Library chief has a $143G SIDE job!
A$392,000 ANNUAL salary, a city-supplied luxury sports car, and a private smoking deck he built as part of the $140,000 renovation of his executive offices weren’t enough to satisfy Thomas Galante, president of the city-funded Queens Library.
During a 22-month period from 2008 to 2010, Galante also pulled down a whopping $287,100 as a business consultant to the Elmont Union Free School District in Long Island — a side job he still holds — the Daily News has learned.
That’s an average of more than $140,000 annually from his second gig - all while officially working as full-time chief of one of the nation’s busiest library systems.
No wonder Galante refused, during a City Council hearing last week to say whether he had any outside income. His taxpayer- funded salary, after all, is already far higher than Mayor de Blasio’s or that of Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña.
Galante billed the Elmont school district at $150 per hour for an average of 22 hours a week during the two-year period. Those payments, discovered by State Controller Tom DiNapoli during a 2011 audit of the Elmont district’s finances, had not previously been disclosed. A DiNapoli spokesman confirmed them Friday after The News inquired.
“It’s outrageous,” said City Councilman Eric Ulrich (RQueens). It was Ulrich’s questions about outside personal income that Galante refused to answer at last week’s hearing.
“He earns a hefty salary on the public dime and is not required to disclose any potential conflicts,” Ulrich said. “The whole thing stinks from the head down.”
The DiNapoli audit specifically blasted Elmont officials for improperly allowing their outside consultant Galante to effectively run day-to-day spending as the district’s purchasing agent, for letting him do it all by remote computer access, and for even allowing him to approve payments to himself.
Elmont officials subsequently hired an in-house purchasing agent, but they retained Galante as their chief financial consultant. They did not respond Friday to questions about Galante’s current duties and compensation.
But given all those hours Galante billed to Elmont, it’s natural to wonder if he conducted some of his private consulting duties during library hours or from his cityowned library office.
Queens Library spokeswoman Joanne King refused to answer questions about Galante’s outside activities.
“As a private not-for-profit employer, Queens Library permits its employees to engage in outside employment,” King said.
The library “does not track outside business interests or consultancies conducted by employees on personal time,” King added.
And since the Queens, Brooklyn and New York Public Libraries are each separate nonprofits, their top officials are not legally required to file financial disclosures like other city officials.
That’s the case even though the vast majority of their funds come from city, state and federal dollars, and even though their boards of trustees are all appointed by city officials.
Several Council members are now vowing to pass legislation requiring financial disclosure from top library officials.
At the hearing last week, Galante defended his high salary and his recent pay increases as “fair” and “competitive” with other nonprofits of the same size and scope.
“You get what you pay for,” he said.
But skeptical Council members noted the library’s regular employees haven’t had raises in five years, and that Galante presided during that time over sharp reductions of library hours and more than 250 jobs through attrition and layoffs.
“You are more in my eyes a city agency than a traditional nonprofit entity,” Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Queens) said. “Your salary should be more at the level of a city commissioner.” Galante countered that his “competitive” pay assured that “in two, four years I don’t bounce to someplace else, because I’ve got kids to put through college like anybody else.”
Those custodians and librarians who lost their jobs under Galante also had kids to put through college, Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal noted.
Meanwhile, their boss pockets a whopping salary, enjoys all kinds of perks, and holds down at least one very well-paying job on the side.