, but we know, you know, agencies do plan. >> We've worked on a racial equity funding plan. So we have that but the budget is you know every year it's negotiated so we can't really plan it out further than that. >> Okay. Um I think a few council members or council member Brewery you have another question >> quickly and thank you very much. Uh we know that some s participate in the city health plan. It's a huge benefit to those that do and it doesn't cost the city more as I understand it. Are you scheduling a meeting with the Office of Labor to open this opportunity to all SIGs, including the new ones? Those are the ones I've been asking. >> Repeat the question. >> Sure. The city health plan, which is a major benefit to the SIGs that are in it, and apparently it doesn't cost more for New York, but apparently the newer ones, the newer SIGs do not have the opportunity to be in that plan according to my information. And I just didn't know if you're going to be meeting with the office of labor, city labor, to make them give them that opportunity. >> Yeah, it's it's a great question, council member. We have been in touch with OLR to talk to them about this issue. Actually, not just for the five new CGs, but there are a lot of other members of the cohort that are interested in receiving additional information, learning about what the cost would be, the potential savings to the organization and to their employees. So, we have been in dialogue with OLR and um and we'll continue to be in touch with them to try and get more information and figure out how these groups can do the analysis and then make the determination whether they'd like to apply and join. >> So, it would be a cost issue for the city, for the group, would it be shared? How does that work? Just curious. >> The group needs to provide a great level of detail about the potential employees, right? Yeah. what their salaries are and the benefits that they choose and then OLr is able to give them an estimate of okay this is what it might cost your organization >> to join so it's not about a cost to the city as you said it's much more about >> working collaboratively with the groups to get the information tool are to tell the groups exactly what they need to provide >> it's probably less expensive than trying to go out in the open market though which is what we're talking about okay thank you very very I'll turn over to Council Member Maloney for questions. >> All right. I wanted to ask a question about annual adjustments. Um, so costs overall for our cultural institutions continue to increase, such as increases negotiated through collective bargaining agreements and inflation. Would DCLA consider annual cost adjustments year-over-year to support staff wages and increase costs connected with inflation for arts and cultural organizations similar to the overall increases that happen year-over-year for other city agencies? >> It's it's a great idea and we really thank you for the question. We would have to be in touch with our colleagues at the Office of Management and Budget about any type of mechanism like that that would impact the city's budget. But it's a a great idea to make sure that arts and culture organizations could rely on stable, reliable increases in their funding. Um, again, just a matter of the mechanism and whether the city has the resources to support it. >> Thank you for that consideration. Um, I also wanted to touch on arts education. So uh a report showed that 900 plus cultural organizations partnered with schools in the 2024 to 2025 school year which is a big increase and 23% of schools reported use use of funding from arts organizations for arts education. How does DCLA plan to continue to foster arts partnerships with our city's public schools? We continue to fund organizations that are working in schools and we try to be robust with that funding and if they write a great application they get increased funding. We also have our materials for the arts program that supports arts um organizations and school classrooms that allow students to go to materials for the arts and have um on-site educational programming. But what's really great about materials for the arts, it offset cost by providing materials that teachers can use in classrooms. So it's a prong of being very favorable to arts education programming for organizations that submit for funding and encouraging classroom teachers and arts organizations to come to material materials for the arts to get materials so that they can offset cost. Council member Stevens. >> Um I just had a question um because myself and Deputy Speaker had a a um convening a couple weeks ago with some young people and they explained how they often are not feeling welcomed in places and spaces throughout New York City. Um and as a result, we've seen things like these teen takeovers that's been going on throughout the city and and having large groups. Um, one my I guess my first question is how are you guys working with um organizations to make young people feel more welcome because apparently this is something they are saying and so we need to be responsive and so is that something that you guys have been thinking about and what is that outreach look like? I know some places have like teen nights and things like that but honestly it was really heartbreaking to hear these young people talk about not being able to have access into places and a lot of spaces saying that you have to be 18 years and older and they can't come. So this generation of teens are really feeling disconnected. So how are you working with like these organizations to kind of make this a more welcoming space for young people, especially teens? >> We continue to work with our partners such as um American Museum of Natural History to create opportunities for organizations to uh individuals to have access, families or or high school students with IDs to have access to these programs. We also fund programs such as school culture that works with families to get them into institutions. We understand how important it is. I personally remember the first time I went into a cultural institution and trying to own that space. So, it's a issue that we are aware of. Um, we feel that pain, but we need to continue to fund organizations that bring grassroots organizations and marginalized community into the spaces and figure out opportunities where we can highlight opportunities for them like Teen State, the Met that they can go and own these spaces. >> Yeah, I really would love for us to start working with organizations to to think about a plan. Um because again, like I said, it was heartbreaking to hear from these young people of feeling not welcomed um in places just across the city and and that's a problem for me. Um and and obviously the working with the Met, that's one or um institution, but I think how are we making sure especially um institutions that we're giving public money to are being a service to the public? And you know, I've been yelling about this, teens need to be a part of this affordability conversation. And that's not being clear to me um in any city plan, right? We we're really forgetting about the young people. And so I just wanted to think about that as we are thinking about this budget and how are we looking at it from a lens of adding young people into those conversations and making sure that organizations and institutions that we're giving money to are also thinking about how are we going to include them in these spaces and not just families. I'm talking about teenagers because even look looking at the unemployment rate for teenagers between the ages of 16 and 21, we're at 21% and black teenagers in specifically, we're already at 23% of young people between the ages of 16 and 23. So, we're clearly missing the margin on this. And when we're talking about this in budget, I just want us to make sure that we're thinking about that and being intentional about including them in our planning process because honestly, it does not feel that way throughout anything in the city. and I feel like I'm always having to be the waste of reason. So, I'm bringing this up so that we can think about how do we move forward and again see me as a thought partner and would love to work with you on thinking about how to move forward with that. >> Thank you, Chair Stevens. Um just a few more questions before I conclude um this portion of the hearing. So in fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026, the data showed that zero organizations received cultural development fund payments at the start of the fiscal year. Why are CDF payments consistently delayed at the beginning of the fiscal year? And what steps is DCLA taking to ensure organizations receive their funding in a timely manner? >> Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker Williams. in terms of why no organizations received their funding on July 1. We can't allocate the funding until we know how much money we can devote to CDF. So, we wait until we have budget adoption. We then know what the total pool of funding is and then we can distribute it. As Deputy Commissioner Murray has noted today, um we have made great strides to increase the timeline, including that this year's FY27 application has already launched a month and a half earlier than it did in FY26, and we are making every effort we can as an agency to improve the timeline and make sure that it's even earlier in FY28. So you have our commitment to be a partner and a collaborator in this effort to make things start earlier, but we will never be ready on July 1. The the best that we've ever done is sort of as Deputy Commissioner Murray said in the early fall and that's that's our our target to hit that. >> Okay. Um I have follow-ups but in the interest of time I won't follow up. Um so the PMMR tracks overall funding and participation and does not clearly show how cultural investments are distributed across neighborhoods or community districts. Does DCLA track cultural participation and funding geographically? And would the department support adding a burrow or neighborhood level metric to better evaluate equity and access to cultural resources? So over the years we've had this conversation and what we've done we've looked at the data and what it shows is that funding is done proportionately to the borrow's application. So we try to encourage organizations um and council members you should do this to get as many nonprofits to submit an application. That's how you increase the participation. We also are out there trying to encourage and educate our nonprofits so that they can be more viable um when they submit an application process more competitive >> and is your comment just now that it's proportional anecdotal or do you actually have the data to >> we've looked at the data we've had this conversation for the last >> are you able to share with the council >> not currently but we can get that to you. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um the prelim fiscal 2026 mayor's management report identifies that 39% of SIG visitors use the free admissions policy to visit the institutions. Can you disagregate these admissions by each individual SIG? Can you explain the method for how this metric is collected? And last but not least, does this include all ticket sales or just in person at the counter? We'll look into that, Deputy Speaker, and get back to you. >> Okay. I like to ask data questions. So, like, you should let the commissioner know because I don't like when you guys come to hearings and not have the data and then we have to follow up because it's not transparent to the public because we're asking these questions on the record for the public so they can get the information. So, I do hope this is like my first hearing, so you know, I plan to be trying to be nice, but just in general, I really hate when agencies don't have the information. And if I wasn't also pressed for time, I would legitimately sit here and wait until you guys can present the information, but I won't do that today. But it is within me to do that in future hearings. If I ask a question, you guys don't have the information, that you get the information to us as soon as possible. Um, can you disagregate this metric um by how many New Yorker New York City residents pay the suggested donation and how many New York City residents pay what you wish and how many New York City residents receive truly free entry. Are you able to disagregate that? No, you have to get back to me. Has DCLA ever received complaints from New Yorkers that they were denied entry because of refusal to pay suggested donation amounts? And what has happened with these complaints? So we probably cannot aggregate the pay as you wish and how many because we don't I don't think the museums do track it that way. Um so there is no system to aggregate that. >> Yeah, I think that's why we're asking the question because based off what we told they don't maybe some do but we heard that it's not all. Um and maybe it's something that DCLA should require from these institutions if some are doing it but some are not doing it. Um, some of the 39 SIG members don't pay rent to the city of New York despite being on public parkland. Correct. Yes. Can you quantify the value in unpaid rent by these SIGs and share that with the committee? Our objective is to help support all arts and culture institutions that apply for DCLA funding. We're not looking charge rent and add a rent burden to institutions that are already struggling so much. So, we can absolutely get that number to you, but we would not want to add an additional burden to institutions that already are doing so much to support our communities and having so much difficulty doing it because of the very difficult financial climate that they're working in. >> Yeah, I don't think anybody on this committee disagrees with you. I think we agree with you, but I do think it's important to have information and I believe as it stands internally in the council, we don't know that information. So, if you all have quantified that number, it would be helpful to just share with us and the public should know as well. But I don't think anyone here on the committee wants to um incur any additional costs to the institutions who we are now also asking where is the additional $30 million that has not been accounted for and as you testified to primarily will go to the SIGs and the CDF fund which we want to see restored. So I don't think that we would um be counterproductive to ourselves and make any suggestions that these institutions should incur any additional costs. Just want the information. Okay. Anybody else have any other questions? Okay. Thank you so very much. I look forward to um formally meeting the new commissioner. Um congratulations to her and look forward to being um partnering with you all to advance and address many issues that have come up at this hearing and our previous hearing. And I hope you have a great day. You too. Okay, I now open I'm going to open it a little early, but I now open the hearing for public testimony. I remind members of the public that this is a formal government proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times. As such, members of the public shall remain silent at all times. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify. No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the Sergeant-at-Arms for inclusion in the hearing record. If you wish to speak at today's hearing, please fill out an appearance card with the Sergeant-at-Arms. If you have not already done so and wait to be recognized. When recognized, you will have two minutes to speak on today's hearing topic, the fiscal 2027 prelim budget. If you have a written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit for the record, please provide a copy of that testimony to the sergeant at arms. I will now call the first panel. Deborah Phillip, maybe I should say first and last names. Deborah Alman, Phillip Maluso, George Oaken, John High. >> Are they coming back? >> Are they in the building? Oh, okay. So, then we have to go to another panel. Um, Ammani Wilford, Enrique Mandia, Lillian Young. Well, David Patterson, Emily Drabinski, correct me when you come speak. I want to make sure I'm saying this right. Hal Shriveie, Lauren Kito. Yeah Ammani Wilford. But right now, this is Lauren Kamito, David Patterson, Emily Drabinski, Hal Shrief. >> Yeah. You gonna start? >> Sure. Just say your name for the record before you start. Thank you. Is it? No, there we go. Sorry. Uh, Lauren Kamito. I'm the executive director of Urban Librariansite. Um, so good afternoon. Um, I'm obviously the executive director of Urban Librarians and I'm also a public librarian here in New York City. Um, Urban Library unitites a 501c3 organization that's based in Brooklyn and focuses on supporting library workers in cities across the country and a little internationally um doing trauma support um advocacy and uh professional development. Um, in my work as a librarian, I see firsthand every day how essential libraries are. And I feel a little bit like I've given this testimony 15 times because I have since 2011 I've been coming here. So I rewrote it a little bit because you know um one of the things that I really love about this city and have live loved living here for so long is that New Yorkers adore and use their libraries. Um they speak up for us every year. They come out and talk to you all about why it's important. They come to rallies. And that's really because I think New Yorkers see libraries as part of both the practical support of their daily life and sort of a a joy in their lives as well where they can try this one. Okay, we can do that. um where they can both learn things and have take practical steps to make their lives better, but also find the joy of finding a book with their child or going to story time or discovering a new movie. And I think that right now that's something that we all really need. We're sort of facing an epidemic of both isolation and mental health issues and also, you know, AI generated hallucinated professional journal articles that don't exist. A government registering the domain name aliens of apparently I'm autistic because my mom took Tylenol. Um, what are you gonna do? So, libraries are really a place where we can focus on actual facts and actual information. And that's something that I think the government really should be investing in to build out these spaces of core infrastructure so that we can have like material better materially better lives in our communities and also the joy that makes it worth existing. >> Thank you. Hi, I'm Emily Drabinsky and you pronounced it just right. Uh, good afternoon Dr. Williams and members of the committee. Before we begin, uh, I'm here representing Library PAC. Uh, and before we begin, Library PAC would like to formally recognize and thank you, Dr. Williams, chair, for your dead, steadfast commitment to our public libraries. Your tireless advocacy for the branches within your district and your leadership on library issues citywide have been vital to the communities we serve. We are grateful to have such a dedicated champion heading this committee. It's not often I speak to a government official I know agrees with me, so I'm grateful. Uh my name is Emily Drabinsky. I am a librarian. I am a former president of the American Library Association and I'm associate professor and chair of the school of information studies at Queens College. uh one of the named pipelines for the library workforce here in the city. Today I speak in my role as leader of library pack. We are an independent political action committee dedicated to supporting and advocating for New York City's public libraries. Our mission is to endorse and financially support candidates for local and state office who recognize the intrinsic value of libraries in improving the lives of all New Yorkers. We advocate for a future where our libraries are robustly and equitably funded, ensuring safe staffing levels and consistent operating hours that meet the public's needs across all five bureaus. I'm grateful to be here today to address the significant gap between the mayor's campaign promises and the reality of the current budget proposal. During his campaign, Mayor Mani made a clear historic commitment to public libraries. He pledged to end the budget dance, to ensure baseline funding, and to commit.5% of the city's expense budget to public libraries. Despite these promises, the February financial plan proposes only 492 million for public libraries, a $36 million reduction from 2026 levels. By presenting a preliminary budget that includes a reduction, the administration has kicked off the very budget dance he it once called damaging. This pennywise pound foolish process must change. We look forward to working with you to ensure our libraries can fulfill their potential to be a cornerstone of a more equitable, affordable city for us all. