By Rich Bockmann
City Comptroller Scott Stringer is turning to the courts to compel embattled Queens Library President Thomas Galante to open the nonprofit’s books.
Lawyers for the city’s top accountant asked a judge in Manhattan State Supreme Court last week to force the library to hand over additional records in response to a financial audit.
“The comptroller needs access to the library’s full books and records in order to conduct a complete and accurate audit,” lawyers from the city Law Department wrote on behalf of Stringer, claiming the library was trying to thwart his efforts to review its finances.
Stringer announced he would give a close look to the library’s financial records after allegations of mismanagement surfaced earlier this year.
In the past few months, Galante has been under a barrage of scrutiny from elected officials and even the FBI seeking information about his executive compensation, moonlighting and the library’s spending.
The library contended it has been cooperating with Stringer’s probe.
“For the last 10 weeks, Queens Library staff have been actively working with the NYC comptroller’s audit staff, following the same city audit guidelines used for decades. The library is providing access to the comptroller to all city funds as required. The library is providing access to the comptroller to the workers compensation fund and the book sales fund,” library spokeswoman Joanne King wrote in an e-mail. “Unfortunately, the comptroller’s office rushed into court when the library would have welcomed a meeting for the opportunity of an amicable solution.”
While Stringer’s office is authorized under the City Charter to audit the city’s three independent library systems, in a deal dating back to the late 1990s between the Queens Library and then-Comptroller Alan Hevesi, the comptroller’s office agreed to only look at certain parts of the library’s records: those in the “City Fund” and a fines and fees fund used to purchase books.
When Stringer sought to examine records dating back to 2008, the library contended it was only responsible for disclosing those particular accounts, the city’s lawyers said.
The legal filings go on to accuse the library of using some creative bookkeeping in order to shield itself from the comptroller’s eyes.
“In this case, the library does not deny that its other funds hold city money; it simply denies the comptroller access to those other funds on the formalistic basis that they are not the “City Fund” or the “Fines and Fees Fund,” or that the library’s expenditures have not been paid from those funds,” city lawyers wrote.
“The library is essentially taking the position that it can avoid the comptroller’s scrutiny of its use of city funds by simply transferring money out of an account labeled “City Fund” into an account with a different label and declaring that the transferee account is not a ‘city funds’ account.”
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
