This is a Disgrace to the Profession of Librarianship

The opinions that I express here are that of my own and have nothing to do with my employer.  I am a resident of Queens County and a taxpayer of New York City and State and am outraged about the situation with Thomas Galante, the CEO of the Queens Library.

Mr. Galante has a perk filled salary of $392,000 which is more than the Governor or the Mayor.  The New York Daily News  reports that library's board of trustees paid a consulting firm $28,000 to review Galante's contract and come back with a recommendation for revising his contract.  I wish they would use that $28,000 for books for the small branch libraries.  The Daily News article also revealed that until recently Galante had a $2 Million "Golden Parachute" that was removed by the trustees.

$140,000 was also spent to renovate Galante's office including a private smoking deck courtesy of the taxpayers.

This is outrageous to me as I have observed that the book collection at my local branch is so small.  Anecdotally, the salaries at Queens Library are low in comparison to other public libraries.

A library director should fight for better resources for his organization and for competitive salaries for the librarians and clerks who directly work with the public.