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Hal Shrieve. Um I'm a member of the public and um I have eight years of experience working as a librarian in public libraries as well. I presenting just as myself today because I also want to talk about the campaign work I did on the Mom Donnie campaign. Yes, last year. I was one of thousands of New Yorkers that got really excited about that campaign partly because of the promises around consistent funding to libraries. Um I knocked at least 1,200 doors and got people who were really deactivated excited about the election by talking about library funding. The cuts made under the Adams administration that the city council reversed and um we you know clawed back. uh those cuts were really unpopular with many ordinary people who use libraries, parents and children uh noticed a reduction in new books on the shelves and um the end of Sunday service for those months where we were trying to fight the for that funding back really got a lot of people excited about libraries and interested in making sure those libraries are consistently funded. Um the mayor ran on an explicit promise first articulated in February of the campaign year uh that he was going to commit 0.5% of the city budget to public libraries. Um and like Emily Jvitzky, I am disappointed that that didn't make it into the preliminary budget and that we have to negotiate again uh for that number. I just want to express that that number is still a really small fraction of the overall city budget, but as you've heard from the presidents of the libraries would make a huge difference both in capital planning and consistent programming. Um, and ensuring that New Yorkers have space to go and do the things that they cannot do at their places, whether that's print or stay warm or use the bathroom or read or work on homework. um with the assistance of after school tutors, libraries really are um a cornerstone of our public life. Um and we need to be able to plan yeartoear. >> Perfect timing. Thank you all so much for your testimony. Um and yes, like you, I do hope that the mayor fulfills um at least a few of his campaign promises as it pertains to the libraries. I am optimistic that he will. Um, but yeah, this is just the complexity of campaigning versus governance. It's not always as easy as we we'd like it to be. So, thank you so much. Next up, um, Gonzalo Cash Casales. Oh, Casalis Casal. Oh, Casal. Oh, former commissioner. Oh, important. Let me get that right. Hello. Oh, Ryan Gilliam, Lucy Ston. Oh, I see what type of panel this is. And Kimberly Olsen. Yeah, we also very ghetto in the council. We only have one mic. Sorry. >> Oh, okay. Okay. We have a janky mic. It works. Sometimes it doesn't. So, you know, use as you wish. >> No, you guys. >> Sure. >> Well, thank you, Deputy Speaker Williams and the city council for hosting today's hearing and also happy arts in our schools month. My name is Kim Olsen and I'm proud to represent the New York City arts and education roundt. I'm here testifying today as part of the it starts with the arts coalition calling on our city to prioritize funding and policy change that not only improves arts education in New York City but supports our vibrant robust workforce. The arts are the heartbeat of our great city. Dance, theater, music, visual arts, media, literary arts are a vital engine for our city's economy, cultural identity, and a critical component of culturally responsive pedigogy. Yet, bureaucratic hurdles in contracting, the skyrocketing cost of living, and chronic inequities across our city are stifling our city's most valuable resource, leaving our students and our workforce behind. In New York City, arts education is a cross agency effort, employing a workforce of 11,000 teaching artists and approximately 2,887 in school arts teachers. But our city doesn't make that easy. Contract delays, namely CASA and New York City public schools MTAC contracts mean late or unrealized start dates, lost employment for artists, and lost educational opportunities. Inconsistent funding year-over-year across agencies makes it difficult to build sustainable long-term partnerships between schools and cultural orgs and stable employment for artists. This in turn has a trickle down impact on the workforce where teaching artists only earn a median individual gross income of between 35 to $50,000 a year with virtually no access to health insurance through an employer. As a result, we and through our report, we found that 79% of teaching artists do not feel their work sufficiently supports living in or near New York City. Beyond the grave implications for our workforce, this continues to threaten arts education access and participation rates still rebounding from the pandemic. 31% of middle schoolers meeting state learning requirements in the arts simply isn't acceptable. Unless our city takes action, we're at risk of losing our most diverse and impactful parts of the cultural workforce. With that, we urge our city to take action to protect our workforce and invest in our students. That includes reforms to contracting, launching insurance pilots to support teaching artist affordability, and restoring and baselining funding for the Department of Cultural Affairs in the amount of $30 million. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Lucy Ston. I lead New Yorkers for Culture and Arts, a coalition of more than 400 artists and cultural groups. We realize that the city is facing a tough budget year and will be rightly focused on protecting jobs, healthcare, housing, and so many essential services for our city. I'm here today to say that culture and arts are essential services. It is data proven that robust cultural assets in neighborhoods provide measurable improvements in everything from mental and physical health, small business vibrancy, public safety, and social cohesion and more. And of course, if you're looking at the economy, the last thing you want to cut back on is the engine for economic activity that culture provides. This year, many cultural anchors received unexpected cuts in funding from both DCLA and the New York State Council on the Arts. We need to act now to stabilize cultural groups, especially those in historically disinvested communities. So this year's request addresses these by asking the city to restore and baseline the $30 million added in FY26 budget. This is most necessary if we are to stem the city's loss of cultural jobs. Baseline funds let organizations predict their funding and hire and retain staff. And to further stabilize the sector, we ask that the culture budget be indexed to increase yearly as costs increase. Further, we request reforming and streamlining the cultural capital process. We need more data transparent as was evident in today's hearing. We need to build a plan for projects in advance so that each project doesn't suffer these long delays. Finally, we ask that you increase the Coalition of theaters of Color Council initiative to $8 million. The last increase CTC received was in 2021 when it was serving just over 50 groups. It now serves 63 groups and desperately needs an increase. The city needs what culture provides. A city where people feel safe and connected, filled with vibrancy, community, and joy. Invest in this vision for our city. Consider it an investment in New Yorkers lives and the city's economy. Thanks for hearing my testimony. Hi, I'm Ryan Gillum. I'm the executive director of Fourth Arts Block, also known as Fab NYC. We're a team of artists and organizers working to preserve, strengthen, and grow the cultural vibrancy of the Lower East Side. For 25 years, we have partnered with our community, bringing artists and art strategies to help address displacement, affordable housing, equitable economic development, public space stewardship, public safety, racial equity, and cultural preservation. We're an embedded part of the civic infrastructure of our neighborhood. I'm here to support investment in DCLA. It's absolutely critical, but also to make the case that the cultural sector be seen as a professional services partner who can be contracted to assist the city in delivering on its goals for equity, community engagement, and responsive government. Although NYC currently contracts with the arts and culture sectors through a few agencies, there are obstacles in the procurement system that make it challenging for agencies to seek out arts and culture partners or for artists and small cultural organizations to participate. DCLL's pair artist and residency program provides one model and I support its expansion, but pair residencies can take six months to scope and are among the most complex ways artists could engage with government. a program that isn't suited to shorter and more immediate projects. One thing we can learn from pair projects is how many agencies use that residency to develop new and creative ways to engage communities, particularly those historically underserved. That is core infrastructure work and it is exactly what organizations like mine do at a neighborhood level, often using community art making, storytelling, and engagement in local cultural traditions to advance that work. I believe we could open up new opportunities to employ artists and advance city agendas by building on partnership models between agencies, intermediary cultural organizations like FAB and artists. To that end, I recommend the council convene a round table with DCLA and community focused organizations like mine. This working group would name the barriers artist and culture organizations face in securing city contracts. Define the role intermediary organizations could play in mitigating those barriers. Identify agencies interested and ready to contract for creative services and establish a clear pathway for agencies to move forward with procuring services from the arts and culture sector. >> Gonalo Casal here, Cultural and Arts Policy Institute and thank you Madame Chair Williams and members of the committee for the opportunity to testify. Um while the institute supports the sectorwide ask for increased funding and and for the department of cultural affairs um funding alone is not enough and I almost feel like I'm preaching to the choir today because I'm going to talk about data. Can I hear me? Great. Too many decisions in the sector are still driven by intuition rather than evidence. The city administration's lack of transparency limits oversight, distorts decision making and weakens advocacy. This must pair increased funding with real transparency, rigorous self-evaluation and meaningful access to data. The council, private philanthropy and culture organizations need this information to make informed decisions. This is not only about the work that DCA does. This is about the work that we all do in the sector. A few examples. Um last year awarded almost $75 million to um almost,200 organizations through CDF. Um, to answer your question, Council Member Brewer, you would need a basically 20 more million dollars to fund everybody that applies to CDF. Um, the largest allocation on record, but without knowing the total amount requested, this number means nothing. That needs context. Historically, CDF had covered about 60% of the total ask. We still don't know what the total ask is every year. And that would give us context to know how much $75 million is or is not right. Um we also know that you know about one in six has improved later letter based on the numbers we just heard um received. Yeah, we still need a mic. This is so very crazy. Um, can you just come here? >> Yeah. >> Oh, it works. >> Thank you. Um, okay. Um, again, context matters. We would would these simple data points that I'm going to share with all of you matter more if I told you that more than 40% of applicants that have budgets under $250,000 of the total applicants of CDF 40% more than 40% only have a budget of $250,000. Little of us use our salaries and how much it costs to live in New York to to contextualize how small those budgets are and how precarious those organizations are. If you look at organizations under half a million dollars budget, it makes 60% of applicants, right? These organizations rely heavily and sometimes almost exclusively in public funding. Again, anecdotal information. um for them inefficiencies to the lack of evidence evidence-based policy is not abstract, it's existential. The funding distribution based on data from prior years also rem reveals an a structural imbalance. The small organizations that make up for 40% of grantees receive only 26% of the funds. Right? And I just want to make sure this is not to shame anyone. Data help us all be better. Right? Um, organizations with budget between 1 million and $5 million represent 21% but receive 32% of the funding. Right? So, we're seeing an imbalance between sizes of organizations. Without better data, we can assess the fairness of this allocation. We are entering hopefully a new era for New York City as this administration likes to say, and I hope there's a new attitude towards data in addition to the open data law that was passed over a decade ago. Thank you, council member Brewer for the efforts and council member O Jose pass a law 15 to improve transparency of DCLA. The first and latest report was over a year late and it omits three requirements that are extremely important to assess equity within the the distribution of funds. Demographic data on community serve, information on organizational leadership and the breakdown of funding by source. Right? We still when we get the final disclosure of CDF, we cannot tell what's council initiatives and what is CDF money directly. This is particularly concerning because the CDF application already collects much of this information that is missing for the report. Applicants identify, you know, who they serve, identify their leadership, and respons questions about the diversity of their staff. This is not a data collection issue. to this LA already gathers much of this information and is simply not included. Our request is very straightforward. Yes, increase the the funding for arts and culture, but also require transparency, self-evaluation, and access to the data the already holds. Thank you. >> Thank you. And thank you so much to this very esteemed panel. Um, I appreciate your testimony and I will call the next panel. Oh, yes. Council member Bura has a question. >> I do have one question just the issue of the housing which is a big one. What is a group or speaking for a group if you want the issue of artist housing? Is that something that you're focused on? Obviously, it doesn't come under the 30 app. >> I don't know which one does that. Okay, good. Uh, thanks for question, uh, Council Member Brewer. Um, what I can say is that we are very excited, uh, that council member Lewis, um, has, uh, reintroduced the artist housing bill, which will remove the barrier to having artist preference housing. That is the first step in making sure that we have housing for the actual workforce. The other thing I will say is that there is a precedent for uh uh the city and housing its workforce, right? The Grand Street projects and even on 23rd Street, the Lincoln Towers were built as union housing, right? It was built for the people who work here. We are one of the industries that powers New York City and uh we we need to have our uh workforce able to live here. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. That is the first barrier to artist housing. The second barrier is the way we pay artists. They're independent contractors. >> Oh, I know. I'm aware. Great. >> Doesn't fit into housing connect at all. I'm aware. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. Bringing back our friends at the libraries, Deborah, John, Phillip, and George. It's just Hi all. Um, I'm George Olen, the president of Local 1482, the Brooklyn Public Library Workers Union. Um, good afternoon, uh, Chair Dr. Williams, and fellow committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of our members at Brooklyn, Queens, and New York Public Libraries. The four unions representing New York City's public library workers are disappointed in the mayor's preliminary budget and his demand that our three systems cut their budgets by one Okay. Uh, cut our budgets by 1.5. >> Appreciate you for the for being flexible. Thank you. Um, for the past many years, the preliminary budget has threatened cuts to library funding only for those cuts to be restored before the final budget is approved in June. The libraries are left with stagnant budgets and uncertainty which prevents necessary hiring. The local unions have participated in this decade's long dance by joining the library administrations basically to beg for crumbs. But in good budget years and in bad, the libraries have not increased hiring. Public libraries are vital hubs of democratic participation. And the mayor understands this because during his campaign, he repeatedly affirmed twin commitments to stabilize and fund libraries and to finally end the budget dance. Unfortunately, the city's unsustainable budget shortfall has forced the mayor to reassess this commitment. Right now, libraries are drastically understaffed. Branches do not have enough children librarians to provide programs, custodians to maintain branches, IT workers to provide our growing IT infrastructure, or clerical workers to ensure branch operate. Without more workers, we cannot keep up. Uh if these library if these library budget cuts are enacted, if library budget cuts are not stabilized and increased, this will result in reduced public service hours that pro and that will protect our physical and mental health of our members who are stretched thin, burnt out, and struggling. Library union members strongly support the mayor's commitment to universal child care, rent regulations, and improve public transportation. along with our DC37 members. We support his call to tax millionaires and billionaires in order to pay for those these important programs. We are the very New Yorkers being crushed by the city's affordability crisis. We need an affordable city. We urge you to find a way not for a one-shot budget band-aid, rather for a new path towards a lasting, thriving, sustainable city. New York City needs more libraries, not fewer. But there can be no libraries without library workers. Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Philip Mluso, vice president of Local 374. We represent the custodians, the custodians that work at the New York Public Library. Um, I just wanted to add uh just some realworld uh consequences of when we have deferred maintenance. Uh, my custodians, our custodians bring to us problems like they mop floors. They're literally just mopping a floor and tiles flip up and create uh, you know, unsafe conditions. Um it used to be that uh custodians were only assigned one building, but now there's one custodian for two buildings, which means they're traveling across the city. So if there is an unfortunate circumstance uh with humans in a restroom, perhaps that those rooms are closed until we can bring a custodian across the city to clean up things, which creates unsanitary, unsafe conditions, and it just bankrolls from there. So, I just wanted to add that um you know, it's all the little things that just steamroll into big unsanitary conditions that cause buildings to uh be partially closed and and all sorts of problems. So, I just wanted to illustrate with those two little things about what it means to defer maintenance. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. and I appreciate all you do within the library systems and look forward to continuing to working with you all to improve conditions for workers. >> Thank you, Dr. >> Thank you. >> Okay, now we'll go to Ammani Willford, Enrique Mindia, and Lillian Young. Are they back? Okay. that good. Yep. Okay. Uh good afternoon. My name is Lillian Young. I am an artist, uh a part of the DC 37 Union, uh the family programs coordinator for the Brooklyn Museum and a board member of the New York City Museum Educators Roundtable. I am here today to talk about the importance of funding the arts and cultural institutions, especially during these times when freedom of expression is being censored and attacked at federal levels. During the last four years that I have been at the Brooklyn Museum and in my over 10 years of experience being an art educator, I have seen firsthand how big of an impact the arts have for children and their families. The family programs at the Brooklyn Museum are made for intergenerational audiences with a focus of families with children's ages through six. One of our most popular programs is our Sunday art classes, Families Create, that helps kids ages four to six consider the intentions and agency in their own art. In the in this past uh this program consisted of 26 24 classes that were offered throughout the year. But due to the financial hardships that we are currently facing, I had to cut the program down to nine classes for the year. So, we are only serving 42 of the original 280 families that we original that we used to serve. Uh, I love this position. It helps I love that I get to help people find their artistic voice, see themselves in the museum, in our collections, and connect in a way that they didn't realize was possible. Uh, but in recent years of financial within financial instability at the museum, we have been given very contradictory directives to do more with less resources. Working with financial instability is not sustainable for the for artists like myself who run these programs. Nor is it sustainable for the Brooklyn families we serve who deserve to have consistent access to art education. New York is a cultural hub of the world and every time I have to tell a family that a program like our stroller tours is canled uh because of budget cuts, I feel that pain in the contradiction. Uh, our museum gives so many people the chance to create and engage with works of art from around the world and I implore the city council to fully fund and increase the budget for the department of cultural affairs. Thank you. Okay. Um, hello. My name is Imani Willford and I'm a proud fourth generation New Yorker who works at the Brooklyn Museum as the curatorial assistant for photography, fashion, and material culture. Growing up in Brooklyn and going to publicly funded cultural institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum significantly influenced my decision to become a curator. As a part of my job at the Brooklyn Museum, I help assist in developing collections and exhibitions that engage, educate, and address the distinct and diverse audiences of Brooklyn and the city at large. I also help document current trends in art as well as underrepresented areas of art such as um global Africa and its diaspora and Brooklyn born or based photographers. I act as a conduit between the public and art objects through extensive research, writing, public programs, tours in the specialized areas of fashion, photography. I also support scholars and other museum professionals from around the world by providing them information about the collection and the museum's history. I am so proud that my work ensures that Brooklyn, my hometown, has a worldclass art institution. But with the rising costs of living in student debt, student debt impacting myself and my colleagues, it is getting harder to meet the demands of our profession. My mother worked for the New York City Law Department for more than 30 years. Due to the cost of living crisis, she no longer lives in the city. Um, I view my work at the Brooklyn Museum and more importantly as a DC37 member as an opportunity to give back to my city by continuing the decades of civil servant work that put a roof over my head and clothes on my back. Increasing funding for the Department of Cultural Affairs is an essential commitment the city must make to working New Yorkers like myself who have dedicated our educations and expertise to enriching our city's cultural sector. Thank you so much. Okay. Hello to the cultural affairs committee. Thank you for this time. My name is Enrique Mendia. I'm an educator and cultural programmer at the Brooklyn Museum, a proud member of DC Lo DC37 local 1502 for almost five years. And I'm also an artist. I work at the Brooklyn Museum because I believe in the work we do in the possibility of museum spaces, especially when they're brought to life with people, with New Yorkers. And the Brooklyn Museum could be many things. It's for Saturday. It brings tens of thousands of New Yorkers free cultural programming a year at a time when nightlife can be prohibitively expensive and all people want to do is be together. or it's the work that I and the rest of our school programs teaching artists do to teach thousands of students a year and from every burrow in our galleries and art studios. The Brooklyn Museum is everyone that visits it and it's also all of us that sustain it, watch its galleries, keep it clean, put on our exhibitions, and bring the sense of commitment that is needed to care for this 200-year-old building and run its programs. But more and more, my union colleagues and I are being asked to do more with fewer resources and little recognition of this reality. Reduced staff capacity due to attempted layoffs has been felt across the Brooklyn