Chicago City Council held a hearing on Friday, November 8th, 2024, concerning the 2025 budgetary recommendations for Chicago Public Library. The proposed budget would cut 50 full-time equivalent vacancies at CPL.
AFSCME Local 1215 submitted the following written statement to City Council in advance of the hearing:
We, the members of the Chicago Public Library Employee Union (AFSCME Local 1215), would like to thank Commissioner Chris Brown for his report today on the positive impacts that Chicago Public Library workers have made in 2024. We are proud to offer our services as warming & cooling centers, polling places, Narcan distribution sites, tutoring sites – and of course, we are also happy to help Chicagoans learn how to read, bond over stories and discover the world.
But Chicago Public Library workers are also increasingly burnt out.
One major issue at CPL – an issue that City Hall can address – is understaffing.
In 2018, the Inspector General released a report on the understaffing crisis at CPL – and a 2019 followup showed that CPL management had not implemented most of their recommendations.
Later in 2019, before addressing this issue, Mayor Lori Lightfoot significantly expanded CPL’s hours of operation, opening neighborhood Branches on Sundays. Local 1215 bargained with the City, agreeing to Sunday hours in exchange for a promise to increase our headcount by 119.5 full-time equivalent staff (FTEs) to meet our expanded operational needs. Our headcount at the time was 908 FTEs; with the additional staff, our headcount would be 1027.5 FTEs.
Today, after a great deal of turnover, CPL has a headcount of 947 FTEs, with a vacancy rate around 20%. We have upheld our end of the bargain for four years, yet the City has only fulfilled about 30% of its promise to hire 119.5 FTEs.
We have raised this issue at every single meeting with management, pushed for a concrete timeline on hiring and made compromises. The City has not upheld their end of the agreement. The budget before you today would cut 50 FTE vacancies at CPL, exacerbating the issue.
We understand that the City has been placed in a very difficult position financially, and we support the Mayor’s decision to not cut essential services. But we also want to say that the current situation is not sustainable for us and jeopardizes the long-term health of CPL.
We ask that the members of City Hall vote to reject cutting 50 FTE vacancies at Chicago Public Library – for the good of CPL workers and for the good of the people we serve.
Comments