PEP, March 2014: Fat cat at Queens Library: Workers suffer as boss lives in luxury

Public Employee Press

Fat cat at Queens Library
Workers suffer as boss lives in luxury

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Front-line workers are outraged at revelations about the excessive pay and perks of Queens Borough Public Library President and CEO Thomas Galante, who spent $140,000 on renovating his second-story Central Library office, that now has a private outdoor lounge where he enjoys smoking cigars.

Galante is under fire for his $391,000-a-year salary and lavish spending in the financially pressed library system, which has spent years struggling with millions of dollars of budget cuts and downsizing through attrition and layoffs.

Each year, members of Queens Library Local 1321 faithfully participate in a vigorous drive to save the system from deep budget slashes and possible layoffs. With recent revelations of management's waste and greed, they feel betrayed.

"We worry about our jobs and the cuts every year," said a Librarian, who requested anonymity. "How are we supposed to go to the public for support when information like this comes out?"

Galante faced stinging criticism in February after an expose by Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez sparked a City Council hearing on Feb. 5 and led New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer to announce an audit of the library system's possible use of city tax dollars for executive pay and capital improvements.

State Sen. Tony Avella demanded Galante's resignation after Gonzalez reported that in addition to his salary the library boss had taken in $287,000 over 22 months as a consultant for a Long Island school district, according to an audit by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. At the City Council hearing, Galante waffled when questioned about outside income.

About a week after Avella called for the resignation, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz asked the library trustees to eliminate a $2 million golden parachute that Galante's employment contract provides if he is dismissed. She also asked that the trustees alter his opened-ended contract to include restrictions on outside employment and fixed dates of service.

Staff disillusionment

"We are deeply disturbed by this excessive spending and compensation," said Queens Library Guild Local 1321 President John Hyslop. "This has done tremendous damage to the library's reputation."

One clerical worker said many staffers were aware of Galante's high pay and perks before the recent newspaper reports and suggested that this knowledge tempered their shock somewhat. But the workers are angry, she said, at the damage to the library's reputation. Disillusioned by their frozen pay and constant worry about finances, employees want to be treated fairly and want the system to be funded properly, she said.

Over the past five years, Galante has reduced the library staff by nearly 130 positions through attrition and 44 layoffs.

While cutting staff, Galante handed out big pay raises to managers, brought in new administrators, contracted out custodial jobs and reduced the pay of many workers by imposing a new work schedule that decreased their nighttime differential.

Meanwhile, branch libraries were forced to deal with frozen book budgets, and Local 1321 members have gone four years without a pay raise.

The local has responded to the controversy by stepping up its continuing fight-back campaign, which demands:

Using the MoveOn.org progressive web site, Hyslop created an on-line petition addressed to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Katz that urges the library to hire additional full-time staff, including the 44 laid-off Local 1321 members, new custodial workers and Librarians and cancel its contract with the Busy Bee cleaning service. The petition is at http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/queens-library-needs.

Responding to Galante's appearance at the City Council hearing, Hyslop wrote the Queens City Council delegation to express the local's concerns.

"The [Galante] Administration continues to advertise non-union positions, while claiming the Library is in a hiring freeze," he wrote. "This is all the more disturbing because the Administration continues to contract out, hire part-time Librarians and ask volunteers to perform work normally done by union members, such as tutoring adult literacy."

Nice perks

Hyslop also cited a letter he had received from a library donor who decided to stop contributing after reading about Galante's extravagance. He criticized the library's plan to waste money on an administrative office that will eliminate space now used by the public and pointed out that Galante had misinformed the City Council by exaggerating the pay of in-house custodians.

Galante testified that the union custodians are paid $35 an hour, while in fact their hourly pay, including benefits, ranges from $21.17 to $26.25. By using contracted custodians - who don't receive benefits and get from $14.95 to $15.75 an hour - the local says the library is embracing the low-wage, anti-union employment model that is eroding the living standards of workers throughout the country.

Gonzalez's expose detailed Galante's generous compensation package and his questionable spending of library funds.

Galante's salary jumped to $391,594 with a recent $12,000 raise. He also received $37,000 for a Nissan 370Z sports car provided by the library. The 250-square-foot rooftop deck attached to his office cost $27,000; it includes two dozen evergreens and wrought-iron furniture. He spent $110,000 for two new executive conference rooms.

The reports on management fat are an embarrassment by themselves. But Galante also faces criticism because he made the expenditures before completing the renovations of branch libraries devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

Gonzalez pointed out that Galante earns more than the mayor ($225,000) and the schools chancellor ($220,000). At the City Council hearing, Galante tried to justify his salary, saying it was comparable to what the heads of other non-profit organizations earn. But Public Advocate Letitia James said his salary should be in line with the heads of the Chicago and Los Angeles library systems, who earn around $200,000.

City Council member Elizabeth Crowley told Galante, "Your compensation package is way too large. You make twice as much as the mayor. I don't think that's fair to the taxpayers." She said Galante's salary should be similar to that of city commissioners.

Galante also cited the pressure of his children's college expenses as a justification for his salary, outraging City Council members and library staffers who also cope with college tuition and high New York area housing costs while earning far lower salaries.

City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer, who chairs the Cultural Affairs, Libraries & International Intergroup Relations Committee and used to work at the Queens Borough Public Library, pressed Galante to agree to stop contracting out custodial work. Galante, who reduced the in-house custodial staff from 105 to 72, said that he would like to keep the work in-house - later - when the library's fiscal health stabilizes.

Battered by the disclosure of his management excesses and his hurtful remarks about library custodial employees, Galante felt compelled to issue a public apology to library employees. But he didn't feel compelled to end the contracting out or rehire the workers he laid off while drawing his oversized paycheck.