Museum and disproportionately by certain departments. Our education and public program staff lost four union educator positions due to attrition with no sign of any of those positions being filled. Despite the city council providing additional funding to keep staffing levels the same last year. Since last spring, the museum has since hired three executives but not a single full-time educator. Yet me and my colleagues make up the work, teach every class that comes to visit, and stretch every resource we have to fulfill the very deep need for art education in our community. All this is to say that my teaching artists are tired, my colleagues are tired, and the burnout is here. And so, while we champion the education and public programs that make the Brooklyn Brooklyn Museum what it is, it is vital to articulate that these are the very programs that are consistently at risk whenever the Brooklyn Museum and the Department of Cultural Affairs has its budget reduced. It is us workers that steward these programs who feel it the most. Just as New Yorkers should be able to count on our art classes and free programs, art workers and artists should be able to count on this city and its art institutions. Too often talented artists leave New York because the money just no longer makes sense. It's not sustainable and that's our loss. We all want to be in a city where art thrives and so it is a matter of prioritizing the artists and art workers that make that possible with increased funding. Thank you for this time. >> Thank you. and thank you so much for all you do to support the cultural ecosystem in New York City. Thank you. Okay, next up we have Judith, Lisa Golds, and is this Erica or Ava? Eva Davis, Latinx Arts Consortium. Hi, you can start. All right. Good afternoon. Um, thank you, Madame Chair Williams, and members of the committee um for this opportunity to testify. My name is Eva Mayal Davis. I'm the project manager for the Latinx Arts Consortium of New York City. We are an inter intersectional network of 54 Latinx serving cultural organizations. Our members include community groups as well as CDFs and CG's including programs that are onepersonr run festivals all the way to historical uh spaces like Flushing Town Hall. We envision a New York City where Latinx arts and culture are fully funded. They're deeply valued and celebrated as an integral part of New York City's diverse and vibrant cultural fabric. We host gatherings that foster knowledge exchange, resource sharing, and collective action towards systemic change. Along with the rest of the members on this panel, our organizations are rooted, led by, and accountable to bipok and queer communities whose mission, programming, and public role centered the historic cultural expression and lived experiences of members of these communities. We are also members of the cultural equity coalition led with my colleagues at the at the American Arts uh Asian-American Arts Alliance, the Alliance of Resident Theaters New York, DanceNYC, Indie Space, and Indie Space. We are organization and entities across multiple artistic disciplines and racial communities. Collectively, our members reach more than 1 million New Yorkers a year. Our organizations are grounded in the legacy and mission of cultural equity group dating back to the early 1990s. That is 30 years in the making and going on more. We strive to support the leadership, prepare emerging leadership, and amplify the stories of our communities. Most recently, Latina culture has been in the spotlight, if you recall, Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl. But with that it was very quickly reduced and attacked further proliferating permission for hatred and intolerance. We are witnessing the violent surveillance and stigmatization of entire communities simply for being simply for speaking another language simply for expressing who we are and our cultural expression being policed. And that is not okay. As the largest immigrant group in New York City and the United States, Latinx communities experience pressures shaped directly by immigration. Many artists and cultural workers are immigrants or first generation. New Yorkers navigate the workforce with workforce procarity, often facing discrimination, limited access to benefits, and barriers to public assistance. Cultural organizations often become informal support system, workforce incubators, and trusted spaces within our communities where we can navigate language, where we can bring up concerns and econom and also share our economic instability. This labor is essential to the function of cultural ecosystems, yet remains largely unrecognized and of course unfunded. I'm here to join my colleagues in the sectorwide ask to baseline 30 million additional dollars because this is an investment in New Yorkers, an investment in immigrant New Yorkers, and an investment for all. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the council. Thanks so much for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Lisa Gold and I'm the executive director of the Asian-American Arts Alliance or A4 and a member of the Cultural Equity Coalition. Um, we are 40 year old or for 40 for over 40 years, uh, A4 has worked to ensure greater representation, equity, and opportunity for Asian-American artists and cultural organizations of all disciplines. The only organization in the country that does this. But I want to start with a question for you. Can you name a famous Asian-American? Lucy Lou. >> Excellent. So, you are actually uh better than 42% of Americans. You couldn't even name one. >> Isn't that um Oh my gosh. Who's the artist that did the Louis stuff? Isn't that Asian artist to to Murakami? >> Oh. Oh, Tekashi Murakami. >> Yeah. Isn't that >> Yeah. Japanese American. Yes. There you go. You're two. And but you know what most people said? Most people they say Jackie Chan who's not even American and Bruce Lee who's dead. Okay. So, this isn't just about celebrity though. It's about visibility. It's about belonging. And ultimately, it's about safety because when communities are unseen, they're often unheard and underserved. So, that's where culturally specific organizations come in. So, organizations like A4 create spaces where artists and cultural workers of color are not only supported, but deeply understood. We build community, provide resources, and provide provi create pathways to opportunity so that the stories shaping our culture actually and accurately reflect the people who live here. And yet, at a time when the federal government is actively rolling back equity efforts and private funding is shrinking, our city has to step up, not step back. Instead, we're facing a lack of transparency and persistent inequity. So, based on DCLA funding information that I found and I dug up, AAPI organizations receive roughly 5% of CDF grants, already below the below the share of the population that receives grants. Um, but even more concerning, those grants are on average 23% less than the normal grant. And with no dedicated AAPI led or serving CIG, less than 2% of cultural funding is allocated to our community despite representing 18% of the city population. So that gap is not just a number. It's a lost opportunity and it's silenced voices. So culturally specific organizations like A4, LXNY, and the LGBTQ Museum are essential infrastructure. We ensure that artists can thrive, that our communities feel seen, and that New York City's cultural landscape reflects its true diversity. So, I join my colleagues in supporting the sectorwide ask to baseline and incrementally increase the 30 million in arts funding and to take meaningful steps towards equitable distribution across our sector. Because when you invest in culturally specific organizations, you're investing in a city where everyone belongs. So, thank you. Okay. Good afternoon, Chair Williams and the city council committee members that are here today. My name is Judith Incel and I'm the executive director of the Bronx Arts Ensemble, a mighty Bronx institution that has been around for 54 years. And we annually provide over 20,000 residents of the Bronx with freeof charge live performances presented by professional local 802 musicians. That's right. They're professional local 802 union musicians in multiple genres are that aim to provide culturally relevant live events to the neighborhoods we serve. So we serve the entire burrow of the Bronx. We are creative placemakers. We do not have our own venue. We have venue partners. So, we we serve every single community in the Bronx. I join my colleagues in the New York City arts and culture sector and asking that the city council restore and baseline last year's $30 million to the cultural budget and that the baseline be indexed to automatically increase with inflation annually. This is a really important thing. We are not receiving increases to meet the cost of actually running our institutions each year. These are these asks are crucial to continuing the work of the Bronx Arts Ensemble and thousands of the other city cultural institutions committed to serving New Yorkers. Each year, thousands of Bronx residents experience the Bronx Arts Ensemble's live performances in their neighborhoods, and they tell us how much our performance has to have a positive impact on their lives. Through our audience surveys, we actually take audience surveys at every single performance. Bronx citizens express gratitude to our organization for providing them with a community building experience that is healing restorative emotional effects on their mind, body, and spirit. We are also aware that our concerts provide an economic boost to local businesses in the neighborhoods where we perform. Whether it's audience members per purchasing a snack at a bodega before they go to one of our outdoor concerts in Vancland Park or dining in an Italian restaurant on Arthur Avenue before one of our concerts at Mark Carmouth Church. Our concerts are helping keep Bronx neighborhoods economically vibrant. So we are not only supplying the neighborhoods with art and supporting the arts and culture that's there. We're actually economically supporting the local business. Bronx Arts Ensemble is struggling with the challenges of rising operating costs while striving to remain on mission to provide free live music performances. That is no cost to anybody who enters or comes to any of our performances. no ticket cost to them. A burrow at the center of an affordability crisis and we understand that without funding from services uh from the Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Development Fund, my institute cannot continue to serve the Bronx with free services at all. Bronx Arts Ensemble is just one example of thousands of nonprofit arts and culture institutions in New York City that need the city council to restore and baseline last year's $30 million to the to culture budget while adopting that a mandate a mandate that based that the baseline be indexed to automatically increase with the inflation that we are facing every single year. I hope the city council will receive my me message positively and respond to the sector's request for the spo support we so desperately need to continue meaningfully serving the cities the citizens of New York City. I'm sorry I took a little longer but >> you did >> I it's an important fact to understand that the Bronx communities need every single dollar of support that you put towards it. Thank you. >> Thank you. and thank you so much for your testimony. And I'll remind folks to stick to the two minutes only because it's such a busy day today and I really do not like cutting you all off. As a person, it is very difficult for me. So, as I extend you all grace, I ask that you extend grace back by trying to the best of your abilities to stick to two minutes because I personally do not like cutting people off. So, if you can govern yourselves, I would so appreciate it. Okay, next panel. Thank you so much. No. >> Coco Killingsworth. Stephanie Wilfort. Stephanie. Did I say your last name right? Wilchfort. Okay, I'm gonna get that right. Nora Yaya. See, Nora is smart. She said, "Don't mess up my last name. I'm gonna give you the phonetical spelling." And David Fruden Friedenthal. I'm gonna get it together. >> Freud and Oh, like Sigman and >> Freud. Freud and Okay. Hi. >> Hi. Good afternoon. >> I don't think I saw him. >> Good afternoon, Chair Williams and members of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and Intergroup Relations. Thank you so much for this opportunity to testify. My name is Stephanie Hill Wiltfort. I'm the Renee Menchel director of the Museum of the City of New York and I'm also chair of the cultural institutions group, a coalition of 39 cultural institutions located in all five bureaus including zoos, gardens, museums, and performing arts organizations. And I'm delighted to be offering testimony on behalf of the coalition. Um, I would first just like to thank the council for prioritizing culture and for its advocacy in securing a historic $75 million increase and a $45 million baseline increase for arts and culture in fiscal 2026. Your leadership and advocacy for our culture for all campaign in partnership with New Yorkers for culture and arts was critical in supporting the vital role of arts and culture in our communities in making our communities safe, accessible, and educational for New Yorkers as well as making the city more affordable and improving quality of life for artists, cultural workers, and families. Um, CAG members have a deep commitment to ensuring that access to culture is affordable for all New Yorkers. Many of our organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn Museum, and the Museum of the City of New York, are free to New York City residents. Our institutions are open and accessible to everyone, welcoming over 4 million free visits each year and providing safe public spaces for people of all ages and walks of life. Each of our institutions expands its reach through partnerships with city agencies and community- based organizations to provide a host of services that complement our core missions, including field trips and teacher professional development for hundreds of thousands of public school students and educators annually. Other partnerships have included providing COVID testing and vaccination sites, facilitating food distribution, implementing IDNYC, and serving as polling sites, among many others. I'm just going to say that we are asking for three things this year. One is restoration and baselining of the $30 million in support that we received last year that was added in the FY26 budget. If there is one number I want you all to remember today, it is $30 million. restore and baseline that $30 million. Um, it is essential to keeping the sector strong and it is mo when we lose that funding, it is most damaging to small community-based organizations in our coalitions. We're also going to ask for annual increases year-over-year for the sector. And we're also going to be talking with all of you about capital projects reform, a topic I know we all love very much. Um, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues, me. Okay. Um, greetings, Chair Williams, and members of the committee. My name is Koko Killingsworth, and I'm the chief experience and impact officer at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Bam. I'm here to urge the New York City Council Committee on Cultural Affairs and Libraries to increase funding for the arts and cultures in the city's budget and to baseline the 30 million added at adoption last year so it becomes part of the permanent foundation, not one-time restoration. When we talk about affordability in New York, we are talking about equity, about who gets to stay and who gets pushed out. Cultural institutions are part of the city's civic infrastructure. We create stable employment, activate commercial corridors, provide gathering spaces, and ensure that arts and culture remain accessible to working families. When institutions are destabilized by inconsistent funding, neighborhoods lose more than programming. They lose anchors that contribute to economic vitality and community cohesion. BAM serves 70 700,000 people annually through theater, dance music film education and community programs. We employ workers across eight daily working unions and remain committed to affordability, including offering one of the city's lowest movie ticket prices. Each year, more than 3,000 older adults participate in our senior programs. And BAM education reaches up to 25,000 students, teachers, and families, partnering with nearly 225 schools, most in underserved community communities. Performing arts venues and institutions are are particularly operate in particular in particular operate complex year-round facilities that require sustained investment. Theater and performing performance spaces are not passive venues. They are highly specialized environments that depend on skilled union labor, advanced techn technical systems, rigorous safety standards and con constant maintenance. They serve as rehearsal hubs, educational sites, community meeting spaces, and economic drivers for surrounding small business businesses. And unlike commercial commercial presenters, nonprofit performing arts institutions balance earn revenue on public service mandate. We keep ticket prices within reach, offering free programming and making space for community use. Without public reliable public funding, that balance becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. If New York is to remain a place where culture is made, not just consumed, affordability must be treated as cultural policy. That means baselining $30 million added last year and increasing the support to real operating costs so that performing arts institutions can continue to serve as engines of access, economic activity, and civic identity. Equity in the arts is not about access. It is about sustaining the institutions that hold space for community life across the generations. Without this critical funding, um, New New York is will not be what it is. Thank you for your leadership and this opportunity to testify. >> Thank you. >> Thank you to the committee. Thank you, chair, for allowing me the opportunity to testify. My name is Nora Yaya. I'm the chief government affairs officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Manhattan vice chair of the CIG's. As you heard today, arts and culture are not optional in New York City. They are essential to its identity, its economy, and its daily life. They are the lifeblood of this city, reaching into every neighborhood, every burrow, and every community. The Met hosts more than 30,000 events annually and serve learners of all ages and disabilities. We welcome nearly 180,000 school children each year and adds to the 2.5 million annual student visits from the CIGs. Our work is deeply embedded across the city. We partner with over 500 community-based organizations and collaborate with city agencies and institution. We work with a third of New York City's senior centers through our MET's artbox program reaching older adults across the city, many of whom who are shut in. We also provide nearly 100 paid internships annually with 25 slots dedicated to NICHA youth. We have a teen program. Obviously, people have heard of teens take the Met, but we also have drop-in Fridays and really appreciate collaboration from our council members to make sure teenagers are aware of that and we can become a better third space for our teens and youth. The demand for what we do is clear. The Met welcomed 5.7 million visitors last year. And for the second year in a row, local attendance exceeded prepandemic levels. Nearly half of our visitors are New Yorkers. Many accessing the museum through our pay as you wish model, which means you can pay as low as a penny. And I do believe our president just eliminated pennies, so it's free. Okay. In addition to that, we also do IDNYC, Blueest Star families, and those who qualify through SNAP benefits also can enter the museum for free. We're grateful for the council's leadership in delivering a historic $75 million increase and $45 million baseline, but as you've heard today, more is needed and necessary. In order to sustain this work, to continue our commitment, we urge the council to act, as you've heard, by having the $30 million baselined, providing annual increases, and also reforming the capital process for once and for all. Cultural institutions like the Met are not just destinations. We are your partners in delivering on the city's goals from education and workforce to public health, aging, and community cohesion. We are proud to serve all New Yorkers and proud to be in every corner of the city and continued investments in arts and culture is an investment in New York City itself. Thank you all for your relentless advocacy as we start this budget season. We look to continuing this conversation. Deputy Speaker Williams um uh committee and staff. Uh I'm thanks for the opportunity. I'm David Freudenthal. Uh I am the government relations director at Carnegie Hall. I want to underscore the uh uh the requests and the call to actions by my colleagues at on this panel. um the uh the 30 million to to baseline that um the the uh the increasing the um an annual increase um to keep up with cost of living and looking at the capital process. You know, the that that calls out those are things that are doable in this year. And I I just want to also just to say um you heard from from us all about how deeply we as CIG's um believe in our compact with the city, what how how seriously we take what it means to be really uh in service to New Yorkers to to be meaningful about that work and the council has been real partners to us in doing that. uh you've supported us with uh not just with this direct funding but also through speaker initiatives uh focusing on our work in well-being, our work in the justice space, our workforce development programs. Uh council member Stevens spoke about the need for focus on uh on young New Yorkers and and we think about that work in terms of pathways to jobs. Um there's we are serving threearters of a million New Yorkers every year with what we're doing. um you've heard, you know, from our colleagues about uh about all that they do. Um this is would not be possible without this partnership and we're so grateful to be working with you all in it. Um many thanks. >> Thank you and thank you so much for your testimony. I look forward to continuing to working with you all specifically on the capital stuff because I feel like we need to do more there. So, thank you so much and have a good day. The next panel I'll call is Catherine from the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Angel from the New York Botanical Gardens, and Cynthia from El Muse Delbario. My Spanish was bad. >> Very close. >> Muse. So horrible. I did Spanish for like four. No, I did Spanish all of high school and college. Oh, yes. Welcome. >> Yes. Practice makes perfect. Ah, you can start. Now it is uh thank you for the opportunity to testify um on behalf of the importance of