Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Teton County Library
Board members attending: Bill Wotkyns, Anne Ladd, Amy Robinson, Holly Hunter; Teton County Liaison attending: Andy Schwartz; Staff attending: Deb Adams, library director; Margaret Thompson, communications manager; Dimmie Zeigler, education & programs manager; Heidi Huseby, substitute; Debbie Schlinger, youth programs coordinator; and Sally McCullough, business manager; Guest attending: Gayle Lien.
Bill Wotkyns called the meeting to order at 3:10 PM
Correspondence from the public: None
Approval of Minutes: Some follow up questions were discussed. Holly asked if a link was put on the website to the director’s blog. Margaret Thompson will check on this. Andy pointed out that the language for the SPET ballot must be completed in June if it is to be on the August ballot. Deb asked for some clarification as to whether START and TCL will be together on the ballot, Andy will follow up on this. Andy stated that the county would like to put the SPET tax on the August ballot instead of the November ballot, due to the need for planning funds for the Justice Center prior to the November election, however no decision has been made yet. Minutes were approved with the correction of the use of elapsed instead of lapsed.
Section 215 Report: No requests under section 215.
Facilities Planning-
Main Library: Deb had a few questions that were answered in the discussion of the minutes on clarification of the timing of the ballot etc.
Alta Branch Library: Deb stated that Teton County School District Superintendent Pam Shea has informed her that the school cannot extend the lease with the library. The school needs all rooms to serve its students. The library will be able to use the room through July 31, 2008 for the Summer Reading program. Deb said there is a procedure to request an extension through August and asked the Board if they would like to do this, all agreed to do so. The Board feels that Deb should obtain a letter or some form of written correspondence from Pam documenting the one month lease extension. The County is still set to close on purchase of the church property on April 15th. The library has obtained a letter of permission from St. Francis to start pre-planning and research site requirements. The next step in the process is to get a funding timeline from the County. Andy is not sure when this will happen because the funds for this project are coming from the state. He informed the Board that the county has some new issues with modular construction. Any modular construction done at the factory must be inspected by a Teton County inspector, which requires traveling to the vendor site to inspect prior to any final work done in Teton County. Deb said the next step is to decide where to go for the interim. Some discussion followed on bookmobiles, which can be purchased or leased and traded back in. Deb relayed that Dail has been made aware of the possibility of a seven year old bookmobile for $30,000 that may be coming up for sale. Deb stressed that this is still very tentative. This is a true bookmobile, not a converted RV, with appropriate ADA compliant access. It could then potentially be sold after a year with a 30% loss in value. If a bookmobile is used, with permission from the school, it could be parked in the school parking lot, with electric provided at the site and use of the school restrooms. Anne suggested possibly using a trailer without an engine, if it is not to be driven. Some discussion followed on the alternatives of leasing space from St. Francis or the City of Driggs. Deb asked if the library and county were willing to fund increased staffing if the interim library is in Teton County, Idaho. This would likely be required due to higher demand. Insurance is another issue to be investigated if a space is leased in Idaho. More information will be available when Dail returns and it was agreed to hold off setting up a meeting with the Alta residents until that time. Andy recommended maybe setting up two meetings, one to lay out the options and one at the end of April to present them and receive public comment. Gayle feels that the community wants some concrete answers and pointed out that there are already many Idaho residents using the library. Bill suggests keeping the Alta community informed through email, putting a link to the website and placing a suggestion box in the library, keeping in mind that any alternative site suggestions must be ADA compliant. Due to the press release, Gayle thinks that people are expecting a meeting now and suggests perhaps holding an informal meeting some evening with Dail or Deb to collect ideas. She said that members of St. Francis are discussing rooms to use for interim.
Librarian’s Report-Deb reported that the Wyoming Library Association’s Public Library Endowment bill passed for $9.1 million, which is less than the original request. WLA will have to go back in the future to request further funding. Some discussion followed on how the money will be disbursed and funding for Teton County Library Foundation.
Holly had sent an email to the board, with notes from her attendance at the staff meeting. Deb had given an update on the organizational structure to the staff at the meeting. She heard the desire from them, to go back to monthly staff meetings. The next meeting will be on Wed. April 2, at 8:00 A.M. Deb will email a reminder to the board and as many as are able will attend. She also heard the staff wish to get all thoughts, concerns and suggestions out in the open and acknowledged. We will do that using the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) process-to provide the best possible internal communication. These will be recorded on flip charts. We are not looking for consensus or to filter thoughts. We will share the team flip charts at the next staff meeting, with Deb to facilitate. Once all contributions are collected, the top three areas will be chosen and groups will be formed to work on each area. These groups will report back at staff meetings. We will also develop a survey for all staff to take, presented at the April 2 staff meeting and to be completed by April 21. Deb gave a brief description of a personal leadership workshop that the management team attended and would like to conduct for all staff during the last week in April. The dates will depend on Caroline Fisher’s schedule. She would be presenting the workshop in conjunction with Bob McLaurin. Bob has not yet heard back from Carolyn about her availability since she has been out of town. This workshop would likely involve closing the library for two days to allow all staff to participate.
Financials-Andy looked over the budget and stated that everything looks pretty straightforward. He did point out that Teton County has a $700,000.00 deficit to start with, due to the loss of sales tax revenue on food. He then explained the process for calculating sales and property tax revenue. Deb does not anticipate any cash carryover. The Board then reviewed the FY 09 Budget Proposal (attached). Some discussion followed, and Deb went over the highlights which she had emailed to the board last week with one correction to Health Insurance cost due to a miscalculation (it is correct in the board packet). One item that was not included in the email arose from the management team meeting: to add 15 hours to the Youth Services LA1 position due to toddler times, story times and teen programming goals. This position has been advertised for some time without being filled. The management team feels that it will be easier to hire for a full time position which would include benefits. This is an increase of $20,000 to salaries. The total salaries request is $2,660,385.32 (which was correct in the budget spreadsheet but not in the email notes). Deb’s highlights emailed to the Board include funding for: Phase III of the library’s solar project; technology to record library programs; increased collection development funds now that state legislative money for collections is no longer available; phase one of a local newspaper digitization project to complement a statewide digitization project; a document scanning project to digitize library documents; a facilities space consultant to help maximize our current library spaces; and two summer seasonal library assistants and the reinstatement of a tax program coordinator. Some discussion followed on the request for $40,000 additional money for library collections. This request is largely related to electronic resources which have been paid for from the State Legislature funds for the past two years. Deb said that one stipulation of the State Legislature funding was that we not cut our budget. She also pointed out that the County Commissioners have the right to line item veto anything in the proposed budget. The overall percentage increase to the proposed budget is 8.23%, the bulk of this being in salaries and associated personnel costs.
There are no vouchers to approve as payables have not been processed yet due to the earlier meeting.
Amy moved to approve the FY 09 Proposed Budget, Anne seconded, there being no further discussion all voted in favor. Deb will present the proposed budget to the Commissioners sometime in April, but it is due by Friday, March 14, to County Clerk Sherry Daigle. A new step in the process this year will be a meeting with County Treasurer Donna Bauer, County Administrator Jan Friedlund and Sherry Daigle to go over the proposed budgets, they will then give their recommendations to the Commissioners.
It was confirmed that the April board meeting will be on the 24th and the May meeting has been changed to the 22nd. June 19th will be Amy’s last meeting. Deb reminded the board about recruitment of new members. Former board members may serve again, however there must be at least a one year gap after two consecutive terms.
Holly moved to adjourn, Anne seconded, all in favor.
Minutes prepared by Sally McCullough, business manager.
Press
Room