Local 1215 Members,
On Thursday, October 16, the Mayor’s office shared their 2026 budget proposal with the city. (Full text on the City Clerk’s website, jump to page 145 to see the section about the library.)
Yesterday, the Better Government Association dropped their preliminary analysis of the budget. This budget strives to bolster the city for a loss of federal funding, and does implement some proposals from the Babies Before Billionaires platform, which the Local has endorsed.
However, the Mayor’s office is once again attempting to fill gaps at the expense of the library.
The exact numbers are not yet clear, but we are among the biggest losers of this year’s budget, despite our endless hard work to provide more and more for our communities.
The budget overview document lists a clear plan to cut 68 vacancies, but Better Government Association counts a much higher elimination of 192 vacancies. As Better Government Association notes, these quiet layoffs are a trend – 52 vacancies were cut from the budget last year.
The Mayor claims that two of the greatest priorities of this budget are “Invest in Our Children, Youth and Young Adults,” and “Support Economic Growth and Workforce Development.” CPL’s essential role in accomplishing those two tasks is completely erased. The budget overview document highlights partnerships with One Summer Chicago and My Chi. My Future, but does not name CPL as a key employer of Afterschool Matters interns or as a provider of many of the programs promoted through the My Chi. My Future app, including “site activations” that required branches to stay open extra hours over summer, sometimes with only a single member present.
Furthermore, the daily support we provide to job seekers as they navigate complicated websites and long applications on free library internet is not noted, nor are our efforts to provide free resources to job searchers through online databases and hosting job fairs. Resources that we provide are also at risk, as this budget aims to cut our collection fund in half, showing $5,000,000 for collection services in the 2026 overview, versus $10,000,000 in 2025 (see page 535 of the 2025 document, the final line item.)
Put simply, this budget reveals that the Mayor’s office does not understand the library’s role in our communities. We cannot do more with less, cannot uplift our neighbors as our buildings decay around us and increased violence and safety issues fray our nerves.
This is not the moment to keep our heads down and suffer quietly. This is just the beginning of the budget process which involves City Council.
What we can do now:
- Fill out the form to share your understaffing stories. It is time for us to share our stories publicly – to tell our alders and patrons how severely understaffing has hurt us, and how keeping us understaffed by cutting vacancies will deepen the wound.
You may do so anonymously, and if you have more than one story to share please fill out the form again.
In the coming days, we will share these stories publicly on instagram and as news posts on the Local’s website to begin rallying support from our patrons. We will then direct patrons to a letter they can send to their alderperson, sharing their love for the library and pressuring them to demand the Mayor prevent cuts to the library. - Encourage your coworkers to fill out the form as well – use bit.ly/CPLunderstaffed for easy access.
- Stay tuned for a local action on November 4th, the day of Chicago Public Library’s budget hearing.
If you have any questions or ideas for how to ramp up our campaign, please email the Local and join us for the membership meeting on Friday, October 24th.