what the city does with the cultural institutions. My name is Katherine Glass. I'm the chief public affairs officer at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which is a deeply special pa place that's been rooted in the city for about 115 years. And when you do a survey of what makes Brooklyn Botanic Garden and other gardens in our city different from Botanic Gardens around the country and indeed the world, it is the investment of this city which allowed us to uh to begin our legacy over 100 years ago with significant investments in community and education. We rely on that so deeply to serve our populations. Today we get about 900,000 visitors, over 300,000 of which come for free. We are supporting over 150 community gardens as well as teen programs and senior programming and programs for people with disabilities. I want to just echo what my colleagues have already said in terms of the three primary requests to baseline the $30 million to index it against increasing inflation and to streamline and make more efficient our capital programs asked. Thank you very much. >> Welcome. >> Good afternoon, Chair Williams and members of the committee. My name is Angel Hernandez, director of government relations for the New York Botanical Garden, a proud member of the cultural institutions group, the CI. I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak and also thank you and your colleagues in the council for advocating the historic 75 million increase and the 45 million baseline increase for the cultural sector last year. Our institution took root in the Bronx just as the borrow was entering an era of development and growth. In this regard, we've have always been a part of the local community and efforts over time to seek a better quality of life. In the case of affordability in the Bronx community, in 2025, we welcomed over 200,000 New Yorkers for free, mostly from the Bronx under our Bronx Neighbors Initiative. Our Bronx Greenup team maintains partnerships with hundreds of community gardens under the Bronx Community Farm Hubs initiative where fresh produce is grown at various sites and distributed to other sites as food pantries. On Webster Avenue, we've made investments in affordable housing for seniors and families, bringing over 650,000 units of 100% affordable housing. As for career empowerment for the next generation, our green ready opportunities workforce program offers career readiness and training and horiculture and landscape design for Bronx young adults. This program offered two certificates in each sector sector and aligns with both industry and community needs that offer career paths within the city, county, and private organizations. The SC network coalition where NYBG along with seven other science-based science CIGs offers valuable paid internships to 1100 city high schoolers every year to prepare them to meet emerging challenges and drive innovation of the future. Although these few examples provides insight into NYBG's diverse efforts to make life affordable and invest in the future of our city's youth, these efforts cannot continue without a full restoration and baseline of the 30 million that was added in FY26 budget to support DCLA and its entire arts and culture sector. NYBG has enjoyed many years of partnership with the city council and remains grateful to your collaboration and support. Thank you very much. >> Saludos. Let's do it all in Spanish now. Um, good afternoon, Chair Williams and members of the committee. My name is Cynthia Carion and I'm the director of government and community affairs at El Movario, a proud member of the CI and I'm also a proud New Yorker. I would like to thank the council for prioritizing culture and for its advocacy in securing the historic 75 million increase and a 45 million baseline as you heard from my colleagues. But most importantly, it is affirming that culture is not a luxury in New York City. It is an essential infrastructure for our communities. Founded in 1969 by Puerto Rican parents, educators, artists, and activists during the civil rights era, El Mus debario was created to demand cultural representation and educational equity for our communities. More than 50 years later, El Muso remains deeply rooted in East Harlem, Elbario, serving as a cultural home for Latina New Yorkers. While we welcome visitors from across the country and around the world, our deepest responsibility is to the communities that surround us. Families, youth, artists, and elders from East Harlem and throughout New York City come to Enmus to participate in exhibitions, public programs, cultural celebrations that reflect their histories, language, and traditions. Programs like Uptown Bound, Super Sabado, the other muertos, our three kings day celebrations bring thousands of New Yorkers together each year to celebrate Latin art, music, and cultural traditions. Our community concerts and performances in our 570 seat theater create space for artists and neighbors to gather, perform, and share culture together. Institutions like EMU contribute directly to the health, equity, and economic vitality to our neighborhoods, supporting artists, educators, creating welcoming space for immigrant and multilingual communities, and attracting visitors who support nearby small businesses. Initiatives like CASA and Sukasa allow us and other community-based organizations across the city to deepen our roots and impact in the city. So again, just to reiterate, restore the baseline, the 30 million added for FY26, consider annual cost adjustments, and improve the capital project process. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Appreciate your testimony and the consistency. Y'all are a consistent bunch. Um >> Sarah from Roundabout Theater, Rosalyn Barber, Pen Gner, and Lauren Elmore. Great. >> Sure. Hi, I'm Rosalyn Barber from the New York Shakespeare Festival doing business as the public theater and uh I really want to thank Sorry, I just wanted to make an announcement that >> yeah, >> the council's crazy and we have a lot of conflicts and so I actually have to um leave for a second for a meeting, but my colleague, council member Farah Lewis, is going to take over um with chairing right now. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Okay, great. Um good afternoon. Thank you so much for uh having me here. I'm the administrative chief of staff of the New York Shakespeare Festival doing business as the public theater. Um, as the city council begins to assess its FY27 budget, I'm here respectfully to ask the city council to restore and baseline the $30 million that was added in the FY26 budget and to support the Department of Cultural Affairs and entire uh arts sector. Um, I'm also here to ask the council to support the public theat's request for a $350,000 speaker initiative item to help pay for the public theat's free programming in all five burrows. Each year, the Public Theater serves over 150,000 New Yorkers with free programming through Shakespeare in the Park at the Doll Court Theater in Central Park. Our mobile unit, which has stops in all five burrows, and our community pageant, our classes for seniors, youth, immigrants, military members, union members, and more. The free programming costs the public over $10 million to produce indirect expenses every year, not including the cost for full-time staff, infrastructure salaries benefits and uh the rest. This year, we're requesting $350,000 from the city council to help underwrite these programs. We do that knowing that the city budget is tight, but we aren't looking for a handout. The city's creative economy generates over $110 billion each year. So, we're simply looking for a small reinvestment in order to continue serving the people of the city of New York with free, highquality, inclusive programming. We, like you, believe that uh every New Yorker deserves to be able to experience awe inspiring live performing arts experiences that transport them from the daily grind of living in this city. We believe that these experience shouldn't be limited to folks who live in areas with proximity to these productions and we don't believe they should be limited to folks who can pay $300 or more for a ticket. Uh that's why we bring our programming to places like Bransville Recreation Center, Roy Wilkins Park, and Jay Hood Park. Um, and we really uh hope that you will consider this request so that we can continue serving your communities and making these experiences available to everyone. >> Thank you so much. You may begin. >> Thank you. Uh, my name is Penn and I'm here with the Classical Theater of Harlem. Uh, I'd like to thank our chair and committee. Uh, your support and the work you do help the to help the arts and culture thrive is deeply appreciated. I'm here in New York with a job I love in the theater because my grandparents took me to see Broadway shows. Uh, one that I saw with them, Ragtime, is enjoying a phenomenal revival at Lincoln Center right now that I encourage everyone to see. As an impressionable 14-year-old, that powerful story of what America can be is in large part responsible for how I understand and what I value about citizenship and patriotism today. Individuals drawn from all over to participate in New York's legendary cultural sector consistently spend their money locally. What we earn working at theaters, we spend seeing more theater. We buy each other's books and donate to each other's projects. With New York's deeply interconnect interconnected cultural sector, even with tiny organizations, art can be a powerful economic amplifier. When CT was able to offer the city's first post pandemic theater with its free outdoor performances, we sought to leverage every connection we had to bring life back to our streets and parks. Today, in partnership with Uptown Grand Central and a coalition of hundreds of street vendors, shops, restaurants, and peer nonprofits, we're able to activate our more than 30,000 visitors to generate over $600,000 in business for the neighborhood in a single month. Because of the lighting and sound equipment CTH brings to Marcus Garvey Park each summer and shares with our peers, more performances by other cultural groups are possible during the month of our residency than at any other time of the year. With the wisdom of recent experience from the pandemic, New York's cultural sector has banded together for mutual support like never before and has the power to overcome the challenges facing the city's finances today. The resources we share mean that public investment resounds across the local economy, driving physical industry and nightlife, making public spaces safe and prosperous, increasing the value of real estate and drawing tourism. Your support perpetuates the legend of New York as the destination for a young person who feels they have something worthwhile to contribute. Thank you again to the members of this committee who clearly understand the value of uh the arts. I hope my words can be uh of use in your important work. >> Thank you. You may begin. >> Good afternoon members of the committee. I am Dr. Lauren Brett Elmore. I'm proud to be the executive director of the Flea Theater in Tribeca, NYC, just four blocks north of here. The Fle's mission. We support and invest in experimental art by black, brown, and queer artists. We provide commissioned opportunities, missional aligned residencies, subsidized rehearsal and performance space, and production support. In the last five years, we've done so both in our space and across the city. From the Bronx to Coney Island, from the west side to Governor's Island. In 2025 alone, the Flea directly supported 150 artists and welcomed nearly 15,000 NYC audience members into into our space. For many of those artists, organizations like ours are their entry point into New York's robust and diverse cultural ecosystem. However, our role is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Small theaters like the Flea are operating in a climate where costs continue to rise while expectations for public outreach and artist support continue to grow. We are often the most nimble and responsive part of the sector both artistically and economically while we remain the most financially vulnerable. Public investment through the Department of Cultural Affairs allows us to continue doing this work. City funding doesn't just support individual programs. It stabilizes the organizations that artists depend on and ensures that New York remains a place where artists can begin their careers, not just sustain established ones. It's those emerging artists who make New York the most interesting city on Earth. As you consider the FY27 budget, I urge you to increase funding for small and midsize theaters. So the New York City artists, the flea support, don't just survive in New York, but continue to define it. Thank you. I'm excited for your leadership and opportunity to testify. >> Thank you so much. You may begin. >> Thank you, Council Member Lewis, and esteemed members of this committee for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Sarah Meranti, and I am representing Roundabout Theater Company. Uh, founded in 1965, Roundabout celebrates the power of theater by spotlighting classic works from the past, cultivating new works of the present, and educating minds for the future. We operate and steward in grateful partnership with the city of New York, five historic theaters on Broadway and off in the heart of Manhattan's theater district. We employ 1500 arts, theater, and administrative staff each year. Our productions reach approximately 400,000 theatergoers each year. As part of New York City's creative sector, we help generate a 110 billion dollars in economic activity. And as part of the Broadway community, we helped bring nearly 15 million visitors to see a show last season. We proudly foster artistic development through a continuum of residencies and commissions that empower theater artists at all stages of their careers. And Roundabout has also had a decadesl long commitment to reducing physical, financial, and cultural barriers to the arts with programs like our signed interpreted series, pay what you wish ticketing, and community nights. Now in its 30th year, Education at Roundabout invests over $4 million each year to serve approximately 24,000 New York City public school students, teachers, aspiring theater technicians and administrators, and lifelong learners. We achieved this through a robust portfolio of teaching and learning initiatives, community partnerships, and workforce development programs. Roundabout relies on the city support to serve thousands of New Yorkers each year and keep the arts at the heart of our civic life. We are deeply thankful to DCLA, City Council, MOME, SPS, and the HR for their longtime support of our landmark theatrical workforce development program. To date, TWWDP has trained over 150 New York City residents in technical theater careers backstage. 86% continue to work in the field, and 16% have joined a theatrical union. Together with our colleagues, we encouraged the city council to deepen the city's FY27 investment in arts and culture by baselining and indexing last year's $30 million ad, fully funding city council initiatives like CASA, and streamlining the cultural capital process. Thank you so much. All right, this panel is not excused. Thank you so much for being here and for your testimony. Now, we're going to hear from one of our youngest champions in the arts world, Melody Emerson Simpson. Ready? >> Of course. Come on down, Melody. Mom, did you submit a slip? >> I just don't want to call you again. >> I'm on that slip. >> Yeah, the one the name. >> Are you Abby? >> Yeah, I'm Abby. >> Great. >> Yeah. Great. >> All right, Melody, if you could turn on your microphone, that little button there in the middle, and you may begin your testimony. Hi, my name is Melody. I am here to testify about the libraries and how the libraries near need money. Last year, Mayor Mom Donnie made a promise that he would give the libraries 0.5% of the budget. Budget is one of my spelling words in school this week. So now I'm like, why is Mayor Mom Donnie breaking his campaign promise? New mayor, same problem. I love my library. And when I and when I was younger, it closed down for 2 weeks. I totally lost my head. I think this shows that the library is important to me. Libraries need money. I don't close for real and a lot of people become sad. In my library, we only have one bathroom and no water fountain. The the money needs to help pay for improvement in the libraries. It would be cool if the library had enough money for more programs for younger kids and not just teens. In conclusion, I think that the library should get more money. I hope that the city can council will work with Mayor Mom Donnie to make that happen. Bye. Let's give it up for Melody. Great job. >> Tough act to follow. Um, good afternoon. My name is Dr. Abby Emerson. I'm a New York City educator, and I'm here today as a member of NYC Plan, the Public Library Action Network, which is a group of patrons and library workers organizing together to amplify, strengthen, and progress the futures of New York City's three public library systems. Um, at the moment the proposed libraries budget sits at 0.39% of the overall city budget. This is woefully inadequate for multiple reasons. We have been asking for a stable 0.5% for multiple years now. This is a fair and reasonable ask for this coming cycle. That would translate to 635 million that the libraries so desperately need. The mayor campaigned, as we heard, with a platform of meeting that 0.5% but has since stepped back from that. And the current 0.39 is even less than last year when we were under the Adams administration, which was at 0.42. Nationally, our public goods are being stripped away at every turn, and we have an obligation to ensure that does not happen at the local level. Too often, libraries are taken for granted, but the complex work they do, both technically, behind the scenes, and socially in their communities, is essential. I personally find libraries one of the most emotionally moving spaces in our city. Where else is everyone truly welcome without payment? Despite the magic they somehow pull together. As a patron, I want more from my library. I often visit libraries when I travel to other places, and I'm struck by the creativity of their offerings. I can only imagine what New York City library workers could do with a properly funded budget. I know I would benefit, my kids would benefit, and we all would benefit, too. So, I'm asking once again, just like last year, that we commit a stable and baseline 0.5% for libraries in this budget cycle and every budget cycle. Thank you. Thank you so much. This panel is now excused. Thank you so much for being here and for testifying. Thank you, Melody. Our next panel is Francine Garber Cohen, Rizza, Risa Shu. That's cute. I like that. Um, Hugh Rose Evans and J Hawk. Is everybody okay? Thank you. You may begin. >> Dear members of New York City Council, I'm Francine Garber Cohen, president and producer of the Regina Opera Company. For 56 years, Regina Opera has offered yearround free and ticketed, fully staged operas and ticketed and free concerts in Southwest Brooklyn. Regina opera performances are places where thousands of Brooklyn residents, many of them retirees, are able to meet friends, getting them out of their houses, where many live alone. Regina Opera provides affordable entertainment for audiences who may not otherwise attend live opera performances. Some are on fixed budgets and cannot afford the tickets to the Metropolitan Opera. But in order to provide these services, Regina Opera, like other arts organizations, needs increased support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Our company participates in many free cultural activities hosted by the Sunset Park Business Improvement District, the Third Avenue Merchants Association in Bay Ridge, and the Bay Ridge Arts and Cultural Alliance, among others. These events not only reach lowincome and underserved music lovers, especially senior citizens who make up over 65% of our audience, but they also bring new and existing customers to these neighborhoods. Additional audience members increase the visibility and income of the local stores and restaurants, and they generate tax money to New York. We at Regina Opera depend on grants such as the one from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs to meet our budgeting needs, especially for the free performances. The cost of these productions keeps rising. Therefore, we request that the New York City Council add $30 million to the budget for culture and we request that the dollar amount automatically increase annually with the percentage of inflation. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> You may begin. >> Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Hugh Rose Evans and I'm speaking today on behalf of the American LGBTQ Museum in support of its FY27 DCLA Cultural Development Funding Renewal Request. The museum provides public educational programs exploring the achievements and lived experiences of LGBTQ people in all five bureaus of New York City. Last fiscal year, support from the Cultural Development Fund allowed us to pilot a new program series, the Queer Legacies Project, which is a series of four archiving workshops with LGBT elders at Sage's Ed Windsor Senior Center in Chelsea. These workshops were an incredible success, serving over 125 registrants, and we're proud to say we're successfully continuing the project this fiscal year, having launched our first session of Queer Legacies at Sage Center Harlem last week. We plan to bring the project to more senior centers in the Bronx and Brooklyn in future years. This year, the museum is requesting a renewal of our FY26 funding and an increase to $100,000. We recognize that this request is more the museum has stopped before, but it represents the scale of our expanding scope of services. Funding for FY27 programs will support our entire season of programs, allowing us to produce recurring educational events and cultural partnerships in all five bureaus. And this includes our monthly Lavender Literary Society book club, our partnership with the Leslie Lman Museum, our reverb performance partnership with Long Island City's Culture Lab, our annual film screening with Newf Fest LGBTQ Film Festival, and our annual June Pride Festival activations, including a marching contingent of NB NYC Pride of LGBTQ workers from galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. These New York City series are b are just one part of the more than 50 public programs we produce annually across the nation. And these services are essential to building trust and public awareness with our museum. We need your help to maintain the growth. We are humbly asking committee members to advocate for the museum to your fellow colleagues, helping us to increase our cultural development funding to $100,000 in FY27. >> Thank you. >> I sincerely thank you for your time. >> Thank you. You may begin. Good afternoon, Council Member Lewis and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Rhysa Shupe and I serve as the chief of operations for the American LGBTQ plus Museum. I'm also a member of the steering committee of the Cultural Equity Coalition and a proud queer parent of a New York City public school student who is thriving in so many ways because of her access to arts and culture as one of our youngest New Yorkers. My colleague Hugh spoke to you about the museum's programming and I'm here to talk to you about the critical need for data throughout the cultural sector. New York City is home to the largest LGBTQ plus population in the country, more than 700,000 people, and that number continues to grow. Nearly one in five young people in the state of New York now identifies as LGBTQ plus. Nationally, that number is approaching one in 10 adults. This is not a small We are not a small or static community. We are a significant expanding and future defining part of our city. And yet there is a persistent gap between who who we are and what is resourced. LGBTQ plus communities, especially transgender, non-binary, and those folks who are also members of communities of color, continue to face disproportionate barriers to access and disproportionately lower access to resources that they so sorely need. And these inequities extend to the cultural sector where funding has not yet kept pace with either the scale or the diversity of our communities. At the American LGBTQ plus Museum, our mission is grounded in a simple but powerful idea that LGBTQ plus people deserve to tell our own stories in our own voices and on our own terms. But we cannot do that work well or sustainably and no culturally specific institution can without intentionable equitable investment and transparent data because what isn't counted isn't funded and what isn't funded isn't seen. And at this time it is cultural nonprofits who are developing data sets. But we need support from you, the New York City Council and the Department of Cultural Affairs to access our data. We're calling for a cultural funding ecosystem that reflects the full breadth of New York City's communities, one that prioritizes transparency in how funds are allocated. