Well, one development this week may keep Citizens Defending Libraries from hissing. The Brooklyn Eagle reports that NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer plans to audit the Brooklyn Public Library. The paper adds that the group had asked former Comptroller John Liu to do the same but he did not act.
Brooklyn Eagle: The audit plan was triggered by allegations of unchecked spending at the Queens Borough Public Library, Stringer said. According to the New York Daily News, Thomas Galante, president of the Queens system, spent $140,000 last year to renovate his office, including $27,000 for a rooftop deck where he “grabs a smoke.” This comes on top of a salary of almost $400,000, and other perks.
“Obviously, we read the same allegations everyone else did, and decided to start with the Queens system,” Stringer said during a roundtable discussion at the Park Plaza Diner in Brooklyn Heights.
“We then said, in all fairness, let’s do all three library systems,” which includes Queens, the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) and the New York Public Library (which serves Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island.)
Stringer said that the audits will include a close examination of the funding of capital improvements, spending practices, executive pay and compensation, and the oversight role of the library systems’ boards of trustees.
