Following months of intense criticism and scrutiny from elected officials and the press over a number of issues at the Queens Library, including the CEO’s six-figure salary during a time when he oversaw the outsourcing of jobs, the head of the institution wrote to the city’s Independent Budget Office Friday to request it conduct a review and analysis of the library system’s capital program.
The letter was penned less than one day after the Queens Library Board of Trustees voted to not fully comply with city Comptroller Scott Stringer’s audit of the library system – a decision that was lambasted by Stringer and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.
“As you know, Queens Library has been the subject of negative media reports about its capital projects,” Galante wrote in the May 9 letter to Ronnie Lowenstein, executive director of the city Independent Budget Office. “The media has printed a great deal of incorrect and/or incomplete information. It is important that the full, correct facts be known. Our new and upgraded buildings add a lot of value to the community at a low cost. It is something the library is, and should be, proud of.”
Galante went on to write, in reference to the city IBO request, that he is “comfortable in letting the facts speak for themselves.”
The CEO of one of the country’s busiest library systems, Galante has come under fire for making an annual salary of nearly $400,000 while he was outsourcing union custodial jobs. Following the original piece in the Daily News about the salary, there has since been criticism, from elected officials and the media, of renovation work done at the library’s central office in Jamaica, including the addition of a smoking area, as well as the fact that Galante was taking in another $143,000 as a consultant with a Long Island school district.
Library officials have repeatedly defended the CEO, saying he has helped transform the library system into one that has become a model across the country, that renovations were sorely needed and accessible to all library employees, and that Galante never worked for the Long Island school district while on the clock for the library.
A number of elected officials, including Katz, have asked Galante to temporarily step down from his position while these matters are being investigated, but he has said he does not plan to do so. The library’s board members voted to retain Galante in his current position.
“The Independent Budget Office is a respected analyst of New York City government budget issues and policies, and its independent review would remove the current distractions from a clear analysis of the issue,” Galante wrote in the letter to Lowenstein.
By Anna Gustafson