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. You may begin. >> So, hello Council Member Lewis and the committee. I'm a longtime citizen, firsttime testifier, and I come to you as the government liaison from Japan Society. Uh so I appear for you today to beseech you in your capacity as the council committee on cultural affairs, libraries and international relations to hold the line for the fiscal 27 budget at last year's level at a minimum. The past year has seen a profound contraction in federal funding for arts and cultural nonprofits. In addition to the outright loss of funds, the very volatility of federal funding has wre havoc with many New York City nonprofits. Surely these two facts are not new to you. Our organization, Japan Society, was able to weather these storms due in part to the exceptional support of the DCLA, whose cultural development fund allocation actually increased slightly year-over-year from 24-2. So, we're very grateful to the council for restoring funding and also to the DCLA uh who extended that funding to many nonprofits across the city. So, now we are faced with another budget crisis which will surely challenge your committee to reduce funding to the DCLA and the CDF. Let me be very clear why I think that is a mistake. Of course, I may quote many statistics that support my perspective by demonstrating, for example, that the arts contribute over 120 billion to the state economy, support directly nearly half a million jobs in the metro region. But to me, these data points miss a central argument and uh evade answering the most fundamental question we must ask, which is why support the arts at all. In 1997, I was a call young film critic in Seattle where I conducted an interview with a famed Russian filmmaker Alexander Surov. And as part of that interview, I posed a bombastic question. I said, "Why make art at all? What is the purpose of art?" And he, without skipping a beat, answered, "Isn't the point of art to make people softer and gentler and more human?" That answer, profound in its simplicity, seems to me well worth bearing in mind as you make the sausage of the budget for fiscal year 27. We as a city, as a nation, and as a people are more desperately in need of softer, gentler, more human interactions, and art is the avatar of these aspirations. There you go. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. This panel is now excused. Thank you for being here. The next panel, Sarah Meranti, Rosalyn Barbbor, Pen Gen Genithther. Sorry if I butchered that. And Lauren Elmore. I'll do it one more time. You did this panel already. All right, we'll pivot. Marlene Ramirez can concel durat. >> Okay, I got a little French. Uh, ya hayashai. >> Hayashi. Beautiful. And Sandy Luna. Is that Luna? >> Luna. >> Sandy Luna. She's right here. Okay, perfect. >> Okay, you may begin. >> Oh, >> we're getting ourselves sorted. >> I see this is a beautiful panel. Who's starting first? >> I am. >> Perfect. You may begin. >> Good afternoon. Thank you, Council Member Lewis and members of the committee for the opportunity to testify. My name is Sandy Luna. I am an immigrant artist and the executive director of ID Studio Theater in the South Bronx. We're a company making original Spanish language and bilingual theater from within our Latinx immigrant community for the last 25 years. We have called the South Bronx our home for more than a decade and our award-winning work has traveled from here to Bugodat to Satu Huades and to Dar to name a few. Along with my fellow panel members, I testify as a member of the Coalition of theaters of Color, a network of organizations rooted in and accountable to communities of color across New York City, and the Cultural Equity Coalition of New York, together representing more than 3,300 arts organizations and over 100,000 artists. Our CTC grant last year supported six original productions and reach 4,000 people directly. It made possible scuro co-produced with the Clemente Center where performers were directly hired from the Randall's Island migrant shelter. No auditions, no bureaucratic barriers. We went to where our newest neighbors were work with their stories, their images, their voices, creating a space that welcomed them as artists and allowed the rest of us to see them as something more than what they had endured. This is the kind of work our organizations make possible every single day. Theater builds community. Community builds civic life. CTC funding unlocks possibility within our communities. These are funding dollars that multiply in measurable and immeasurable ways. The Coalition of theaters of Color was among the first cultural initiatives this council created, paving the way for many that followed. Those programs have grown. CTC has not. no increase since 2021 despite adding 13 organizations to the coalition. The communities we serve are certainly resilient, but they are on the front lines of this political moment. We're asking you to protect them. At its core, our work and yours are aligned, building a city where everyone, every community has a stage, every story has a >> Thank you so much. This investment is long overdue. Thank you. >> Preaching to the choir. Who's next? You may begin. >> Dear council member, >> let's turn this on. Dear council member Lewis and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Dr. Aya Esther Hayashi and I am the development director of the People's Theater where we create theater with and for immigrant communities to build a more just and equitable world. Through productions, free arts education programs, and advocacy, we serve over 200 artists and audiences annually. Rooted in the belief that immigrants telling their own stories can change hearts, minds, and policy. Thanks in part to a $25.7 million capital investment by the city, we are on the cusp of opening Central Cultural Immigrant, a state-of-the-art 20,000 square foot center dedicated to the immigrant experience. Today, I testify as a member of the Coalition of theaters of Color and the Cultural Equity Coalition. Together, we serve more than 1 million New Yorkers each year. We see every day how artists, cultural workers, CBOS, funders, and policy makers are interconnected. When one part of this ecosystem is underresourced, entire communities lose access to cultural opportunity, economic activity, and creative expression. When equity is prioritized, neighborhoods thrive. While my colleague Sandy and I represent two immigrant- centered organizations, the CTC initiative funds 63 arts nonprofits, including legacy black and indigenous organizations. It is one of the few initiatives to support these groups who are core to our city's cultural history. I joined the sectorwide ask today and urged the council to increase the CTC initiative to 8 million in the FY2027 budget. For context, the law establishing CDC allows us to use these funds for general operating support. But because it's administered through DCLA, we are confined to using the funds as program support. This modest $2.3 million increase will boost CTC organizations grants by nearly 30% and serve as a cost of living increase after being stagnant for 5 years. We also ask that the council restore flexibility so organizations can use these funds to sustain their operations, build capacity, and support workforce development. This allows us to serve New Yorkers more richly, more abundantly. >> Thank you so much. You may begin on. It is. >> Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Maren Ramirez and I am artistic and co-executive director of Bax Brooklyn Arts Exchange, a multigenerational arts incubator that has supported artists for 35 years through residencies, education, and affordable rehearsal space. I'm also part of the cultural equity coalition like my colleagues. How does an artist become an artist? Artists don't just appear. Along with my colleague and others in the room, we are art service organizations that provide infrastructure that nurture artists across their full life cycles. We are the connective tissue of the cultural ecosystem. Our work is often invisible, less like the skin and more like the veins, carrying support, resources, and relationships that keep the system alive. One of our artist residents, for example, shared that Bax was the first place where she felt believed in, not for what she had done, but what she might do. She developed her work at Vax, premiered at a major venue, and is now on tour. That kind of sustained support is what allows artists, thousands of them across our coalition, to stay in New York and build a life here. Unlike presenting organizations, service organizations don't rely on ticket sales and much of our work isn't public facing. It's ongoing and relational. We maintain studios, run residencies, and offer long-term support that is essential to the artistic process, but often harder to fund because it's less visible. We're facing rising costs across rent, staffing, health care, and materials while philanthropic and federal funding becomes more unstable. And as you know, this is especially true for those of us who support bipok, queer, migrant, and disabled artists. As Dance NYC's data shows, arts workers are already among the most economically vulnerable in the city. Art service organizations make it possible for artists not just to become artists, but to sustain their practice. We want a city where artists and cultural workers can live, work, play, and stay. Muchima gracias. Thank you. >> You may begin. >> Is this on? >> Oh, yeah. Okay. Um, thank you, Council Member Lewis, and the committee for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Raquel Luta, and I'm the executive director of Dance NYC. Our organization serves and represents the estimate of over 6,000 dance workers and over 1,000 I mean 1,700 dance entities in our city. Um, and we do advocacy, regranting, and knowledge sharing. As Marena explained, art service organizations or ASOS are vital lifelines for the 326,000 New Yorkers who work in the creative sector. By building deep relationships, we serve as vital bridge between complex funding ecosystems and that of the workingclass vogue artist that creates spaces of queer belongings or the immigrant auntie keeping folk dance traditions alive between hospital shifts. And the need here is outstanding. 63% of New York artists don't have cash to cover a $400 emergency. Our state of dance 2023 report founded that despite the inherent risk of dance work, 37% of dance workers don't have health insurance. 64% support their work from their own pockets. And the gap that service organizations are being asked to fill is only growing wider. Also, the affordability crisis, inequities for workingclass and marginalized artists keep growing. Yet the current funding ecosystem leaves service organizations like ours struggling, forced to do more than declining s sources. The highly responsive yet invisible nature of our work means that project-based funding models designed for presenting organizations do not work for us. We are asked to compete for the same pool of funding as the people and organizations we are serving, undercutting the stability of that ecosystem. That is why we support the sectorwide ask to baseline the 30 million addition. But beyond that, we need separate funding process for service organizations with general operating support so that we can serve, not compete. We need the city partnerships also to serve our artist constituency, working collaboratively for portable benefits and for art space subsidiaries. The city must view art workers as service providers and necessary workers. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. This panel is excused. Thank you so much. Now we'll hear from Trenton Price, Brittany Bellinger, and Nicole Tuzia. >> Thank you. >> You may begin. Are you going to settle still? >> Yeah, you can begin. >> You hear me? Great. Uh, thank you, Council Member Lewis and Chair Williams and members of the committee. Uh, my name is Trenton Price. I'm the executive director of the Salvadori Center. At Salvadori, we provide steam education services. That's STEM plus the A for arts and architecture to schools, afterchool sites, and Nicha community centers across the five buraus. For context, last year, Salvador served over 12,000 students in 178 sites. We are grateful to have the support of the council through multiple CASA and digital inclusion and literacy grants as well as the afterchool enrichment and speakers initiative at numerous NICHA sites across the city. At Salvadori, we have seen firsthand the impact of investing in arts and arts education for cultural access programming for young people. For example, our residencies explore and have kids creating community uh models that reflect their values or monuments that are important to them and their peers. Amplifying student voice is one of the most important things that a creative education can do. Having worked in arts education now for two decades, I know that it is often one of the first things to get cut when funding gets tight. But to the contrary, schools and cities that know the true value of arts and arts education know that tight times are when we need to double down on the arts. A recent study with NYU showed that Salvadori students showed increased self-efficacy up to a year after our residency. What could be more important than a young person's belief in their ability to succeed then which impacts motivation, effort, and persistence? Investing in arts and arts education is an investment in our future. We applaud the city for their increased investment in the cultural development fund and ask it be baselined. We also asked that the council expand the CASA program, which has been flat for a number of years despite growing need from young people after school. I thank you for facilitating this hearing and for your commitment to supporting the young people and arts and culture of our city. We at Salvador are grateful to be of service to New York City's children. We stand ready to do more. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. You may begin. >> Good afternoon, Council Member Lewis and members of the committee. Thank you for all that you've done for supporting the arts and allowing me to testify today. My name is Britney Bellinger. I'm the director of programs and innovation at Museum Hugh. It's a New York City-based member-driven arts service organization dedicated to advancing equity in the cultural sector. Arts and culture, as you know, are essential to New York City. They shape our identities, preserve our histories, and drive our local economies. But just as important is who is being supported within that ecosystem. At Museum Hugh, we work with and represent arts organizations founded and led by black, indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and all people of color. These institutions are deeply rooted in their communities. They are spaces of storytelling, education, and cultural preservation. Yet, despite their impact, they continue to face systemic barriers to funding and access to government resources. Many operate with far fewer resources than larger institutions, even while serving communities that are historically underrepresented. Through our Huart Arts and Cultures research, we are documenting this landscape, and the need is clear. These organizations are vital to a more complete and accurate cultural narrative of New York City, but they cannot continue to operate on an equitable footing. We urge the city to increase equitable funding for organizations of color, expand access to grants and resources, invest in leadership development, and support the pathways to stable long-term space for these institutions. Organizations of color have long been resilient and innovative, often in spite of chronic under disin underinvestment. With equitable support, they can continue to thrive and serve the communities that make New York City what it is. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. You may begin. Good afternoon, Council Member Lewis and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Nicole Tusen and I am the executive director of DanceWave. Dancewave is a 30-year-old dance education organization with a community center in Brooklyn and service spanning all five burrows. Our programs foster a safe and welcoming environment for creative expression, facilitate multicultural exchange that fosters deep community building, opens doors for careers in the arts, and promote physical, mental, and social well-being that contributes to the improved health and vibrancy of our city. Thanks in part to this committee's focused advocacy and the city's investment, DanceWave is empowered to provide no and lowcost programming to over 6,000 individuals of all ages and backgrounds each year. With city funding, we are able to ensure that everyone who wants to participate in our programs can. Simply put, this funding transforms lives. As we look ahead to the fiscal 20 27-year budget, I join my colleagues in the following requests. First, restore and baseline last year's $30 million addition to the culture budget budget. Second, index the baseline so that it automatically increases with inflation, allowing us to provide living wages for cultural workers. Third, streamline the capital funding process for culture for greater ease and efficiency, holding a hearing so that council members can understand the issues. And fourth, increase funding for the Coalition of theaters of Color initiative to $8 million to reflect the now 63 participating organizations facing rising costs of operations. Baselining $30 million in cultural funding is critical for sustaining our impact. Volatile funding levels impede staffing, program development, and direct service at small community-based organizations like DanceWave, where city funding plays an outsiz role. Like many or other organizations represented here today, DanceWave faces no shortage of challenges. The city's investment in our work should not be one of them. Thank you. Thank you so much. This panel is now excused. Thank you for your testimony. We'll now hear from Ira Dutchman, Doria Gosma, and Josema and Simon Selenas Jr. and Gabrielle Gate. Gabriel Gado Simon Doria, and Ira. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh, when you begin begin your testimony, if you could restate your name. Okay. You may begin. >> Good afternoon, members of the council. I'm Gabrielle Gatau, manager of public programs at the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. But we are not just a cemetery. We are a national historic landmark at a mighty 478 acres. We are a cultural space. We host concerts, dance performances, walking and trolley tours, even an artist and residence program. Most recently, our death education offerings, programs surrounding death, dying, grief, and loss, have become some of our most popular events. Our grieving and weaving program combines the arts with processing grief. We meet once a month at no cost. In 2005, we saw over half a million visitors, a testament to having our gates open seven days a week, free to the public. This spring, one month to the day, we open our new visitors center, a restored 19th century greenhouse, uh an exhibition gallery, classrooms, and a flexible space for cultural programming. We know that the council is interested in expanding access on this front, especially in new and unconventional spaces. Although we are in one burrow, our resources and landscape are for New Yorkers and members of all five. We invite you to visit us. Our gates are open. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you so much. You may begin. >> Good afternoon, members of the council. