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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Senior Representative from Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Cultural Funding Challenges
5:04:29
ยท
98 sec
The Senior Representative from Brooklyn Botanic Garden testifies about the financial challenges faced by cultural institutions in NYC, emphasizing the need for increased and stable city funding. They highlight the impact of budget cuts, rising costs, and the destabilizing effect of yearly funding fights.
- Brooklyn Botanic Garden faced deficit budget and program cuts due to planned 2024 budget reductions
- The speaker calls for baseline funding of $75 million in the DCLA budget for FY2026
- Cultural institutions are struggling with flat city funding, mandated cost increases, and post-COVID visitation losses
UNKNOWN
5:04:29
Good afternoon, Chair Rivera.
5:04:31
On behalf of Adrian Benopy, our president and chief executive officer of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
5:04:38
Because of planned dramatic cuts in 2024, BBG held staff vacancies, shut down new initiatives, and passed the deficit budget for the first time ever.
5:04:46
And fortunately for The Garden and all of our SIG colleagues, the proposed mayoral cuts were ultimately reversed, but the specter held us in a painful limbo.
5:04:55
As we approach the new fiscal year, we are treading lightly and hoping to remain in the black.
5:05:00
Even as the city has held its contributions to cultural flat for many years, it has mandated expensive increases in wages and unfunded health care and pension mandates.
5:05:09
And in an era with rampant inflation and post COVID visitation losses, this amounts to an unsustainable tax on the city's public institutions.
5:05:18
The simple fact is that fighting every year for city funding is a destabilizing dynamic in an already challenging environment.
5:05:27
Because the city's culture funding has not kept pace with inflation and other rising costs, the CIGs are forced to suppress their core functions.
5:05:34
For the Garden and our 33 other cultural counterparts, this is not just we just we don't just wanna survive, but we wanna thrive.
5:05:42
And the city must reset its commitment in fiscal year twenty six and baseline the $75,000,000 in the DCLA budget.
5:05:49
As Adrian often says, any school aged child knows that plants need water and sunlight to survive.
5:05:56
And New Yorkers know that to have a thriving and world class cultural sector, we need money to thrive.
5:06:02
Help us do that and commit the $75,000,000 in the budget, and thank you for the opportunity to testify.