When he was first elected, Mayor Justin Elicker said that he would work to get the New Haven Free Public Library to 1 percent of the city budget. He praised the organization for its wrap-around services and all-ages programming. He watched it brave the pandemic pivot, then the heart-wrenching loss of its city librarian. He welcomed an interim director, then a permanent new director committed to equity through the library's work.
But five years into his administration, the organization is still .22 away from that 1 percent. And for the first time in years, that number is sliding in the wrong direction.
That news came from the Board of Alders' Finance Committee Thursday night, as committee members voted to endorse an amended version of Elicker's proposed $703.7 million budget after months of long, sometimes emotional public hearings and deliberations. Three months after first receiving the budget, alders voted to leave it largely the same, with exceptions for emergency food service providers and a director in the Department of Community Resilience.
In the proposed budget, which now heads to the full Board of Alders for a final vote before taking effect July 1, the NHFPL receives $5,512,935, or .78 percent of the city budget, as well as $500,000 in capital funds. One percent, which would put the library on par with Connecticut cities of its size, would be just over $7 million. In the gap, there are unmet needs that range from staffing shortages (the NHFPL currently has 34 vacancies, many for part-time positions) to long-delayed capital improvements.
"When we look at Stamford, Bridgeport, and Hartford, their budgets are all at 1.5 percent," said City Librarian Maria Bernhey, who began her tenure in early 2023. "We are doing these same things that they are doing on much less."
Vanesa Suarez' art at the Fair Haven Branch Library in 2022. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
In part, that .78 percent is a struggle because the library is so much more than a home for books (although it is that too in both physical, digital and audible form). Across the city, its five branches serve as warming and cooling centers, passport offices, unexpected art galleries, cultural and creative gathering spaces, and hubs of activity, from weekly story hours and nail art to homework help to tax prep.
During the first years of Covid-19, its floors were home to vaccine clinics, pilot programs that lent out WiFi hotspots, and community listening sessions on pandemic relief dollars. In many neighborhoods, branch locations also fulfill very basic needs, like providing a safe and private place to use the bathroom. Ives, for instance, is the only public restroom on the New Haven Green that isn't a porta-potty; the Wilson Branch is the only reliable spot for several blocks in the Hill.
The library—which is physically open six days, or 210 hours, per week—tries to communicate all of that, Bernhey said. But there still seems to be a disconnect at the city level, where funding for the organization has gone from .80 percent of the city’s overall general fund budget down to .78 percent in the last two years, even as the actual dollar amount allocated by the city to the library has gone up. During that time, the NHFPL also made the move from the Chief Administrator's Office to the Community Services Administration.
In an email Monday, Mayor Justin Elicker told the Arts Paper that his administration has increased funding for the public library by over 35 percent since he first took office, from $4,023,843 in Fiscal Year 2021 to $5,512,935 this year. In addition to that $5.5 million number, this year’s proposed budget includes an additional $500,000 specifically in capital funds.
Ja'mye Lecky-Hutchinson and Mayor Justin Elicker in January 2020, as Census efforts launched at Ives Squared. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
“We would always love to do more and invest more in our libraries, but it’s also a balancing act of the services we all want with our ability to pay for them and the tax burden we place on residents,” Elicker said. “My daughters and I go to the library regularly, and I would love to be able to provide our libraries with even more resources, but we’re doing the best we can with the resources we have.”
“Our libraries are great stewards of the resources provided to them, and continue to offer so many wonderful services and resources to New Haven residents,” he added.
Currently, the NHFPL’s funding comes from two main sources. The municipal budget—the dollars that come from the city—covers facilities and staffing, as well as a $275,000 chunk of the library’s annual book budget. The remainder of its funding comes from the New Haven Free Public Library Foundation, which brings in grants and individual donations. It’s that arm of the organization that covers all programming, from after-school chess clubs to free classes in small business development.
Last year, the library offered 2,700 programs, with a total of 42,000 participants. Between its physical and digital resources, it served 918,000 patrons. Normally, Bernhey said, about 30,000 people come through the five branches each month. In the last year, that’s risen significantly: Ives alone has seen 21,000 patrons, up from 17,000 in the year before that. Many use the library’s resources to look for jobs, build their businesses, and seek out shelter on days when there is nowhere else to go.
While that work is explicitly people-facing, “our greatest need” is building related, Bernhey said. When the library held a series of community listening sessions last year, staff often heard about upgrades to infrastructure that people hoped to see, from HVAC maintenance and pest control to better functioning bathrooms. At Wilson, for instance, a first-floor painting project has been on hold for nearly a decade, dating back to the late John Jessen’s tenure as branch manager there.
At Ives, the carpet goes back to 1989, which marks the building’s most recent round of renovations (the exceptions are Ives Squared, which opened in 2018, updates to the downstairs computer lab in 2011, and the carpet in the children’s section, which was replaced a few years ago). An issue in the women’s bathroom downstairs prompted emergency maintenance that is still ongoing, as crews remove a piece of the wall. There’s overdue roofing work downtown and HVAC maintenance at the Fair Haven and Wilson branches.
“It’s very important that we maintain that infrastructure,” Bernhey said to Finance Committee members at a meeting last month, pointing to the 210 hours per week that the library is open. “In our role as a community space, for all different reasons, it’s very important for us to maintain that infrastructure.”
“Our city deserves modern, updated libraries,” she added in an interview last week. She isn't asking for bells and whistles, either: she's hoping that funds will cover things like roof repairs and current technology.
In the next year, Bernhey added, the library also intends to grow its programming, particularly in youth literacy (it has been, and will continue to be, a partner on the New Haven Tutoring Initiative). That will take many forms: weekly storytimes, expanded literacy events in Fair Haven, and programs like READy for the Grade and the annual Summer Learning Challenge. This summer, the NHFPL’s bookmobile is also hitting the streets, with the plan to treat it as a mobile branch.
That’s especially critical for neighborhoods that are not within walking distance of a brick-and-mortar branch location, Bernhey said.
“We do so much work around the city,” Bernhey added. “We’re really trying to tell that story, so folks understand what that means.”