Albuquerque residents press council to restore library funding amid branch closures and tech cuts

Albuquerque — Speakers at the City Council committee-of-the-whole budget hearing on May 1 urged the council to restore cuts to the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System, saying lost staff and reduced information-technology funding have caused branches to close unexpectedly and reduced services for residents.

The appeals came during the hearing devoted to the city’s social-goal departments and followed a series of public comments from volunteers, library board members and nonprofit partners who described persistent problems at branches across the city.

Janet Sayers, a member of the Library Advisory Board, asked the council to “restore the minimum of $49,000 to the budget” for board operations and to return a recurring technology line item to $500,000, saying the larger recurring IT budget supported long-term reliability for systems and scheduling. “The library is part of city government and the city government family,” Sayers said. She told the committee the advisory board was rebuilding and planned to…