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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1997-09-08 MinutesBOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING FAYETTEVIILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY September 8, 1997 Present: Board members: Nancy Hendricks, Steve Singleton, Maury Roberts, Michael Thomas, and Mark Burdette, Library personnel: June Jefferson, Lolly Maxey, Lynaire Hartsell, Mary Jo Godfrey, Mary Saxon, Susie Walker, Carolyn Diemente, Anne Prichard, ORL Director Karen Duree, Robin Hall of Hall & Hall, and Scott Butki of the Morning News. I. Call to order: Thomas called the meeting to order at 4:00 pm in the meeting room of the Fayetteville Public Library. III. Robin Hall of Hall & Hall - Thomas said the Board wanted the staff to know that it is their decision about the retirement plan so that the staff will be comfortable with the decision that is made. Hall said the Board is considered the "Employer", and since the plan is an "Employer Plan" and not an "Employee Plan", the Board must be the one who delegates where things go and how the plan is handled. If you start giving the employees to many options, not only is it hard to contain, but you may lose some of the qualifications of it being a "Qualified Employer Plan" which may have tax ramifications. Burdette asked if the employees could not choose an employer directed or an individual directed plan? Hall said that is not an option that is usually given to employees. Singleton said he thought it was a legal necessity for the Board as the Employer in the relationship to designate the trustee or custodian of the plan, but this was where the Board wanted employee involvement in making that decision. Hall said that could be set up, but right now we don't have a lot of time. Since Nations Bank does not want to handle Trust Accounts any more, we have until the end of September to tell them where the money goes. Right now we need to move the money to another place that can continue the plan as it is now set up. The Bank of Oklahoma understands what the plan is now since they worked with the City before with the plan that our present plan is modeled after. The Bank of Oklahoma can be both the Trustee and the Administrator. There are banks in town that can do one part, and then you have to hire an independent person to do the other part. So it was felt that a transfer to Bank of Oklahoma would be the easiest thing to do at this point. Jefferson said the transfer to Bank of Oklahoma would be an asset to asset transfer. Then we can present to them the desires of the staff and Board to change the plan to an Employee -directed plan like the City has. Jefferson said that as the "Employer" there will always be some things that the Board will have to sign off on. Hall said Bank of Oklahoma should not charge a set up fee because the plan is already set up in an IRS -approved document. Singleton asked if there were any other vendors who had shown interest in our plan. Jefferson said there had been a few nibbles, but as soon as the letter went out from Nations, everyone with an account with them was looking for another trustee, so there was a lot of business out there. Jefferson said the Board needs to approve the resolution to move the money to Bank of Oklahoma, and a letter that needs to be signed. Motion was made by Burdette to appoint the Bank of Oklahoma trustee, seconded by Roberts, and all voted AYE. II. Approval of minutes Burdette moved to approve the minutes of the the August meeting as submitted, Roberts seconded with a few comments. Roberts said that he felt that our number one goal was to provide for the educational, informational and recreational needs of the community. The other things, including opening evening hours, were objectives in meeting this goal. Roberts said that he felt that the automation project will give us a chance to serve our patrons in a way that has never been available before. There are people who don't read books or periodicals but do respond to the computers and the Internet. He felt, as Jefferson pointed out in the last meeting, that increased staffing is the most important objective in being able to give our patrons the best service possible. More people are needed to help the public use the computers, and to register all the patrons. Thomas said that he has heard over and over from the Mayor on down that people want us to increase the hours, and that this would only be possible with more staff. Hendricks said the Mayor is a strong supporter of the Library and what it can do for the community, and she felt that asking for more hours is a means to an end of getting increased staffing. Roberts said he did not want to change the minutes of the last meeting just register his thoughts. All voted AYE to accept the minutes of the last meeting. Burdette said he had talked with some representatives of the City Council and they have agreed to come and tour the library. Since they all have regular jobs, they are only able to come at 7:30 in the morning. The staff said they wished they could come during hours of operation, since 99% of what we do is patron