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AGENCY TESTIMONY
Queens Public Library CEO Dennis Walcott's Testimony on Library Funding Needs
0:32:15
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7 min
Dennis Walcott, President and CEO of Queens Public Library, delivers testimony highlighting the critical funding needs of public libraries in New York City. He emphasizes the importance of libraries as trusted community institutions and the challenges they face due to budget constraints, including reduced book purchasing power and aging infrastructure.
- Walcott stresses the need for additional funding beyond the mayor's proposed budget to meet operational and capital expenses.
- He provides specific examples of how inflation has eroded the libraries' purchasing power for books and essential supplies.
- The testimony concludes with a call for baseline funding and increased support to maintain and expand library services.
Dennis Walcott
0:32:15
And my name is Dennis Wolcott.
0:32:18
It's a pleasure to be here.
0:32:19
I have the honor of being the president and CEO of the Queen's Public Library, and I wanna thank Tony and Linda and all of our teams for their respective partnership.
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I want to give a special thanks to you Chair Brannan and to Chair Rivera and to the council members for all of your support over the years.
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I see Doctor.
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Natasha Williams here from our Queen's delegation.
0:32:42
I want to thank our fantastic Queen's delegation.
0:32:45
When I talk about a relationship and a partnership, we at the Queen's Public Library have a tremendous relationship and partnership with our Queen's delegation and it's really a pleasure to work on their behalf and the people that they serve as well.
0:33:00
You have our formal testimony, so I will not repeat a formal testimony at all.
0:33:05
And I will not even repeat what I have in front of me, which is our abbreviated testimony because I heard the opening from the chair of the finance committee on how many meetings you've actually had.
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So, I will be brief.
0:33:19
Everything that Tony and Linda said, I will say ditto to do.
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In addition to that, you have specific testimony from the Queen's Public Library as far as our respective costs both on the expense side and the capital side.
0:33:33
I want to thank the speaker for her leadership and also I want to thank the mayor for putting the money in the budget.
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But as indicated, that does not meet our need.
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And how I will be brief is that when I see our customers come through our door, it just reinforces the value of who we are and how we are trusted.
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When you see the cheese buses pulling up in the morning with children who are kindergarten to whatever grade they may be, it makes my day.
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When I see people who are challenged come to our libraries to sit down and to read and get information and services, it makes our day.
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When I see our ESOL folks come in and customers getting services, it makes our day.
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When I see people who are coming to our programs more and more and more, it makes our day.
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We are there to serve the public, plain and simple.
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Tony and Linda talked about it.
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We're trusted with a truly open democratic institution.
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We are there to serve the public.
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Right now in Queens, we're gearing up for the pride parade that'll be taking place on June.
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We will have some fantastic people marching on behalf of a community that we believe in.
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We participated in the Lunar New Year parade and had a contingent extremely strong showing the support.
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We have materials and respect for the various communities in the various months of service that we give them.
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We are there for the public.
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And, I just can't say enough about what we do as libraries, but more importantly, what the people who are sitting behind us do as our team members serving the public day in and day out.
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Those are what we're about.
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That's who we are.
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You know it.
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I was watching one of the council members when we had our press conference outside and the smile on his face when he was talking about his children and talking about growing up with libraries and the value that they brought into his life.
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Each of us have a similar story.
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We all have our story.
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We all have, I know mine is the Saint Albans library where I grew up and I remember getting my first library card.
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And we talk about it and my children and grandchildren and participating in various ways.
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Like Tony and Linda and their teams and our team at the Queen's Public Library, our folks are always thinking out of the box of how do we serve the public better.
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How do we increase our services?
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What does it actually mean to be open as much as we are open, but ideally to be open even more to serve the public?
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That's why we're coming to you today to talk about adding the additional money.
0:36:15
And it's not just to say add additional money because the money that we have does not meet our need on the expense side, does not meet our need on the capital side.
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As Linda indicated very clearly in history, she's done it year after year after year.
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Our doors are not always open because of the aging infrastructure.
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Our staff are not always able to be there because we're spread so thin.
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That's unacceptable in a city like New York.
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It is unacceptable anywhere, but especially who we are as residents of New York City and public servants of New York City.
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It should not be that way.
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And as a result of that, we are here to say we need your support to one, have our money baseline, but two, also to meet both our expense needs and our capital needs.
0:37:07
So I just want to give you one bit of information and I'm going to jump down into the weeds and then I'll close.
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And that my folks are able to do a great job pulling this together, so I need to read it.
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Assuming the cost of a physical book is roughly $20, in 2021 with $1,000,000, we would have been able to purchase approximately 50,000 books.
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2021, '50 thousand books.
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In 2025, with that same $1,000,000, it would only get us approximately 40,000 books.
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And think about that.
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Fewer books for the same money because the budget is not meeting our needs.
0:37:48
Talk about an e book for example.
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Again, assume it's costing us a hundred dollars.
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In 2021 with $1,000,000, we would have purchased 10,000 e books.
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In 2025, that $1,000,000 would get us approximately 8,000 e books.
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The erosion of the opportunity of having books for our public is right in front of our face.
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You want to go even further into the weeds, and this is even beyond my scope of understanding, RFID tags.
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The r Yes, you can laugh at RFID tags.
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We all know what we're talking about.
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RFID tags comes in a roll of 2,000.
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In 2025, a cost cost per roll is $314.76.
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A cost per tag is point one five seven.
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In 2021, a cost per roll was $249.52.
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That tells you again the erosion of the RIFD tag, really what it means.
0:38:56
And that deals with the books that we have to put the insertion of the tags on to track the tags.
0:39:02
Did I say it correctly, my colleagues here?
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Book baby.
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Book ops.
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Book ops.
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I know that too.
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And as a result of that, we need your support.
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And we can go on and on and on talking about the erosion of the dollars and the flat budget that has allowed us to provide fewer services to the public, Yet at the same time, our dedicated staff say we want to provide more.
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We want to do more creative things.
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We want our hours longer and making sure we're there to serve the public.
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That's why we're here today to talk about the importance of both the expense side of our budget, the capital side of our budget, but more importantly, the baselining of our budget.
0:39:41
Once again, thank you very much for all of your support.
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Thank you for your perseverance.
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Thank you for your patience, and thank you for the ability to talk to you year after year because you have been a receptive audience and ears.
0:39:56
And we thank you for everything that you do on behalf of libraries.