GONZALEZ: Chapter could be ending for embattled Queens library head

Joe Marino/New York Daily News Thomas Galante, Queens library director, answers questions from City Council members during a budget hearing on March 11.

Top city officials — troubled by Daily News revelations about the Queens library director — say the book could soon be closed on his tenure.

The News reported on Friday that Thomas Galante moonlighted as a business consultant for a Long Island school district, clocking as many as 53 hours a week.

Galante raked in more than $ 100,000 over a recent seven-month period, according to invoices Galante filed with the Elmont School District. At the same time, he was earning $ 392,000 a year to run the Queens library system.

City Council Majority Leader James Van Bramer said it’s time to turn the page on Galante, his former boss.

“I’m sick and tired of the Queens library being dragged through the mud,” the clearly vexed Van Bramer said. “We need a change.”

Robin Marchant/Getty Images City Council Majority Leader James Van Bramer (center), seen with Sen. Chuck Schumer and George Kaufman, said he is tired of Queens library ‘being dragged through the mud.’

Van Bramer’s stance is key because he worked for years as a top assistant to Galante at the library, and because he chairs the Council committee that oversees city funding for all libraries.

“I’m disgusted by this whole mess and deeply troubled by these reports,” Van Bramer said. “The president and CEO of a major not-for-profit should clearly not have almost a full-time second job. Your CEO job has got to be your life.”

Galante was holed up in his house in Wilton, Conn., on Friday and in no mood to talk to a reporter.

Between July 1 and Jan. 31, Galante was paid $ 114,000 by Elmont for an average of 26 hours per week of work, documents show. On at least eight different weeks, he billed the Long Island district for more than 30 hours of work, and on two occasions for more than 50 hours.

Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News City Council member Elizabeth Crowley says people with the authority to award city-funded contracts should be ‘held to the Conflict of Interest Board standard of transparency.’

Records show Galante billed the school system for $ 150 an hour. He even billed for five hours a month — just to complete paperwork.

The News also revealed in recent weeks that Galante receives $ 37,000 for a car allowance. He spent $ 140,000 to renovate his executive offices at the Queens Central Library in Jamaica, including $ 27,000 for an outdoor smoking deck.

The city’s Department of Investigation and the FBI have launched a criminal probe into the Queens library’s construction contracts.

Meanwhile, Public Advocate Letitia James criticized the library trustees for rejecting or deferring her proposals to reform management policies, including requiring library managers to file annual financial disclosures with the city’s Conflict of Interest Board.

Richard Harbus for New York Daily News Car seen on the Wilton, Conn., property of Thomas Galante, who receives a $ 37,000 car allowance.

“The vote was deeply disappointing,” James wrote in a letter Friday to the board.

Every city official is required by law to annually file financial disclosures. Such disclosures publicly reveal any outside income. But the city’s three library systems have escaped that requirement because — even though they are largely funded by city and state dollars and operate on city-owned property — they are incorporated as private nonprofits.

“For the protection of our tax dollars, people with the authority to award city-funded contracts must be held to the Conflict of Interest Board standard of transparency,” said Queens City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

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