Critics: NYC library systems must slash ‘obscene’ exec salaries to avoid service cuts
Critics are demanding the fat-cat execs overseeing New York City’s cash-strapped public library systems slash bloated payrolls — especially their own “obscene” salaries.
New York Public Library President Anthony Marx earns $984,338 annually, Brooklyn Public Library President Linda Johnson pockets $652,035 and Queens Public Library President Dennis Walcott rakes in $336,953, according to the organizations’ latest accessible tax filings and payroll records compiled by the Empire Center for Public Policy.
The three told the City Council this week Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed $58.3 million budget cuts to public libraries would force them to cut more hours – including Saturday service at most of the city’s 200-plus branches.
Sunday service was already shut down citywide in November to offset the surging cost of the local migrant crisis.
However, Empire Center’s director of research Ken Girardin said he found the service-cut threats stunning considering the library systems’ spending on executives appears unprecedented.
“Every time we look at library spending, we struggle to find anything analogous to this in government or the charitable sector,” he said.
City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) called the executives’ salaries “obscene” and “way out of line with the reduced services in our libraries.”
Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) said hours are the last things that should be cut.
“The administration should be looking at ways to trim the fat without impacting service, and if that means reducing the sky-high administrative salaries, then that’s what should happen,” she added.
Marx’s salary isn’t even the highest at NYPL – which serves Manhattan, Staten Island and The Bronx.
Chief Investment Officer Geetanjali Gupta, who gets hefty six-figure bonuses for managing a $1.5 billion endowment, pocketed $1,340,405, according to the latest tax filings.
In all, 14 NYPL execs racked up more than $400,000, and overall salaries totaled$122.1 million last fiscal year – a nearly7% increase from the previous year.
The NYPL attributes the increase to labor-contracted raises for many rank-and-file workers that included retroactive pay.
NYPL board member Luis Ubiñas defended the exec’s salaries, saying they’re privately funded and on par with other similar sized Big Apple-based institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Roughly $25.5 million of the $58.3 million budget hole for NYC libraries is linked to the NYPL system.
Walcott said he donated $100,000 of his own money into QPL since taking over as president eight years ago, rejected multiple raises and realizes he’s “blessed” to have his current salary.
“In reality, when you’re looking at” QPL’s $16.6 million budget hole, executive salaries “are not going to make a difference,” Walcott told The Post.
The BPL’s executive salaries are also funded through private donations, while taxpayers foot the bill for QPL’s salary costs.
Salaries for BPL employees – including rank-and-file — rose slightly from $57.8 million in fiscal 2022 to $59.6 million last fiscal year, according to Empire Center.
Similar information for QPL was not immediately available.
Critics questioned why the money raised through private donations to pay executives can’t go towards keeping libraries operating.
But Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the finance committee, said cutting the salaries wouldn’t come close to covering the budget hole.
“Even if we zeroed out all the top NYPL exec salaries – we would not be able to cover the cuts made by [the city’s Office of Management and Budget],” he said. “It’s not a real conversation.”
A BPL spokesperson brushed off the criticism as “a distraction from the more pressing issue, which is that libraries” are facing severe budget cuts “and reducing executive salaries would not have any significant impact on that figure.”
