December Library Trustees Board Meeting

BOULDER CITY LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING
December 14, 2011

MEMBERS PRESENT: Amy Carvalho, Gary Berger, Valerie McNay, Beth Molburg, and Ed Barrow.  Also present Martha Ford from PBTK, Library Director Lynn Schofield-Dahl, and Reference and Electronic Services Librarian Deanna Duffy.

The regular meeting of the Library Board of Trustees was called to order at 7:08 p.m. by Chairman Amy Carvalho.

I. CONSENT AGENDA: Matters considered routine by the Board of Trustees and which may be enacted in one motion. Any item, however, may be discussed separately per Board member request. Any exceptions to the Consent Agenda must be stated prior to approval.

Beth Molburg moved, and Ed Barrow seconded approval of the Consent Agenda, the minutes of the regular meeting on November 16, $30,252.03  in vouchers for the previous month, submitted prior to and at the meeting, $791.90 in checkbook expenses for the previous month, submitted prior to and at the meeting. Motion carried.

1. ADOPTION OF AGENDA.

2. ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF NOVEMBER 16, 2011

3. EXPENSES FROM PREVIOUS MONTH.

II. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: Items raised under this portion of the Agenda cannot be acted upon until notice provisions of Nevada’s Open Meeting Law have been completed. Therefore, any action on such items must be considered at a later meeting.

            None present.

III. FY 10-11 FISCAL AUDIT REPORT:

PBTK has completed the yearly audit and they have issued their unqualified opinion on the financial statements for the year ending June 2011.

Martha reported that the only thing new in the opinion is on page 21. This is a result of GASB 24 – fund balance classification. There are now five fund balance classifications with sub classes. We only have four fund balance classifications. We have non spendable (which is noncash); long term receivable, restricted (which is debt levy); committed (which is capital projects); assigned (which is set aside by management). Committed monies are designated by the governing body, the board. Only the board can uncommit them and move them back to general fund.

Martha made sure to point out that the library had a positive fund balance change of nearly $72,00 this year.

Beth asked if there were any areas where that board should pay more attention to. Martha said what she was asking about was in another document, and that question will be addressed later.

Valerie asked if the land purchased changed the numbers any. Martha’s answer was no.  That because of the lease/sale deal we had with the city, the land has already been on our books for years, and it’s listed at the sale price of $1.

Martha then moved on to the required communication letter.  This is essentially the same as last year. Due to the library’s size it really is not practical for us to have a CPA on staff. Because we do not have a CPA on staff, this is listed as a deficiency and must be reported to the board.  Lynn has continued to make progress with her financial education and is getting fairly conversant in accounting and the financials. Martha is impressed that in the current economy our balance fund increased by nearly $72,000, she doesn’t know of any other governmental entity that has done that.

Martha said again that many small organizations and small governmental entities are just living with the deficiency because they feel their money is better spent on their goal, than paying for a CPA. Beth commented that it is prudent to have the monthly financial reports that we do, and the once a year outside audit.

Amy asked about page 12 of the Required Communications Letter. The ensuing discussion revealed that her question related to a few typos.  Unemployment has decreased from 14.8% to 14%. And gaming has increased instead of decreased.

Lynn also pointed out that we are still in the position where we can increase the tax levy without asking voters. There is a limit up to which we can just increase the levy, once we reach that limit, then we would have to ask voters for approval to increase further.  We are still well under our limit.

Valerie asked if Martha thinks the board is allocating enough resources to Lynn for financial education. Martha’s answer was that Lynn could spend more time and money learning to prepare the financial reports, but that’s not what Lynn was hired to do. Martha thinks it’s a balancing act between time spent studying financial accounting and running the library.  The board has to decide what balance is appropriate. Amy commented that she thinks the library is going in the right direction.

Amy thanked Martha for taking the board’s concerns into consideration and sending new people out to do the audit. Martha said they usually send their junior people out, so there are some new people each year.

Beth moved to accept the annual audit. Gary seconded. Motion carried.

IV. STAFF REPORTS

1. Lynn handed out change pages for the bills and monthly financial report.

2. Lynn did finally receive the information she needed from LVCCLD.  The reports mode in iii is broken and that delayed getting those.  This month so far we’ve taken in $598.84 in fines and we’ve waived $122.  The amount of food coming in is going up each week.  The first week we did not get much, but there has been more this week.  Last month we took in $1300 in fines.

3. Lynn talked about the Universal Class Database.  She has learned that state grant money can be used for databases, so she’ll use that to pay for Universal Class.  She plans to talk to the Rotaries about money for a mobile lab for teaching computer classes, instead of talking to them about paying for Universal Class.  Lynn handed out a list of categories of classes that Universal Class offers, and as a comparison, the short list of CSN classes that were offered in Boulder City this fall.  The Universal Class classes are not for college credit, but they are accredited for Continuing Education all over the country.  Anyone who needs to take continuing education credits for work can use these classes. Lynn will do an article for Boulder City Magazine soon, and she thinks a refresher reminder in about six months. Patrons can only be enrolled in five classes at a time, but there’s no maximum for Boulder City patrons as a whole.

Lynn also mentioned that she didn’t see a Basic First Aid class listed, but she thought that would be useful for the staff. Gary offered to teach a Basic First Aid class if Lynn would like.

4. There was discussion about the upcoming program from the Springs Preserve.

5. Valerie asked about the change to the new organizational flow chart. That’s going well.

V. REPORT/DISCUSSION/ACTION POSSIBLE:

1.  Report from the Policy Committee (Report only, no action required) – Gary Berger

The committee hasn’t met yet this month due to conflicts.  They plan to have some things typed up and finalized for discussion at the next board meeting.

1. Discussion of Library Director Evaluation (Discussion, Action Required) – Amy Carvalho

Amy handed out the complied Evaluation results.

Lynn asked about Goal #7 “Increase participation in programs offered at the Library.” She was wondering how that would be judged.  Amy suggested changing programs to services, and the board explained that mostly what they are looking for with this goal is that services are offered and that opportunities to offer services are explored. There was more discussion, and the board decided to reword this.  Goal #7 will be changed to “Monitor and evaluate services offered at the Library and increase total program participation by 5%.”

Gary had a couple of comments about the Evaluation. Gary doesn’t think goals #2 and #5 should be on the list of goals because they are one time events, not ongoing projects. #2 is Finalize the Land Sale. #5 is about the landscaping.  There was discussion about these items, particularly #5 in that once a landscape company is found their performance needs to be monitored and if Lynn’s not happy with their work they need to be replaced.  The board decided that it is an ongoing project.

Gary also questioned whether Lynn should be accountable for goal #3, participation in the Policy Committee because she is not in charge of that. Gary then admitted he misread the goal. He thought it held her responsible for the Policy Committee rather than simply participating in the Committee.  He is fine with goal #3 as written.

Gary Berger moved to accept the 2011 performance evaluation. Beth Molburg seconded. Motion carried.

VI. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: Items raised under this portion of the Agenda cannot be acted upon until notice provisions of Nevada’s Open Meeting Law have been completed. Therefore, any action on such items must be considered at a later meeting.

None present.

VII. ADJOURNMENT: Amy Carvalho adjourned the meeting at 8:30.