Board of Library Trustees Meeting
June 13, 2006

7:00 p.m.


Medway Public Library


Attendees:

Phyllis Cerel
Meena Jain
Patrick Marshall, Director
William Roberts, Secretary
Chuck Rockwood
Wendy Rowe, Chairman


Citizens:

Nina Hunt


Minutes:

  1. Approval of agenda

    2. Motion to approve the agenda: (WLR1, PC2), passed unanimously

  2. Citizens Speak
  3. Town Meeting aftermath
    1. Layoff notices

      2. Using an updated version of last years letter. Letter comes from the Chairman (Wendy).

      Motion to approve layoff letter. (WLR1, PC2) passed unanimously

    2. Loss of Director

      3. Patrick is amongst the unemployed come July 1. His layoff expenses come from this year's town budget. He gets a version of the same cheery letter.

    3. Remaining Employees

      4. Three positions (the fulltime ones) remain, these are the Technical Services Librarian, the Circulation Librarian, and the the Children's librarian. By union rules, a more senior laid off union employee may claim a position if it's inhabited by a less senior employee (and there are no further requirements attached to the position such as an MLS). This may happen in the circulation librarian position. Will know in a day.

    4. Acting Director

      5. Three options (as there is no money for Bibliotemps):

      1. Have Wendy stage an open ended reprise of her various acting director stints
      2. Make Nina the acting Director
      3. Use some willing and qualified citizen volunteer

      Wendy may be willing, but she's not eager. The potential citizen volunteer has a day job and a family" and replace it with "Presently, no Medway resident is known to be qualified and have the time to do the job, for free. Nina would do a good job and is in fact willing. Thus:

      Motion to anoint Nina our Acting Director: (MJ1, PC2). Passed unanimously.

      Lucky Nina

    5. Custodial/Maintenance
    6. Volunteers

      7. Need as many as we can get. Don't want them manning the desk however.

    7. Fundraising for Materials

      8. Suggestions include: Dinner dance, Golf, silent auction (very appropriate, given that we're a library and often closed which makes us extra quiet), hitting up the local banks, Lion's club, Chuck volunteered to do a letter drive.

      Booksale in the fall

    8. Programs and Services

      9. Unclear what we can provide. Summer reading contest can be managed. Will have to see how the reduced hour schedule works out in practice.

      Some discussion of encouraging meeting room use. Possibly tacking on a cleaning deposit to handle cases where room's left a mess.

    9. Medway Players

      10. Aren't doing a summer play. We will manage to accommodate them in the fall.

  4. New Business

    5. Wendy offered a sample schedule. Nina and the other 2 staff members will work on revising it.

    In cases where sickness or other unschedulable absences take out 2 employees, the library will have to close. Can't operate with just 1 staff member and with a staff of three there is obviously no backup plan possible.

    Suggestion to close Christmas week and let staff take vacation in sync. Generally favorably received.

    In the way of an abbreviated director's report: the police came for a suspected mental illness sufferer, DPS head says his department will pay for the anticipated repair of our sprinkler system air compressor.

  5. Next Meeting July not 4th

    6. Not July either. Think June 27th

  6. Adjournment - 9:08

    7. Motion to adjourn: (PC1, MJ2) unanimous

Suggested hours of operation for Medway Public Library

Monday10-2
Tuesday4-8
Wednesday1-5
Thursday1-5
Friday10-2

Reasons for these hours:

  1. As voted at town meeting, library is reduced to three staff members. At most library can only be open 20 hours a week.
  2. Library will be unable to open more than 4 hours a day as coverage becomes difficult during lunch hours, sick time, vacation time, and any other staff absences.
  3. 35-hour employees will be working 7-hour days and the 30-hour employee will work 6-hour days. By law they are required to have a lunch break. Should one employee be out, lunches would not be covered if building is open more than 4 hours. By leaving building open only these hours, breaks and lunches can be handled before or after the service hours.
  4. Tuesday is the biggest evening of the two we are currently open. (The other being Thursday). Friday afternoons are the slowest of the afternoon periods.
  5. Monday morning hours will allow staff the chance to assist patrons after being closed over the weekend.

FY07 MINIMALLY FUNDED MEDWAY PUBLIC LIBRARY - wer - Adopted by ATM 6/12/06

 
Allows us to keep a functional library open to the public
approximately 20 hours per week.  To do so, we must keep our three
highly trained fulltime employees and the Trustees must spend
approximately $67000 of the Library's reserves, from the Revolving
Fund and Tuchinsky Fund interest and State Aid. This plan includes NO
Library Director, no Custodial/Maintenance, and no parttime employees.
Essentially all materials will be bought using donations.  We have not
yet worked out how we will manage without a Library Director or
Custodial/Maintenance, although we hope we'll be able to work
something out with Dr. Grandmont as he'd offered re custodial help and
we may be looking for volunteers to help clean.
 
SALARIES: (from FY07 proposed budget):  $108685
 Children's Librarian, 35 hours/week
 Technical Services Librarian, 35 hours/week
 Circulation Librarian, 30 hours/week
These staffers will circulate books during public hours and do the
required background work while closed to keep the Library functional.
With just 3 employees, this will be challenging.
 
EXPENSES:   $41020
FY06 Expenses budget at $43973 significantly underfunded heat/electricity
so we cannot anticipate a large savings. Materials budget is a token $20.
 
MINUTEMAN: $24866.90   (to be paid by the Library)
 
HEALTH INSURANCE: $30381 (to be paid by the Town)
 
 
TOTAL LIBRARY-RELATED BUDGET NEEDS:   $204952.90
SALARIES:  $108685
EXPENSES:  $ 41020
MINUTEMAN: $ 24866.90
HEALTH INSURANCE: $30381
 
 
TOTAL LIBRARY-RELATED BUDGET:    204952.90
$107342 (mothball + $19619) Town puts in the Library Salary budget *
$30381  Town pays for the 3 employees' health insurance     *
* (Together, these two lines total an above-mothball contribution from
 the town of $50000)  = $137723 total town expenditure to run Library
$1343 Trustees will put in the Library Salary budget
$41020 Trustees will put in the Library Expense budget
$24866.90 Trustees will pay for Minuteman
 (The three lines above total $67229.90 the Trustees will spend from
 Revolving Account, Tuchinsky Fund Interest and saved-up State Aid)
 
LIBRARY OPERATING BUDGET $174571.90; HEALTH INSURANCE $30381
 
*****************************************************************************
ACCOUNT BALANCES as of 6/1/06:  approximately $95000
 
State Aid: $37157.74 (saved up from previous years' awards before we
had to spend so much on our materials et alia due to budget cuts)
Revolving Fund:  $24183.29
Tuchinsky Fund Interest: $33661.74     (From the Treasurer's records)
 
This leaves the Trustees able to spend approx. $67000 on FY07 Library
operations while still reserving the $5000 we expect to pay to replace
the broken airconditioning unit and a sum of money for the
not-yet-estimated repair of the sprinkler system's faulty air
compressor, still leaving a safety margin for future repairs and problems.