Former Queens Borough Public Library chief executive and President Thomas Galante and other library executives spent more than $300,000 on prohibited items such as extravagant meals for themselves and library board members, alcohol, Apple TVs, smokeless ashtrays, airline upgrades and tickets to rock concerts and Disneyland, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said Wednesday -- all while they asserted the library was running a deficit.
Stringer is referring
The saga revolves around a series of funds hidden from public scrutiny due to a stipulation that prevented Stringer's office from looking at any library financial records other than two funds the library claimed contained city money. In 2014, Stringer's first year in office, he sued in Queens Supreme Court to invalidate the stipulation, which a previous administration had put into place. The need for such legal action was eliminated last December after a newly formed board of directors fired Galante and voted to give Stringer's staff full access to financial records.
With this unlimited access, said Stringer, his office was able to fully investigate. According to Stringer, library staff played a shell game with city funds, drawing down accounts open to public scrutiny, while squirreling away money elsewhere:
"Once we were able to look at all of the library's accounts, our audit and newly-formed investigative team uncovered a sickening track record of waste, fraud and abuse," Stringer said. "Tom Galante used the Queens Library as his personal piggybank, charging the public for outrageous expenses including endless rounds of drinks, extravagant dinners, and concert tickets."
During Galante's tenure, said Stringer, the library charged nearly all of its operating expenses to its internal 'city fund' account, which was subject to oversight by Stringer's office. As a result, he said, from fiscal 2008 to 2013 the library appeared to run deficits ranging from $5.7 million to $6.9 million, enabling Galante to plead for more funds before the City Council. In reality, Stringer added, the library had anywhere from $17 to $27 million in unrestricted funds in its fines and fees, state and board designated funds over that period.
Library executives could have drawn upon these "hidden funds," some of which had previously not been subject to Stringer's oversight, the comptroller said. "Instead, they used the funds in part to pay for a wide range of inappropriate expenses."
The report also called out Galante's successor, interim CEO Bridget Quinn-Carey, saying prohibited expenses by the two included roughly $115,000 in purchases that appear to be taxable, and undeclared income "in circumstances suggesting a significant likelihood of fraud and/or embezzlement." Quinn-Carey joined Queens Library as executive vice president and chief operating officer in 2011. Previously, she was director of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library System.
"The current board takes its duty to the public very seriously, and expects management to do the same," Carl Koerner, chairman of the Queens Library board of trustees, said in a statement. "Together we've launched sweeping reforms to address concerns raised by the comptroller and other public officials. The library's role and responsibility to the borough is too important to be defined by the failures of its former leadership. Its full-time focus must be on restoring the public's trust and planning for the library system's future."
Queens' library operates separately, as does Brooklyn's, from the New York Public Library, which covers Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island.
After reports in the Daily News surfaced in February 2014 about questionable spending by library officials, Queens borough President Melinda Katz sought pertinent information about the spending, but she said Galante and then-board members threw up obstacles. Katz and Mayor Bill de Blasio replaced 13 of 19 board members over last summer. They also won a court battle by the fired members that challenged their move.
"The comptroller's audit and investigative reports confirm some deeply disturbing suspicions of the library's prior management, and I am pleased the findings will be referred to the appropriate authorities for further action," Katz said in a statement Wednesday. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
