He's been out of public life for 2 years, but for 20 years Eliot Shelkrot was the high profile director and president of Philadelphia's Free Library system.
He was an innovator, a strong fundraiser and relentless advocate in the battle against budget cuts. But now the city controller is raising questions about a large sum of bonus money Shelkrot was paid on top of his city salary by the library's board of directors, which operates as an independent body.
Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz tells Action News, "It looks like [the board of directors] were intent on getting a bonus into his hands regardless of any obstacle, legal or otherwise."
The controller's staff performed an audit of bonus payments to Shelkrot dating back 9 years. When the trustees voted to increase Shelkrot's city salary of $117,000, but were unable to get it through then Mayor Street and city council, they took matters into their own hands. They voted to supplement Shelkrot's city salary with nearly $237,000 in bonus pay over the 9-year stretch.
The controller cites a ruling by the current city solicitor saying this was a no-no.
The current city solicitor opinion: That those bonus payments for Eliot Shelkrot, dating back to 2001, were illegal under the city home rule charter.
Butkovitz says, "You got to limit your salaries to what the appropriations says your salary is. If you're a city employee, you can only be paid once for your city job."
Shelkrot repeatedly declined our requests for interviews. He even shut the door in the face of our producer Heather Grubola.
Stepping forward to defend the bonus payments, current trustee chairman Robert Heim says, "The salary being paid by the city was not competitive with what was being paid by other big, urban library systems."
To keep Shelkrot at the helm of Philadelphia's Free Library system, Heim says the trustees dipped into private endowment funds to pay the bonuses. It was no secret, he claims, and the controller and solicitor of that era did not blow the whistle and call a foul.
Heim says, "During the period in which these payments were made, there was no reason for either the trustees or Mr. Shelkrot to think that that was the case."
For the record, the current library president, Siobhan Reardon is paid over $195,000 a year and the practice of bonus payments has been scuttled.