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Simon Selenus Jr. and I'm the development associate at the People's Theater, a member of the Coalition of theaters of Color and Cultural Equity Coalition. At the People's Theater, we create theater with and for immigrant communities to build a more just and equitable world. And through our work, we aim to counter the pervasive anti-immigrant narratives in this country while cultivating socially engaged artists and leaders. Today, I urge the council to increase the Coalition of theaters of Colors initiative to 8 million in the FY2027 budget. The CTC initiative is a critical source of support for theaters of color like us across New York City. Many organizations have experienced reductions or elimination in CDF support, making CTC funding an essential source of stability for artists, cultural workers, and community programming. At the People's Theater, CTC funding has supported our professional productions that center the immigrant experience. Specifically, with this funding, we have served approximately 170 artists and 4,000 audiences across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan over eight years. This modest 2.3 million increase will boost CTC's organizations grants by nearly 30%, which is the minimum of what is needed to increase the capacity and stabilize our organizations. After moving to NYC from Texas, I feared I would find a culture that felt hard, cold, and distant. Living in Washington Heights has shown me the opposite. I have seen firsthand how organizations like the People's Theater make this city feel welcoming, vibrant, and alive. I've seen how access to theater, arts education, and advocacy strengthens communities and reminds us that people that they belong. This impact matters deeply in neighborhoods like mine, where culture and community are inseparable. We ask the council to increase the CTC initiatives to 8 million in FY2027 and restore flexibility so organizations can use these funds as they need to best serve our communities. Thank you so much for your time and consideration for this request. >> Thank you. You may begin. like to thank the council for this opportunity to testify. Um, my name is Ira Deutschman. I'm representing the Uptown Film Center, a new nonprofit that believes in the power of film to educate and to bring people together. Upper Manhattan has become what we call a cinema desert. Which is why along with the support of the state of New York and over 700 individual donors, we've purchased the long shuttered Metro Theater on 99th and Broadway in Manhattan and plan to build a five-screen independent cinema arts and education center to serve a neighborhood that really needs it. The five zip codes that are within 1.5 miles of the theater have a population living below the poverty line that ranges from 7.8% 8% in two in 1024 to 30.6% in 1027. Approximately 35% of that population speaks a language other than English at home, including 22% who speak Spanish. The area around the theater has Manhattan's largest concentration of postcoid empty storefronts. Nonprofit independent cinema venues such as the one we're trying to build have proven to boost local economies, drive foot traffic, support local businesses, and create jobs. While we're working to build this facility, we've been offering a sample of our programming as guests in whatever auditoriums we can find. We're grateful to majority leader Abrau for the grant we received for our science oncreen series, which is currently going on right right now. Um, also we've beun begun pilot programs in neighborhood schools. The first took place this fall in fifth grade classes at PS84 and we're currently applying to DCLA for a grant to expand that program. We appreciate your continued support for our programming and our educational programs and we hope the city of New York can play a large part in helping us raise the $29 million we need to build out the facility. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. This panel is now excused. Thank you for your testimony. Next, we're going to hear from Arya Suudin. Sorry if I'm butchering that. I can't read the name. >> What's the name? >> No. Bronx River Arts Center. >> Got it. Um, David Johnston. Miriam uh Dal Q, are you coming on her behalf? Okay, we just need a slip. Uh Miriam Nomad Jazz Festival. Okay, we just need a a slip from you. You could come and then we'll get the slip. What's your name? >> Uh David Johnson. >> David. Wait, I have you David. I have you, David. All right. But Miriam is not here. Okay. and uh Susette Brown Shaka Simon. Susette Brown Sha. All of that. Come on down. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. You may begin. Good afternoon, uh, Council Member Lewis and the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and thank you for your advocacy this morning at the budget hearing. My name is Akias Guutieri and I'm the executive director of the Bronx River Arts Center located in the West Farms neighborhood of the Bronx. We are a ty but mighty organization which for nearly four decades has served the Bronx as a hub for arts education, emerging and professional visual art exhibitions, performances, community engagement, environmental stewardship along the Bronx River, and professional artist development. Last year, we welcomed over 5,000 community members to classes, exhibitions, performances um that fostered mentorship, collaboration, and professional growth and served 1,300 youth in free arts programming. Our programs are primarily tuition free or lowcost, designed for the neighborhoods that we directly serve, where 27% of our residents live in poverty and where access to high arts, high quality arts education is limited. We empower Bronx youth to see themselves as creative leaders and support local artists and community members in sustaining their artistic careers. We provide access and exposure to arts and neighborhoods that are traditionally underserved and overlooked. But organizations like ours faced a constant challenge as already mentioned by many of my colleagues in the sector. Um we face rising costs, staffing limitations and ailing facilities without predictable stable funding. This is why as a sector and as an organization, we're asking the council to take four critical actions for today uh for the city's cultural sector. As you've heard today, restore the baseline of the $30 million added to last year's cultural bud budget. Stable funding allows organizations to plan, retain staff, and sustain programs. Second, index that baseline to inflation. Rent, materials and staffing costs continue to rise and cultural organiza organizations need support to keep in pace. Third, reform the capital funding process. Capital projects as already discussed can take anywhere from six to 10 years. Uh our organization is example of that. Um and increase the coalition leaders of color initiative to 8 million. Thank you. >> Thank you. You may begin. >> Uh thank you to the cultural affairs committee. Uh my name is David Johnson. I am the development director for the Jazz Gallery. Uh my colleague Mi Miriam Dalai Fodera, a festival director for the Nomad Jazz Festival had to leave. Uh the Jazz Gallery presents over 380 concerts a year to in-person audiences of over 17,000. We've been bringing top quality jazz to New York City audiences since 1995. And we just celebrated our 30th anniversary. We offer free tickets each month to students at the Institute for Collaborative Collaborative Education, the South Bronx Charter School for International Cultures and the Arts, free concerts in Hudson Yards and the Financial District. Last year through Culture Pass, we distributed 468 free tickets to New Yorkers. We offer lowcost memberships to students, professional musicians, and veterans. In 2025, we partnered with the Flat Iron Nomad Partnership, the Nomad Alliance, and the Madison Square Park Conservancy for the inaugural Nomad Jazz Festival. This festival, which took place in Madison Square Park in August 25, attracted 70K visitors per day. New Yorkers enjoyed free world-class jazz with Ravi Col Train, Liz Wright, Brandy Younger, and newer emerging artists. We share the city council's commitment to affordability for artists and audiences alike. And we're also proud to be a longtime grantee of DCLA. Um, Dr. Williams, since you have returned to us, I found a quote of yours I liked very much. The fact that the overwhelming majority of grantees offer free or subsidized programming underscores the importance of public funding in keeping cultural access affordable and accessible for New Yorkers. We thank you for that. We are asking for the city council and the speaker's office to support the Nomad Jazz Festival. We are also asking for a restoration of $30 million in baseline support. Thank you very much. Hi, thank you. I'm happy to be here. My name is Susette Simon and I'm sorry. >> Oh, okay. Great. Hey. Hey. That's important. Hi. So, um, yes. Hi. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. My name is Susette Simon and I am the founder of NY Laughs, a comedy nonprofit founded in 2007. We believe punchlines make a better NYC. And I like to say that I like to think of myself as basically NYC's local LOL dealer. We produce free standup in public spaces. Think Shakespeare in the park with but with more hecklers than fewer tights. We call it laughter in the park. We believe a laughing New Yorker is a better New Yorker and honestly a less terrifying one. But we won't talk about that, you know, um especially on a stalled F train. But um we actually make the NYPD laugh. So basically think of us as public safety in some regards. Um I started NY laughs with a mic assigned and a healthy amount of delusion Tomkin Square Park. 19 years later, we've produced shows in over 20 parks and green spaces and reached more than 30,000 New Yorkers and visitors from every walk of life and work with many New York institutions, including the Irish Caucus of the New York City City Council. Thank you, CM Powers. Okay, Assemblyman Powers and and yes, we're funny, but we're also very serious about the work. We're deepening the role of standup as a vital cultural asset in the city. We received support from Niska, DCLA, and partnered with institutions like Lincoln Center, Pier 57, and Battery Park City Authority. We've also received discretionary funding, including from a Republican, Belli, because it turns out jokes poll everywhere. We bring people together. And after the successful launch of a festival last year in Union Square, we receive speaker funding, but because everybody's left, speaker funding doesn't come with a group chat. So we are here asking for 150,000 because we want to actually uh reach 50,000 New Yorkers New York. We want to start a comedy festival that is similar a circuit like there is a comedy festival in um in Montreal that's that is in July and then Edinburgh brings in over more people than FIFA in September and uh in August. So we want to start um uh um bolstering a comedy festival in Union Square. Union Square is great because it's a great, you know, not only do you have great audiences, but um it's a great place for New Yorkers to find an emotional support pigeon. Thank you so much for everything. I have I have some flyers for you and a lot of enthusiasm. The same sort of enthusiasm you get after you survived a trip on a subway. So, yeah. Thank you so much. I love you guys. >> Explain your outfit. >> Oh, this is my own. I'm the laughing apple. That's why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Oh, I want to turn the big apple into the laughing apple. >> Okay. >> Yeah, that's right. It gets blown up. I didn't I'm I'm on Olympic so you know >> it affects costumes, too. >> GOP1. Okay. Thank you so much. >> Okay, great. >> Appreciate you. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And the sergeants take the flyer. Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. Because I think you all are all funny inside. Deep inside. Council member here. Marte has performed maybe this year. >> Let me know. >> Reach out to my office. >> Okay. Um, next panel is Mauricio Delin Deline, Karan Atlas, Deik Shagar, Edward Hanland, and then please correct me. I love to be corrected so I can say people's names correctly. You may begin. >> Hi, I wrote um Edward Hanland, but I'm actually Ned Hanland. uh president of the American Guild of Musical Artists, the Union of Singers, Dancers, and Stage Staff and Opera, Dance, and Concert Performance. But uh first and foremost, I'm a working artist who actually just rushed here after dress rehearsal of La Traviata at the Met Opera. Um thank you for the opportunity to speak, surrounded by so many who share a commitment for the arts. I want to specifically emphasize the critical situation faced by the nonprofit performing arts where downward trends in federal funding and private donations present escalating challenges and by its artists who struggle every day with increasing cost of living in New York and beyond. Nonetheless, organization in this uh city continue to thrive artistically. To name just a few, the Mets production of Tristan and Isolda, which I performed in last night, has received critical acclaim and sold out houses. Voices of Ascension continues to bring world-class coral music to the village and now under a contract that makes their singers key partners in the company and Dance Theater of Harlem opens its 57th season next month and its first in decades under a union contract and DTH is one of several New York organizations and artists who've been forced to withdraw from their engagements at the Kennedy Center. Artistic excellence is vital to the city. The Met Opera alone generates 1.3 billion in economic activity and the creative industry altogether contributes as much as 13% to the city's total economic output. Uh but the arts that give so much to this city need support which is why we are asking along with so many other folks here um for a baseline 30 million increase in funding uh with annual increases for the department of cultural affairs. But of course, as president of the union and as a central labor council delegate, I'm also here to stress that our arts funding strategy must center artists and provide good jobs, safe jobs, and secure jobs, which usually means union jobs that have the protections of a collective bargaining agreement. Union jobs close conventional wage inequities while also providing artists the security to report instances of discrimination and harassment and to stand up for themselves on the job. New York is a vibrant artistic hub. Thank you for your continued advocacy um in preserving that funding for the arts. Thank you. >> Good afternoon. This I'm Karen Atlas. I direct Arts and Democracy and Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts New York, which is a city-wide alliance. And um I'm just gonna ditto the sector requests for the 30 minute 30 million baseline increases for inflation and a greater commitment to equity including 8 million to the coalition of theaters of color. I also believe that funding for arts and culture should be part should be a greater part of other city agency budgets given all that the arts contribute to the city and that includes DOT, Department of Health, SPS who've all supported us and others. Um, I'm sharing with you NOCDNY's reimagining New York City recommendations which are grounded in equity and in this holistic approach. That's the little booklets. Two days ago, Arts and Democracy joined with cultural partners and council member Shahana Hanife to host our community if in Kensington, Brooklyn, a diverse immigrant neighborhood. In spite of the rain, more than 400 people showed up. This joyful event in its 10th year exemplifies why arts and culture matter and why they should be well supported. In a time of polarization and hate crimes, it brought communities together, including Muslim and Jewish neighbors. In a time when we feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by the news, it offered an opportunity to connect, belong, and know we could make a difference. It highlighted the voices and creativity of Muslim women artists and the nuances of their cultures. neighborhood youth who grew up with this program got jobs which will continue throughout the summer as we animate our local plazos. And to go back to a question that w that came up about four hours ago at the hearing, no, we haven't received our funding yet for this program. We're a tiny organization and fronting that money is very difficult. And also um for eight months um we were funded by CDF and CI cultural immigrant initiative which is an incredible program but it's very hard for small organizations to front the money for eight months of their programming. Thank you so much. Thank you chair Williams and committee members. My name is Diksha Gore and I'm the executive director of theater development fund or TDF, a nonprofit that has focused on affordability and access to the performing arts for nearly 60 years. You may know us through our iconic TKTS booths in Times Square and Lincoln Center. I'm here to join my colleagues in urging the city to restore and baseline 30 million to the budget of the Department of Cultural Affairs. With support from the CDF, TDF served 1.3 million New Yorkers and visitors last year from all 51 council districts, including students, veterans, older adults, people with disabilities, and arts healthcare education and government workers. I want you to imagine for a second a thousand people sitting in a room together, their hearts beating literally as one. That is exactly what happens when people attend the arts. They relax. They engage with new ideas. They experience joy and katharsis. This connection to their humanity makes them more likely to vote, to volunteer, and to contribute to their communities. The arts have an outsized impact on both individual well-being and community health. At TDF, we believe our collective work is not done until every New Yorker feels belonging in the performing arts. And to advance this, we have requested council support, including allocations from the speakers list, the Autism Awareness Initiative, and the Veterans Community Development Initiative. TDF cannot do this work alone. We welcome your partnership in expanding access and reaching more communities across the city, either through introductions to community partners or in support of your own initiatives to make the arts more accessible for our city's residents. New Yorkers deserve both bread and roses to live well and to thrive as happier individuals in healthier communities. On behalf of TDF, I thank you for your time. >> Thank you so much. Appreciate you all for your patience. I know it's been a long day. Okay, next panel. Libradin Gwen. Um, Anna Suva Barbary. >> No, say Yeah, I know. E. No, this is different. Okay. And Barbara, I said Barbara Bryan already, right? Oh, you're here. Yay. Okay. Thank you, Madame Chair Williams and members of the community of the committee for the opportunity to testify. My name is Anna Pulvaare and I am co-director of Performance Viz New York, formerly PS122 in the East Village. I'm testifying today as a member of the Partners in Cultural Stewardship Coalition, an emerging coalition of nonprofit cultural organizations that steward and activate public-f facing cultural facilities across New York City through long-standing partnerships with public agencies. Our members uh for civic and historic spaces operate venues that remain open and accessible to brought publics and provide programming that serves New Yorkers across bureaus, generations, and communities. We're united by a shared commitment to stewardship access equity and collaboration, as well as a clear understanding that public private partnership is one way the city delivers arts and culture at a meaningful scale. We represent organizations that do far more than present programs. We care for public spaces, preserve civic assets, support artists, educators, students, and community partners, and create places where culture, learning, and civic life can take root across generations and publics. The testimonies you're about to hear from my fellow coalition members at the Clemente Movement Research and Dance Theater of Harlem. Some impact metrics of the scale and public value we bring are a combined 250,000 square feet of city-owned cultural space. Uh roughly 450,000 New Yorkers and visitors from beyond the city are reached annually and upwards of 500 full-time and part-time workers are employed annually across member institutions. Our coalition stewards theaters, galleries, dance spaces, artist studios, rehearsal spaces, and offer programs such as major performances, exhibitions, youth arts education, artist residency, etc. It is a privilege to occupy and steward these city on buildings, but we need additional support to sustain them and the people that look after them. Thank you. >> Thank you um Chair Williams and and members of the committee. My name is Libertad Gera and I'm the executive director of the Clemente Sotollis Cultural and Educational Center. The Clemente is a longstanding cultural and neighborhood anchor of the Lower Side Lida providing direct support to artists, independent producers, and small arts organizations. We steward a 100,000 square foot historic building. We sustain a year-round ecosystem that includes 46 subsidized studios, four theaters, two galleries, and outdoor public space while advancing affordable access through artist support, community partnerships, and original programs and festivals. Besides being members of this stewardship coalition, we're also part of the cultural equity coalition that testified earlier. In addition to the challenges faced by all organizations in the sector, this coalition members face unique challenges. Our situation is not only the legacy of the pandemic. It is the convergence of three ongoing pressures that are destabilizing cultural stu stewardship of city-owned buildings across New York City. The first one is inflation that has raised cost of nearly everything nonprofit organizations need to operate. utilities insurance maintenance supply security transportation and labor. These are the same pressures affecting small businesses across the country. But for a cultural organizations, they are compounded by public service organizations, aging facilities, and limited flexibility to absorb this rising cost. Second, New York City's affordability crisis, we all know, is affecting not only individuals and families, but also the institutions that hold neighborhoods together like ours. Yes, this is part of the solution. We are part of the solution of the affordability crisis. We provide deeply subsidized multi-use space venues and cultural for cultural producers and community groups and artists. But sustaining those low costs has too often come at a price. deferred maintenance in facilities that are constantly in need of repair and renovation and a pressure of staffing and benefits of uh that are forcing us to absorb unexpected building costs from already strained operating budgets. >> Sure, I'm on. Hello. Hello. Thank you, Madam Chair Williams and members of the committee. I'm Barbara Brian, the executive director of movement research, also a member of the partners and cultural stewardship coalition. In addition to stewarding city assets, which are an engine of economic development and opportunity for our neighbors and communities, we contribute greatly to the social well-being of our fellow New Yorkers. This matters because our organizations do far more than operate buildings. We store public cultural spaces that function as sites of learning, gathering, artistic development, memory, and neighborhood life. across the coalition. These spaces include theaters, galleries, dance studios, classrooms, rehearsal spaces, artist studios, archives, and flexible community venues. They support a broad range of public services, performances, exhibitions, arts education, youth development, artist residencies, preservation, interpretation, and civic gathering. We serve children, families, youth students neighbors seniors residents, public school communities, working artists, cultural workers, researchers, and visitors from across the city and beyond. We also serve communities that have too often been excluded from sustained cultural investment, including black, latino, immigrant, multilingual, and lowincome communities, as well as artisan audiences seeking affordable, welcoming places to create and to participate. What makes this coalition distinct is not only the scale, but the depth and continuity of what we provide. These are standing programs and long-term public resources. Harlem Stages Waterworks Commissioning Series and E-Moves, now running for more than 25 years, have created an enduring platform for artists and audiences. Bronx River Arts Cent's Bronx River Sounds connects performance to neighborhood-based cultural life in the Bronx. At the Clemente, Historius in Noeva York chronicles citywide initiatives advance a public humanities model rooted in Latinx history and community knowledge. While the international public flinch festival and the resident company Teatro, one of the city's anchor bilingual children's theaters bring an international and bilingual programming to families and young audiences. Dance Theater of Harlem. