After the Daily News reported last month that Queens Library president Thomas Galante earns $392,000, drives a work-provided sports car, and installed a private smoking deck off his office, Galante refused to disclose at a city council hearing last week whether he had any other streams of income. Here's why: he earned $287,100 as a "business consultant" to the Elmont Union Free School District, a side job he still holds.
According to Juan Gonzalez, Galante billed the school district $150/hour for roughly 20 hours a week in 22 months from 2008 to 2010. “As a private not-for-profit employer, Queens Library permits its employees to engage in outside employment,” a library spokesperson said.
As separate, private, not-for-profit employers, the heads of the branches of the New York, Brooklyn, and Queens Public Libraries don't have to disclose outside income, though several councilmembers are now vowing to pursue legislation that would require them to. Galante's income was only found through a state audit of Elmont's finances.
Library employees haven't had a raise in five years, and in that time the Queens Library has shed roughly 250 jobs through attrition.
At the hearing, Galante, who lives in Wilton, Connecticut, insisted that his salary was "competitive" enough so that “in two, four years I don’t bounce to someplace else, because I’ve got kids to put through college like anybody else…You get what you pay for."
