BALTIMORE (WBFF) — International trips by top leaders at Enoch Pratt Free Library are drawing scrutiny after a summer of travel to Egypt, China and Japan that critics say came as library programs faced deep cuts.
Chad Helton, the new CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, took the trips with three other top librarians seven months after he was named CEO.
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In three months last summer, the group traveled 5,700 miles to Egypt, another 7,300 miles to China and roughly 6,700 miles to Japan. The three trips kept the four librarians on planes for an estimated 120 hours, the equivalent of three work weeks at the office.
“I could not understand why you’re telling staff you don’t have money to do anything, but on the other hand, you’re jumping on a flight three times going abroad, taking multiple staff members, people who weren’t relevant to go. These things could’ve been handled on a Zoom call,” a library insider, who didn’t want to be identified, insisted.
Helton said the trips allowed librarians to experience how other libraries operate and insisted the travel was not funded by tax dollars, but by donated dollars from a discretionary account.
Some donors and advocates questioned that arrangement.
“I don’t like him being in charge of the discretionary fund. It almost sounds like it’s his personal bank account,” Frances Muldrow, a longtime supporter of the library, said.
“If you have someone donating $25 to a library and can’t afford that $25…they are going to be outraged,” taxpayer advocate David Williams said.
He also raised concerns about the broader impact on public funding, saying, “We know that every year the library has funding shortfalls and asks for more taxpayer money and to see any money toward travel makes no sense and needs to be held accountable.”
At City Hall, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott urged caution about travel spending.
“Yes, obviously the leader of an organization like that is going to have to take trips, but when you’re talking about a time in which we exist right now, you have to be very particular about them, but you always have to make sure you’re providing the best service as possible,” Mayor Scott said.
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