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair Williams and members of the committee for this opportunity to pro to testify. I'm Gwendelin Kingsbury and I'm the director of community engagement and arts education at Dance Theater Harlem, a leading dance institution that comprises of a multicultural ballet company of global acclaim and a world trust worldclass training school in arts education and community outreach programs. I want to close our combined testimony by speaking on what a stronger partnership with the city should now make possible. The city already invest in many of our organizations through project-based grants, energy reimbursements, and capital allocations, but those tools were not designed to meet the full operating realities of stewarding public cultural assets. What is needed now is a more intentional stewardship strategy, one that matches the public function these organizations already perform on the city's behalf. The strategy should should include practical mechanisms that the city can develop in partnership with coalition members, a shared repair and stabilization fund for urgent building needs that do not rise to the level of major capital projects but cannot be absorbed by nonprofit operating budgets. Expanded access to shared services and group rate systems that could lower the cost of insurance, health coverage, retirement benefits, and other essential expenses. and a more coordinated inter agency approach to the facilities, workforce, and compliance challenges that come with caring for public facing cultural buildings. This is not about treating cultural organizations as isolated grantees. It is about recognizing them as long-term stewards of civic access and building the systems to support the responsibility. A stronger framework will protect public facilities, reduce the long-term cost of deferred maintenance, stabilize the workforce that makes these services possible, and allow organizations to direct more of their limited resources toward artist, audience, students, and neighborhoods. Our call is for the city to recognize cultural stewardship as a public systems issue and to develop the tools that recogni recognition requires. Thank you. Thank you all so very much both for your patience and your testimony and for all you do within your wonderful organizations. Final inperson panel. Jacqueline Joiera or Jovra Cabrera. How do you say it? >> Oh, the second one I did it right. Jovra. Molly. from Momma and DJ McDonald's. >> Oh, wow. >> Okay. So, you'll go on the next panel. >> Yes. Sorry about that. I don't know what happened. You can begin whomever. >> Hello. Can you hear me? Okay, great. Um, good afternoon. Thank you, Dr. Williams and council. My name is Jovara Cabrera and I'm a New York City educator, a doctoral candidate researching Latino family engagement and bilingual early literacy programs, and a parent of two young children who regularly visit the Queen's Public Library. The Queens Public Library system is central to both my personal and my professional life. As a parent, I visit local branches with my children to attend cultural events and to access diverse books that reflect our community's languages and identities. Participating in the kickoff to kindergarten series was transformative for my family. I learned dialogic reading strategies that strengthen how I engage my own children during our nightly reading routines and deepened my confidence as their first teacher. As an educator and a researcher, I have also seen how the Queens Public Library serves as a trusted community hub with culturally and linguistically diverse families where they feel welcomed and empowered. Queens Public Library does more than lend books. It builds school readiness, provides bilingual resources, and ensures families have access to high quality early learning experiences regardless of income or language background. Libraries like the Queens Public Library are public institutions that advance equity and opportunity. When we fund libraries, we invest on our children's futures. When we fund libraries, we support immigrant families. When we fund libraries, we strengthen our communities. If we truly believe in these priorities, then our budgets must reflect this commitment by fully funding our public libraries. >> Oh, thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Williams, committee members. Thank you for having me. Is it still you guys hearing me? Hi. My name is Jacqueline Khr and I'm a Queen's Public Library patron. The library is important to me for several reasons. However, before I speak of them, I must begin by saying that my interest peaked in the services of the library when I volunteered as an adult basic education tutor at the Rushdale Village Library. I was deeply encouraged, even elated when I witnessed the students progress. The moment they realized they could read, their faces lit up. their confidence and persona improved and they look forward to their next class. The public library is also important to me because of the many opportunities it has afforded me and the members of the community as well. I utilize the computers. I also read the newspapers, in particular the New York Times. I especially appreciate that most libraries have book clubs. I'm a member of the Laurenton Literary Society. In the near future, I hope to learn how to play chess, which is being offered at the Camber Heights Library. I also learned to paint at the library and have some of my artwork is now being exhibited at the Camber Heights Library. I particularly like that I was able to participate in a defensive driving class and for the past two years, I have my taxes done at the library thanks to the alliance with AARP. Additionally, I can't emphasize enough how beneficial the work of the Queens Public Library Civic Engagement Department has been to me. I thoroughly enjoy the leadership programs which have helped me to become a better leader and communicator. The benefits that the public libraries offer are enormous. However, increased funding is essential to expand program programming across our libraries. Greater resources would allow for the development of additional opportunities for teens, including financial literacy workshops, mentorship initiatives, and other enrichment programs designed to equip them for the future. With sustained and increased support, libraries can continue to grow not only as centers of learning, but as pillars of guidance and community empowerment. Thank you. Good afternoon, uh, Deputy Speaker, Chair, Dr. Williams, and staff. Uh, my name is DJ McDonald. I represent the dance parade for the purposes of this hearing uh which we invite you to be part of on May 16th as we do it for the 20th annual this will be the 20th annual parade and festival. Um it would be my honor to have you as our guest any of you all of you as well as our friends from the libraries. Um, I'm here to support the ask that you've heard from many of my colleagues. Uh, that uh uh that the council baseline the $30 million that was added to the cultural budget last year. Uh, that that be indexed so it automatically in increases with inflation. Uh, that uh the process for capital funding be streamlined. uh and that the funding for uh the Coalition of theaters of Color initiative be increased to 8 million uh to reflect a greater number of organizations uh this year. But more importantly, um I'm I'm here to uh support what I think we've begun as a partnership with the council and that has persisted over many years, but now can take on a new uh a new dimension. Um if we be believe in investing in culture as one of the things that both anchors the population in the city of New York increases its tax base and uh brings in tourists from all over the world and and that investment at the level of say 1% ultimately is a goal that we should strive for. If we believe that um in a dollar invested in culture generates $99 in the general economy, I think it's a good investment, especially when the city and the state are under such pressure from the federal government to um to demonstrate to the rest of the country what New York has always demonstrated that that in these kind of investments in our in our cultural resources produce um an economy and a society we all want to live in. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you. And thank you so much for your testimony, Kathy. We go. >> Well, thank you so much for your time. Um, I'm honored and proud to be the last person to testify today. >> Oh, no. You have one more actually. >> Oh, you took my spot. Um, but thank you for listening to all of us today. My name is Kathy Hong and I'm the executive director of Making Book Sing, doing business as New York City Children's Theater. I often begin by inviting people to think about think back to their first theater experience. Whether you are on stage or in the audience, you likely remember that excitement, the moment when they felt possible to fly, to sing or dance or be the finest person in the room. Theater give children permission to imagine, to explore new possibility, and to believe they can do anything. At New York City Children's Theater, we use the same power of imagination to help children learn, heal, and grow. I think of a little boy in one of our multilingual shelter residency who hadn't spoken for weeks. During a simple drama game, pretending to be an animal, he suddenly laid out the tiniest roar. The whole room froze. Then he did it again, louder. By the end of the session, he was leading the group. That role wasn't just play. It was agency. It was confidence returning. Our programs including mainstage productions, literature at play, anti-bullying workshop, and theater for the very young touring productions are active across 24 city council districts in all five burough and serve more than 16,000 students annually. Our teaching artist expert in traumainformed practice use theater, music and active play to help children process big emotions, solving problems and build empathies and rediscover joy. So as you make decision for the coming year, we respectfully ask for your continued and renewed support for this critical funding stream. We are asking speaker initiative support of $150,000 to support our shelter program cultural immigrant initiative fund especially from district council um council's district you have given us the funding since you took the office. Thank you so much and um all the important cultural program Kasa and Sucasa. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um and again thank you all so much for testifying especially the libraries. It's always nice to meet patrons. Um, and y'all are from Queens. Sounds like you're in Southeast Queens. So, always nice to see folks locally here at city hall. So, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to testify. Okay, the last person, Margie Malavi Malavi. Oh, yep. Might as well. We don't have a slip for you, so you just need to fill out the slip. Oh, so we called you already. >> Oh, okay. So, we have a slip for you. Okay. You know, it's the type of day. Thanks all for your patience. Okay. Either one can start. >> Good afternoon, Deputy Speaker Williams and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Also representing Queens here from PS1 in Long Island City. I'm Molly Kursius. I'm the chief of external affairs at Momo PS1, where for the past 50 years, we have proudly served Long Island City with ambitious exhibitions, deep community partnerships, and free public programs. At the core of our mission is accessibility, ensuring that all New Yorkers can access and engage with contemporary art. On January 1st, as I think you know, we eliminated all admission fees, making PS1 the largest free museum in the city. The response has been truly extraordinary, and the message is clear. When financial barriers are removed, New Yorkers show up. But this moment of increased demand comes as cultural organizations face rising operating costs and growing demand for free programming like ours. At the same time, the funding landscape is shifting in foundational ways that undercut philanthropic support. In this environment, city funding is essential to the daily functioning of our organizations, providing the stability our institutions need, especially when other funding sources are uncertain. We support restoring baseline city funding, annual cost adjustments, and reforms to the capital process that will ensure that culture is affordable and accessible for all New Yorkers. Specifically, this year in FY27, MOMA PS1 is seeking capital funding to take the next step in our commitment to access. We're pursuing a transformative renovation of our entrance building, courtyard, and first floor to create a welcoming ADA accessible, green space, and flexible community hub in the heart of Long Island City. Long Island City, as many of you know, has grown rapidly in recent years, yet ranks 57th of 59 districts in open space per resident. The recent 1LIC resoning and PS1's own community engagement efforts point to the need for accessible public space within our community. Since 2020, we've worked with neighbors and partners to shape a design that meets community needs. This plan creates a flexible entry space with seating, restrooms, and a potential cafe, opens the concrete wall along Jackson Avenue, and transforms our 25,000 square foot courtyard with greenery, shade, and seating, replacing gravel with secure paving, and adding an integrated ADA ramp and permanent canopy for year-round use. Um, the courtyard will remain open to the public beyond museum hours as a neighborhood gathering place. The project has already secured 12.5 million dollars in support from the city council, the DCLA, and the Queensboro president. half of our total funding goal. We respectfully seek this additional support to realize our vision and continue advancing our shared goals of access, equity, and affordability. >> Hi there. >> Thank you. I'm sure you're all very tired. Thank you for being here. I actually decided to come on a whim um based upon an email I got from a library advocacy organization this morning. I'm a mom of three boys in Brooklyn. I'm an attorney, a local organizer, a political fundraiser, and I am about to pursue um my masters of library science in hopes to work with uh library sciences degree and my law degree in the mass incarceration system. And I'm just here because, you know, it's fascinating to me to see how much the New York City library systems budget has shrunk so consistently over the last several years, which is something you're inheriting. Um, I see branches closing. I see less hours. I see my one of my branches closed. It was supposed to open 16 months later. It's now two and a half years later. It's still not open. And the reason I came is because the library is one of the last spaces where everyone is and should be welcome. It is the repository of like all of our greatest accomplishments and at a time of political crisis but also political change. When you're contemplating what the library's budget should be, I don't think it should be thought of in terms of a building that has a lot of books in it that puts together some very sweet and wonderful programming. I think it should be thought of as a space that is a bridge to social mobility for so many people, particularly people who are forgotten, like people in prison who otherwise have no access to information other than small drips that come from small organizations that decide to put their time towards bringing humanity to people who are locked up. And that's just one small part of, for example, Brooklyn Public Libraries programming. So all I would ask of you is to re-imagine really what the value of the library is in this city with the oldest MLIS program in this city that seems from my perspective as someone who lives here to be providing less and less to its people but expecting the libraries to be that when we're cutting programs elsewhere. having the library be a place where a houseless person goes. Having the library be a place where someone who doesn't have a job go. If we can't provide those things yet, I believe we can in the future for everyone who deserves it, why not better support an infrastructure that's already there, that's already providing it to them. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. And as I said from the last panel, I appreciate um you coming and spending time out of your day. I know I don't take it lightly that people come and testify. So, thank you so much for your testimony as a patron and thank you so much. I'm looking forward to touring. I know I have to reschedu my date, but I look forward to coming um to visit as chair of the committee because I've been there a few times, but I look forward to coming as chair of the committee. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody that testified today um for sharing your thoughts and experiences and thank you for your patience. Most importantly, if there's anyone in the room who wishes to speak but has not yet had the opportunity to do so, please raise your hand and fill out an appearance card with the sergeant-at-arms at the back of the room. Nobody. Great. That concludes the inerson portion of our public testimony. We will now move to remote testimony. If you are testifying remotely, please listen for your name to be called. Once your name is called, a member of our staff will unmute you. You may then start your testimony once the sergeant-at-arm sets the clock and cues you to begin. Julia de Palasios, you may begin once you're muted, unmuted and the sergeant cues you. >> Time starts now. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Dr. Williams and members of the committee. I'll keep it brief because I know it's been a long day for you all. My name is Julia de Palasio and the executive director of Queens Theater, a proud member of the cultural institutions group. Queen's theater reflects the lived experiences of Queen's residents while supporting local creators, first-time producers, schools, and community organizations. With accessibility and representation at the core of our mission, our theater for all initiative has served over 250 deaf and disabled performers with alumni reaching Broadway and national TV. Through developing new American voices, we've nurtured over 160 play centered on immigrant and first generation stories. Our Queen Theater education programs reach over 5,000 students and older adults annually, many in arts poor, schools, and senior centers, providing vital cultural programming. We also serve multiple districts across Queens Kasa and Sukasa locations and have the capacity to do more to continue this work and remain a stable civic anchor. We are asking the council for support in three specific areas. baseline restoration of the 30 million already mentioned, inflation adjustments and capital project reform. Queen Theater is a trusted partner and a neighborhood anchor. Your support ensures that culture remains affordable and accessible for all New Yorkers. We look forward to strengthening our partnership with this committee to keep the arts thriving in Queens and beyond. Thank you for your time and your commitment to the arts. >> Thank you for being so concise. Next panelist, Doria Josema, followed by Jessica Baker. >> Now, >> thank you. Um, hello everyone. Uh, thank you, uh, chair and members of the committee. Uh, my name is Doria Josema. I am the development manager at Cool Culture and I'm here on behalf of more than 50,000 New York City families, uh, primarily families of color and families experiencing poverty who access the city's cultural resources through our programs. For over 25 years, Cool Culture has worked at the intersection of arts, equity, and community well-being. Through our citywide program, families with young children receive free access to more than 90 museums, zoos, and cultural institutions across all five burrows. Each year, families make over 180,000 visits, creating moments of joy, connection, and learning that extend that uh arts and cultural access extends far beyond the classroom. But this work is about more than access. It's about belonging. Despite of the vision of Create NYC, our city's cultural funding system continues to reflect deep inequities. An independent budget office analysis found that a small group of large institutions receives the majority of public funding while more than 1,000 cultural organizations, many rooted in black, brown, and immigrant communities share only a small fraction. Through our parent power for cultural equity work, families and Bedford Styverson told us, "Art is everywhere, but access is not." They spoke about displacement, shrinking space for community- based creativity and their hopes for intergenerational art spaces, healing centered cultural hubs and opportunities for their children to thrive. So today, on behalf of cool culture, we urge the council to take bold action, reimagine our cultural funding model to address historic inequities, establish a baseline of sustained funding for bipacled cultural organizations, and invest in the grassroots. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Jessica Baker, followed by Sophia Harrison. >> Time starts now. Good afternoon, Chair Williams and members of the committee. Thank you so much for this opportunity to testify. My name is Jessica Baker Vador, and I'm the president and CEO of Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, and I'm also the CI vice chair for Staten Island. Um, our institution is a proud member of the cultural institutions group and our site is home to three additional CIGs. Uh, the Staten Island Museum, the Staten Island Children's Museum, and the Noble Maritime Collection, as well as 39 different residential uh, resident individual artists and CDF organizations. Um, Staten Island also boasts two more CIGs in historic Richmond Town and the Staten Island Zoo. and together we represent the cultural backb back backbone of our burrow. Um, now entering our 50th year, Snug Harbor is a culture park on Staten Island offering arts, nature, history, education, and events for all. We envision a more culturally connected and thriving Staten Island. And Snug Harbor confronts the affordability barriers by providing accessible programming for our underresourced community and the general public. Much of it free or pay as you wish. Thanks to consistent support from the city of New York, we are the city's only free botanical garden open 365 days a year and we steward a historic 83 acre campus with 26 buildings providing free open green space adjacent to environmental justice communities. Our workforce development initiatives are funded with both private and city support train emerging and young adults in environmental stewardship. very many of those uh thanks to city council initiatives. Uh our artist residencies are also sought after providing stipens and professional development as well as space to live, work and create and share with the public. Uh this in addition to the 39 subsidized studio tenants, uh artists and individual organizations that cross genres from visual to performing arts. We welcomed over 500,000 visitors in fiscal year 25. >> Time expired. 