|
The Boulder City Library District Board of Trustees normally meets on the third Wednesday of every month, at 7:00 PM, in the Board room of the Boulder City Library. Any change will be noted in the agenda for that meeting.
BOULDER CITY LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING
October 15, 2008
MEMBERS PRESENT: Doug Haag, Amy Carvalho, William Littler, Gary Berger, and Brad Appleby. Also present, Library Director Lynn Schofield-Dahl, and Reference and Electronic Services Librarian Deanna Duffy. Members of the public Carolyn Rehder and L. Giunta.
The regular meeting of the Library Board of Trustees was called to order at 7:00 p.m.
CONSENT AGENDA: Gary Berger moved and Brad Appleby seconded approval of the Consent Agenda, the minutes of the regular meeting on September 17, and the monthly expenses for September in the amount of $ 13,450.18 in vouchers submitted prior to and at the meeting, and $539.83 in checkbook expenses submitted at the meeting. Motion carried.
STAFF REPORTS: See Director's Monthly Report dated October 15, 2008
- Lynn distributed a change page for the bills including invoices received since last week.
Amy had a question about the expenses, Lynn had a note that she thinks a couple of things are combined. She's waiting for a response from Mark at the County. Amy would still like to see a running total of the debt service information as well. Lynn will add that for next time.
Doug asked a question about the salaries. Some categories for salary are slightly higher than it looks like it should be, Lynn's got calls in about those. Also asked about the insurance, that's the one Amy asked about. Amy's looking at the budget and agrees with Lynn's theory.
We're hoping that Mark at the county gets the answers to Lynn by next meeting.
Brad suggested that Lynn start a list of things that are unresolved to keep track of what's outstanding. She's already got a list from tonight. - Lynn distributed an agenda item from the Clark County Board of Commissioners, they've adopt a new attendance form to keep track of the attendance of people they appoint. This includes the Boulder City Library District Board of Trustees. Deanna will be marking attendance at the Board meetings.
REPORTS/DISCUSSION/ACTION:
- PERSONNEL: STATUS OF OPEN POSITIONS: Two of the three positions, both in the children's department, have been filled and the new employees are currently being trained. They'll start working normally in the schedule next week. Lynn has chosen who she's going to interview for the bookkeeper's position and is hoping to get time to schedule those interviews. Doug asked that that be done as soon as possible.
MEETING ROOM POLICY / LETTER FROM L. GIUNTA: L. Giunta wa present. Gary Berger asked why it was necessary, back in 2002 to write out a policy for the meeting rooms. Deanna Duffy pointed out that the 2002 date is simply the last time it was revised. Carolyn Rehder, who has been with the Boulder City Library the longest at 22 years, commented that she doesn't remember how long there's been a policy, but thinks perhaps the 90's.
(Informational - Further research shows that the Exhibits Policy was adopted by the board on April 11, 1990, and Carolyn believes that sounds about right for the creation of the Community Room Policy as well.)
Carolyn pointed out that former library director Duncan McCoy didn't want to have study rooms in the library, so they were not included in the design and therefore they are not an option. Lynn pointed out, for anyone that didn't know, that Carolyn is one of two people who do the meeting room scheduling. Carolyn listed several other meeting room issues that are current problems, including home owners associations, the art guild display in the meeting room where prices are displayed.
Carolyn talked about other problems with meeting rooms as well, such as the number of groups that are "no call, no show."
Gary talked to several teachers from Henderson, who said that they've never had the luxury of having a private room for tutoring. They've always had to just use the open area of a library, or a McDonald's or something and they just have to put up with the noise from the public. Gary said that at least one of the Henderson schools looks like they're going to be getting a grant for tutoring after school at the school paid for by the grant money, not paid for by the parents.
Lynn pointed out that while there are walls in the meeting rooms, they are not sound proof. And that there are some times that she has to tell people in the meeting room to quiet down so that she can hear a phone call in her own office.
Amy suggested that possibly a solution is to let tutors use the room if it's available, but not to allow reservations. Gary pointed out that once you put something at someone's discretion, then you're open for a freedom of speech lawsuit from someone that you deny.
Lynn does not have copies of other area libraries Community Room Policies available tonight, but she will get those.