oriented, but since that is not possible, they were pleased with this opportunity anyway. Burdette made a motion to send out an invitation to the City Council to come and tour the library, Roberts seconded, and all voted AYE. The staff will pick the day. IV. Correspondence/clippings The Ozarks Regional Library Board meeting will be September 17. Duree said the budget was on the agenda. Thomas noted the nice articles that Melissa Blouin had written about the library in the Northwest Arkansas Times. The ALA meeting will be in October. Duree said there will be a Trustee session, and that someone from the board should make an effort to attend. Several members of the FPL staff will attend. V. Librarians Reports A. Statistical and Financial report: This was not ready yet. Burdette suggested that the Board meet on Sept. 22 and discuss these reports and then have an executive session to discuss personnel matters. All agreed on this. B. Work week: Maxey said the two weeks were very useful. Lots of barcoding got done, in addition to patron registration training. Hartsell said we are past the half -way mark in barcoding the circulating collection. Patron registration is a priority now. C. Automation and long-term development: Jefferson said the staff is trying to determine the best way to use the rest of the money to get all the barcoding done. Rick O'Kelley's contract is for 9 more months, but we are trying to get all the bugs out of the system now. Jefferson said that when we decided how many ports we needed on the "hub" the number only included the number of new computers we had ordered, and not the computers we already had. O'Kelley said that we need 8-10 more ports which will mean a new "hub", which will cost about $640. The old computers we have now work, they just cannot be hooked into the Local Area Network without the ports. O'Kelley also has recommended that we get a backup domain controller. We have had some problems in rebooting, and so the whole system had to be shut down while he did the diagnostic work to determine the problem. If we had the backup domain controller this will keep the programs like Infotrac running while doing diagnostics. This will cost $800 and will require another software license on our server. Singleton moved to buy the new "hub" and domain controller, Hendricks seconded, and all voted AYE. D. CIP & Operations Budget calendars: Thomas reported that he will meet with Steve Davis and Ben Mayes about our budget request. The results of this meeting will be distributed to the City Council on Sept. 19 and will be on the agenda of the City Council meeting on October 7. E. Progress reports: Thomas reported that the exterior renovation on the building is going good. The brick work is done, the gas lights have been taken out, the ALA changes in the front door are being accomplished, and the steps in the back of ORL are being fixed. Duree said there have been some problems with kids getting up on the roof, and she was afraid that one of them was going to fall through the skylight. She was wondering if some kind of barrier could be put up so they couldn't get up there. Thomas said he felt that she should call the police, since the kids were trespassing. Duree said the police have been called, but she would prefer some method of keeping them down in the first place. It was suggested to ask Dahlinger or Minor Wallace the next time they are here about that. F. ORL Policy: Hartsell said that ORL policy is FPL policy until the board makes a change. Some of the things mentioned were the renewal policy and the lost and paid refund policy. It was decided to wait until we have a new director to decide on these things. VI. Trustees/ Committee Reports A. Alternative Funding: Singleton said he is still waiting on a gift subscription to Morningstar. B. Volunteers: Burdette said he didn't have anything to report on volunteers, but did want to bring up for discussion the county employees using our parking lot. He said that when he was called for jury duty he was told he could park over here. He feels like if the county is going to use our parking spaces anyway, maybe we could lease some of the spaces to the county. Sometimes there are even cars with the county logo in our parking lot, instead of them using their parking which is across the street. Duree said she would keep an eye out for the number of county people using our parking lot and report back. C. Long range planning: Roberts had nothing to report. D. Treasurers report: Hendricks had nothing to report. VII. State Library Funding Letter Duree said the Regional Library Board has approved a letter to the governor. The legislature has approved $150,000 to be used for a study of the libraries. This money is in a fund called the General Services account and the release of this money is at the discretion of the governor. The library directors felt that letters should be written to the governor asking him to release this money. Thomas said he would do this, and all agreed. VIII. Adjournment Hendricks moved to adjourn, Singleton seconded, and all voted AYE. The meeting was adjourned at 6:10 pm. Respectfully submitted by Carolyn Diemente.