35% were free. Just wanted to uplift my colleagues support uh for the baseline restoration of the 30 million annual adjustments um increasing our costs um to address our costs and also to improve and reform the capital process. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next up, Sophia Harrison. >> Time starts now. >> Good day, Deputy Speaker Dr. Natasha Williams and all in attendance. Hi, I'm Sophia Harrison, the executive director and founder of Arts House Schools of Music, Dance, and Fine Arts located in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Locally, we serve the 47th and 48th districts. Since 2005, Arts House School's mission has to provide culture and humanities for children in the Coney Island community while providing them with the opportunity to build self-esteem, self-confidence, and develop poise, race, and balance. Additionally, we believe it is our responsibility to engage our entire community in meaningful artistic activities. activities that effectively communicate beauty, foster an appreciation for diversity, and create a life filled with meaning and purpose. This self-imposed imp responsibility is echoed through the thousand plus arts and cultural organizations and countless independent artists that serve NYC, including the outer burrows and especially the culturally underserved neighborhoods of southern and eastern Brooklyn, Far Rockaway, Staten Island, and so many communities in the Bronx. Today I'm requesting that the council stabilize funding for the department of cultural affairs and in turn stabilize the sector. Unfortunately, after more than a decade of receiving funding from the cultural development fund to provide dance scholarships to boys and girls ages 5 to 7, this year ours schools was zeroed out. The sudden loss of funding not only reduces the number of students who are able we are able to financially assist in their arts education but also ripples down to the salaries of teaching artists program and organizational staff while placing a financial burden on the organization itself. For the past 19 years, Arts House Schools has worked handinhand with our local council members to provide our community with experience and exposure in the arts. It has been the support of the entire council that organizations such as ours health schools have been have been able to step out outside of our doors and support the community around us. Today, along with our colleagues, we are asking the council to stabilize the sector by restoring the baseline of last year's 30 million and add to the cultural budget. That baseline to be that the baseline be indexed so that automatically increases with inflation, the capital funding for culture be streamlined and revised for greater ease and efficiency. and that the funding of the culture expired theaters of cultures um be increased to 8 million to affect the greater number of organizations to serve and also that the council will consider a cultural budget of 1% of the city's budget. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Next we have Esther Welsh, Miriam Cabba, and Dialin Flesh. >> Time starts now. as staring you can begin. Okay. If there Oh, the room is muted. They can't hear us. If anybody on the Zoom can hear us, Esther can begin. If anybody on the Zoom can hear us, Esther can begin. Okay. Um, try this again. Esther or Miriam, if you're on Esther first, then Miam Caba. Wait, may it begin? Yep. Okay. Um, my name is Esther Welsh. I am a library patron and a member of New York City Plan. I'm here today because public libraries need at least half a percent of the city's budget. The preliminary budget as it is now allocates just 39%. New Yorkers will tell you that this city is the best city in the world. And this greatness is due in large part to the library. Our libraries are a place of intellectual freedom and learning. They're a place where people can go to build skills and community. It's an archive of our cultural heritage and they serve as cooling centers so they can literally save lives. The library deserves to have adequate and stable funding. Allocating 3% of the budget is a drop from the previous year's budget. um this is not stable and it's not adequate. Um let's see. Uh so this number this constant like budget cuts and um different funding it leaves libraries scrambling to maintain infrastructure, maintain their collections, their programming and their accessible hours. Libraries deserve better than this and New Yorkers deserve better than this. Um New York City plan has asked that half % of the budget be allocated to public libraries. And the mayor has agreed to this both in his campaign and has reiterated it after his election. So this is a commitment that needs to be honored. Um so yes, once again, um we are asking for half a percent of the city's budget and that this should be a benchmark for future budgets because libraries deserve stable funding. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Miriam. >> Time starts now. >> Hello everybody. I'm sorry it's telling me about unmuting and muting, so I'm I'm struggling with it. I'm here. Um, thank you so much uh to the council uh for these hearings. My name is Miriam Cabba. Um, and I am uh a New Yorker born and raised and I am a member of the New York City Public Library Action Network, which is a grassroots group of New York City residents um that are focused on a mission to uh make sure that our three library systems um are strengthened, amplified, and can progress. Um libraries, like most public institutions, perpetually deal with budget constraints. Mayors propose or threatened to cut library budgets and then after public mobilization and outcry sometimes restore funding at levels that do not keep up with inflation. The New York City plan of which I am a member has been strategizing and organizing to stop this destructive budget dance. Our main demand is that the city allocate 0.5% half of 1% of the expense budget to our public libraries annually. This demand has been amplified by the New York City public library system as well. The mayor um included our demand in his platform during his campaign. After he won, he reiterated his support at an event at Greenpoint Library in December of 2025. When the budget was actually released in February, he actually allocated 0.39% of the city budget, which is much less than what was promised during the campaign. Um so we're asking the city council to please join us in advocating and um executing an increase uh and most importantly stabilizing funding for our public library systems which are essential democratic institutions and are being asked every single year to do more with not enough funding. We live in a time of pervasive disillusionment. People are rightly mistrustful of most institutions. The library can serve as one way to show that public goods are actually good and that institutions aren't meaningless. I asked the city council to support the demand of 0.5% of the city expense budget to be allocated to our public libraries. As Rita Dove wrote, the library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world. New York City and deserves the fully funded libraries. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dylan or Dylan. >> Time starts now. >> Hello. Thank you, Deputy Speaker Dr. Williams and the rest of this committee for the opportunity to testify. My name is Dylan Flesh and I'm a patron of the Brooklyn Public Library and a member of NYC Plan, the Public Library Action Network. I'm here to implore the city council, especially council leadership and the budget negotiating team, to fight with every tool at your disposal to fund public libraries at half of 1%, 0.5% of the total city expense budget. This number should be baselined and should be considered the minimum acceptable amount. I don't want the city council to have to keep filling the gap through negotiations and discretionary funding year after year, as I'm sure you don't either. I'd like to compliment you, Chair Williams, on your handling of these proceedings today. I especially liked when you called out a previous speaker from DCLA for acting like the one-time funding that gets wrangled between the preliminary budget and the adopted budget was something they could count on because it's not. And similarly for libraries, they must act like the amount in the preliminary budget is the amount they're going to have to operate with. They can't and shouldn't count on those numbers increasing between now and July. And because of this, they can't plan and they have to operating under the logic of cuts. They stop hiring. They start planning reductions to services. And generally, they can't be all we need them to be. This is the impact of the budget dance, and we need it to stop. Library management is tiptoeing around this conversation because they're trying to maintain positive relationships with the mayor while they're doing backroom negotiations. The CEOs of the libraries consistently fail to recognize the need that NYC Plan and patrons and workers of libraries have been highlighting for years. We have to stop accepting these crumbs in the budget and fight for more. My son Griffin got his library card when he was two months old and we've been able to access hundreds of books that we wouldn't have otherwise. We visit the Sunset Park branch of BPL frequently. It's a beautiful new branch with 100% affordable housing on top. But even my branch has now had to close the whole bottom floor due to a burst pipe and flooding. There are 10 closed branches in Brooklyn right now. So the 100 vacancies >> time expired. Thank you. >> Did you have any 20 second last final things you wanted to say? Oh, okay. Or maybe not. Oh, you're going to get unmuted now. Oh, wait. You didn't unmute it. Okay. Well, I tried. Thank you so much for your testimony. Um, >> okay. It's letting me know. Oh, okay. >> I wanted to say I call on you to hold the mayor to his promise of ending the budget dance and fight for at least half of 1% for the city budget for libraries. >> Thank you. Okay, next panel, Susan Hoffman, Kathleen Collins, Britney Shrop Sheer, and Claire Park. So, we'll start with Susan Hoffman. Time starts now. >> It looks like Susan left. So, let's go to Kathleen Collins. >> Time starts now. >> Uh, good afternoon, Deputy Speaker, Dr. Williams, and council members. Uh, my name is Kathleen Collins. um disabled from birth and they're a native New Yorker also the treasure of disabled in action. Libraries are important to everyone but they are especially vital for New Yorkers with disabilities. We are living in a time where we are experiencing a deluge of information and data. Thus it is essential that everyone including people with disabilities have equal access to that knowledge. The Andrew has braille and talking book library is a lifeline for many New Yorkers who are blind, visually impaired, have reading disabilities or other disabilities. It provides access to books, technology, and information that would otherwise be out of our reach. Personally, I have benefited greatly from being able to read books online from the three New York City public library systems. However, more needs to be done. New York City must increase funding for all our libraries, but especially for the Andrew Hesco brail and talking book library. Increased funding will expand accessible computers, improve assisted technology, and ensure that people with disabilities can fully participate in the information age. History shows that people of this village have changed the world. Individual such Albert Einstein, Steven Hawin, Senator D, Senator Duckworth, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The next great scientist leader could be a New Yorker with a disability who simply needs access to knowledge. If New York City truly believes in opportunity for all, then we must invest in accessible libraries because the cost of lost potential is far greater than the cost of funding them. Finally, access to information is a civil right. Please provide more funding for the Andrew House Braille and Talking Book Library and affirm that New York City remains committed to equity, inclusion, and fundamental principle that knowledge must be accessible to everyone. Thank you. >> Thank you, Britney. >> Claire, >> time starts now. >> Hi, my name is Britney Shire. I'm a resident of Queens and a long time lover of the library. The library has been my ticket home since I've been able to read and I have cards at all three library systems as well as I visit my local branch of Briwood weekly to check out books and access services. Um as a social worker I also request professional development books to the library frequently. Um the library is truly a lifeline of the city serving every single age gap and population and should not be used as a bargaining tip every time budget talks come around. Not only is that heartbreaking to me, but also exhausting and frustrating to all of us who support the library and the staff members having to pour countless energy into advocating when they are already stretched thin by limited staffing. Um, I'm asking for the mayor to follow through with allocating 5% of funding in the 2027 budget um and make that the benchmark for future budgets and um requesting that city council members also can support us in that advocacy. Thank you so much for all that you are doing um in in this committee. >> Thank you. Claire >> time starts now. >> Hi. Uh my name is Claire. I'm a race resident of New York City. I'm also a member of the New York City Public Library Action Network like so many of us today. I'm here today to ask city council commit 0.5% of the total city budget for public library funding in the upcoming fiscal year. I just wanted to share some like scenes from my library experiences over the last couple weeks just showing how much they do for me and my neighbors. Um this well I guess longer before but uh this summer I didn't have any internet access at home or air conditioning and I live on the top floor of my apartment. Um, the Bay Ridge Library was the place where I could get um both internet and AC for free as well as cold filter water. Um, while I was while I was hanging out there, I met a group of adults with disabilities who came to read and hang out. Saw a lot of my senior neighbors reading the local newspaper. Um, last week I went to the Crown Heights Library where there were backto-back children's reading hours and I noticed that during the reading hours, parents and also other caretakers could take a break from caregiving. Um, the library also has an amazing book dropbox that staff has decorated in the form of Blueie the Dog, and I also got to use the bathroom there for free. Um, yesterday at the Brooklyn Heights Library, I skimmed through some new novels, and I used the printer. I met a woman there who asked me for my help because of her low vision and printing documents for her church group. Um, I learned how to read and write English by going to my local library as a kid, um, and by checking out and reading books. These are like basic skills um that allow me to make my livelihood today. Um the current allocation of only 0.39% for public libraries is unacceptable. And I urge city council members to care for us, your constituents, by committing a minimum 0.5% of the city budget for all of the city's libraries this year and also going forward. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next panel is poetry ranka Janet Sanodi Cincer Cer. I want to get everyone's names right. Okay. And Juliana Cope. So first one poetry >> time starts now. Um what happened? Um allayikum mataku. My name is Putrian Kamanis. Good afternoon um chair Dr. Williams and council members in the committee. I'm a founder and artistic director of Kinding Syninda, a nonforprofit cultural organization with 34 years of service to New York City. New York City's immigrant public school um libraries and public libraries underserved and indigenous communities. We are member of New York culture and arts coalition and also dance NYC. Kindal preserves and advances the living tradition of the indigenous peoples and sultenates of southern Philippines and diaspora through dance kintang music, storytelling, martial art and com community based cultural education. We serve youth, families and senior across schools, libraries and public programs primarily in the underserved communities. For many we serve kindings. For many we serve Kindings is more than an art organization. It is a cultural lifeline. Our intergenerational programs sustain indigenous and diaspora languages, oral tradition and embodied knowledge, strengthening identity, belonging and mental health. Our work aligns with the city's priorities in equity, public health, and culturally responsive services. We support social emotional learning, reduce isolation, and build resilience among immigrant communities, serving as both a cultural anchor and breeds for cult cross-cultural understanding. However, small cultural organization like ours face ongoing structural underfunding. Rising costs for space transportation and fair wages for teaching artists threatened the sustainability of this work. We respectfully urge the council to increase baseline of $30 million funding for department of cultural affairs and prioritize um coalition of time um and funding for Okay, thank you. And 8 million for CTC. Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. Next up, Janet, followed by Juliana. >> Time starts now. >> Thank you. It's Caesar. So, you almost had it. >> Caesar. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yes. Um, thank you, Deputy Speaker, Dr. Williams, and council members for this opportunity to testify. U, my name is Janet Caesarati, and I am a program and development associate with Notesin Motion/Mansel and Dance Theater, founded in 2000. We are a New York City nonprofit that prevents innovative dance performances and provides comprehensive arts education in public schools. As a longtime Department of Education vendor, we serve students from 3K through 12th grade in styles ranging from modern and ballet to hiphop, Latin, African, Bollywood, and musical theater. Since our founding, we have directly served over 93,000 students across 190 schools and reached more than 528,000 young people in communities throughout all of New York City. Today, we partner with 190 schools across 45 council districts. Our programs give students confidence, discipline, and joy. Skills that extend far beyond dance into school and life. Teachers and parents report that students who were previously disengaged are now participating, leading, and showing up differently in classes. Arts education also supports social emotional growth, academic engagement, and community connection, particularly for students in underserved neighborhoods. Yet, access remains inequitable. State data shows that only about one-third of eighth graders are meeting New York's arts education requirements. Too many students are still being denied consistent highquality arts education, leaving gaps in both academic and personal development. As the city council reviews the FY27 preliminary budget, we respectfully urge you to address the cost of living crisis for the arts education workforce, restore and baseline $30 million in DCLA funding to stabilize arts organizations and workers citywide, and preserve and improve arts education time throughout the city. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Next up, Juliana Cope. Time starts now. >> Thank you, Deputy Dr. Williams and members of the committee. I am Juliana Cop, assistant executive director for development external affairs at Mindbuilders Creative Arts Center. Founded in 1978, Mindbuilders began with a grassroots mission to inspire the growth of local youth and families in the Northeast Bronx by providing lowcost, highquality arts education. Thanks to your support, we offer numerous free programs. All of our fee for service programs are subsidized and no one is ever turned away for inability to pay. We provide music, dance, theater, folk culture, and production programs serving hundreds of students each week and thousands of audience members each year. Organizations like Mindbuilders Creative Arts Center touch every vital aspect of daily life. Intrinsic to our purpose is the community we serve. In the words of one of our incredible parent volunteers, AJ, in times like these where we are so divided, this is our gathering place, our place of agreement, a place where our children can go not only to learn about their themselves but their culture. Not only to learn about their culture, but themselves. We are not alone in serving New York City this way. We exist as part of this great ecosystem. As such, we stand with our colleagues calling on the city to continue your ongoing investments in the cultural sector, including restoring baselining last year's 30 million ad to the culture budget and increasing funding for the coalition of theaters of color to $8 million. Thank you for supporting this work that effectively transforms lives, neighborhoods, and our city. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Last but certainly not least, Stephen. >> Time starts now. >> Hi. Uh, can you hear me? >> Hi. >> Yes. >> Sorry. I'm currently uh in transit. Uh, I'm with uh NYC Plan as well. Uh, you've already heard a lot from the rest of my group, so I'm just going to reiterate. Um, you know, we were trying to get a funding increase that the mayor had that the mayor had agreed to his campaign for half a percent. It looks like the mayor has instead proposed a budget cut. So, we're asking city council to fight uh for that half a percent funding increase. Uh, I'm on my way to fly right now in support of those cause, but thank you so much for uh hearing our hearing our demand and we hope that you'll fight for it because we all know how important libraries are. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, I believe that concludes our preliminary budget hearing. I just want to make sure that I'm saying all the things I need to say and I think I am. Yeah. All right. So, seeing that there's no one else who wishes to Ify this hearing is officially adjourned.