Brad agreed with Amy suggestion of using the meeting room if available. Gary motioned that for the purposes of tutoring, the first two sentences of the Community Room Policy should apply. Brad suggested that we do a review of the policy to look at other grey areas and solicit more comments from all involved. Gary's motion was not seconded and died.
Brad Appleby moved to form a task group to see what issues need to be covered that are not currently covered, and to form suggestions about what to do in regards to tutoring and get back to the board. Gary seconded. Motion carried. Doug asked that Carolyn, Lynn, Gary, and Amy will be the committee, and it was pointed out that citizen participation is allowed and L. Giunta is interested in being involved in that.
Lynn wanted a clear guideline from the board on whether or not to allow informal, non-scheduled tutoring usage of the meeting room, if it is open. Brad moved to allow informal, non-scheduled tutoring usage of the meeting room on a interim basis until the issue is fully resolved. Gary seconded. Motion carried.
REPORT: BOULDER CITY LIBRARY HEALTH INSURANCE: Bill Littler reports that the Nevada Library Trustees Handbook gives Library Boards of Trustees policy making for personell including and benefits, the Boulder City Library Policy manual does not specifically cover changes to salary and benefits. He reiterated that when Lynn was considering accepting the job offer she specifically asked about health insurance for family members and Duncan mistakenly informed her that the cost would be nominal.
Bill moved to establish a seperate category for the director's cost health insurance effective October 1, 2008 by increasing the library portion by $290 a month, that would cost us $3,480 a year, and looking at our budget of $1,478,000 we can probably find that in the budget. He said this would decrease the financial hit to the library director, and split the cost between the director and the library.
Brad asks to move this motion to Item number 4 because Item 3 is a report and therefore not actionable. The motion was not seconded and died.
Lynn realized that she'd neglected to mention in her report that the other library districts don't include benefits at all for part time employees. Carolyn pointed out that right now, the only people interested in this are her and Lynn. She also pointed out that we do pay less than the other libraries in Clark county, and to attract good new full time staff we do need to have something.
Amy used Lynn's report numbers to create a spreadsheet looking at what paying family health benefits for everyone does to the budget. Gary pointed out that the manual says that we can do anything we want. Brad and Amy pointed out, "within the law" There's also question of legally, can one set of employees, i.e. the director, be compensated differently than others. That'll be looked into.
Brad would like to possibly consider offering family benefits at a low percentage and then see how it goes over subsequent budgets. It would be something to offer, but not as huge an impact on the budget.
Gary moved to accept the information as presented and make this a future action item when we have information how offering family benefits for the entire library would effect the budget. Brad seconded. Motion carried.
Doug asked about creating a committee to study this, or just have an ad hoc committee.
Brad said that if there is discussion about increasing the director's salary, it should be a discussion about increasing the salary, and not specifically stating that it's to cover family benefits.
DIRECTOR'S 6 MONTH EVALUATION: After much discussion about whether or not to have Lynn leave, and the legality of asking her to leave, she volunteered to leave, stating that she felt the evaluation was not going to get done unless she did leave. At that point, Lynn left the room. There was more discussion about how to do the evaluation. Brad wanted to present a uniform opinion, that whatever the board decides, the winning vote is the decision of the of the board.
There was discussion about how the board members feel about how to do the evaluation.
Gary asked about whether or not Lynn was given any goals to accomplish, and the answer was no.
Gary questioned the validity of the employee reviews, and Brad reworded Gary's concern as stating that the employee reviews should not be the only or primary basis for the board's evaluation.
The board discussed Lynn's performance as library director.
Lynn returned. Amy read a pre-prepared summary of her opinions, which the rest of the board felt summed up everyone's opinions; Lynn will be given a copy.
Brad Appleby moved to award Lynn a one step increase in salary, from step 9 to 10, and a one time incentive bonus of $1500. Gary seconded. Motion carried.
The board needs to be more responsive to Lynn so that she clearly knows what they want.
PUBLIC COMMENT: L. Guina was present until the end of the discussion about the meeting rooms and then she left. Carolyn Rehder was present until the end of the discussion about the health insurance for family members and then she left. No public present at this time.
ADJOURNMENT: 9:05 pm
Minutes prepared by Deanna Duffy, Reference and Electronic Services Librarian.
|
