CALL TO ORDER BXECUTIVE SESSION OARD PRBSIDENT

Transcription

1 NI.ay 29,2013 Board Meeting Page I The regular May meeting of the Nassau Library System Board of Trustees was held at the NLS Service Center in Uniondale. TRUSTEES PRESENT: Mike Turner (presiding), Barbara Behrens, Joseph Camoll, Kathleen Seyfried, Angeleta Dhandari-Doltovatl, Ken Ulric and Frank Zaret TRUSTEES ABSENT WITH PRIOR NOTICE: Steven Dalton,Irving Chernofsky NLS ADMINISTRATORS AND STAFF PRESENT: Jackie Thresher (Director), Elizabeth Olesh (Assistant Director), Jan Heinleirr (Manager of the Business Office), Stacey Hill (Clerk of the Board), Pascale Laforest (NLS Staff), and Roseaune Dorfman (NLS Staff) NLS ATTORIIBY: 'William Cullen MEMBBR LIBRARY DIRECTORS AND TRUSTEES PRESENT: FTANK MCKCNNA (MLD Representative),Maggie Marino (ALIS Exec Board Chair), Laura Ulric (Farmingdale Trustee), Marietta DiCamillo (Great Neck Trustee), Josie Pizer (Great Neck Trustee), Michael Fuller (Great Neck Trustee), Irene Duszkiewicz (Hempstead Director) OTHERS PRESENT: Carol Frank (Reporter, Great Neck Record),Dan Glaun (Reporter, Great Neck News I The Island Now) and Marianna V/ohlegemuth (New Hyde Park resident) CALL TO ORDER These minutes are not an exact transcription of the discussion that took place at this Board Meeting; they are a summary of topics covered' Board President Mike Turner called the meeting to order at 6:47 p.m. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited. BXECUTIVE SESSION At 6:49 pm the Board moved into Executive Session for purpose of discussing with NLS legal counsel pending and proposed litigation related to a member library's claims related to contractual revenues and services via a motion made by Ken Ulric and seconded by Kathy Seyfried, which passed unanimously. RETURN TO OPBN SESSION The Board returned to Open Session at7:30 pm via a motion made by Joseph Canoll and seconded by Frank Zaret, which passed unanimously. ST OARD PRBSIDENT Board President Mike Turner made the following statement: "I want to acknowledge what happened at the last NLS Board meeting. Aìthough I apologized to the President of the Great Neck Library immediately following the meeting, I want to reiterate my apology tonight for the record. I also want to say that at this evening's meeting and at all future meetings I, and the entire NLS Board, will do our utmost to maintain civility." CHANGES IN PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AT BOARD MEETINGS Mr. Turner explained that as indicated on the agenda for this meeting, beginning with this meeting there will be two opportunities for public participation at NLS Board meetings. The first period will be after the minutes are acted upon. During this perìod members of the audience may speak about any item on the agenda. The second public participation period will be at the end of the meeting during which members of the audience may speak about anything that is pertinent to NLS services or operations. There is a 3 minute tilne limit per individual in each period.

2 N4.ay 29,2013 Board Meeting Page 3. Revenue Report. Cash Reports (Cash Position Summary / Interest Bearing Accounts / Bank Statement Balances) The motion was seconded by Angeleta Dhandari- Donovan and unanimously passed. NI,S DIRECTOR'S RBPORT The NLS Director reported that since the last Board meeting: o Budget Votes - There were 15 member library budget votes held in April and 22 member library budget votes held on May 21't (Super Tuesday) along with the schools. All 37 votes passed. The margin of approval was good but the total votes cast were less than desired in most cases. [Only one other member library has a public vote on its budget; its vote takes place in September because it is tied into the Town's budget year.] NLS must collect, verify and organize the budget and tax levy information for these votes and submit it to DLD. Jackie and Jan have been working on confirming numbers. Some mistakes have been found. Additional info needs to be collected from all libraries with amounts to be raised via taxes greater than 2o/o to determine if they exceeded their individual library's tax levy limit as calculated on the form they submitted to the State Comptroller's Office. Of the 15 libraries that had votes in April, 5 had amounts to be raised via taxes > 2yo. Of the 22librariesthat had votes in May, 8 had amounts to be raised via taxes > zyo. Once all the information that has been requested is provided, checked, and revised as necessary, the charts that have been created by NLS will be sent to the directors of the libraries with public votes on their budget with a request they confirm the information before it is sent to DLD. o Visit to BOCES - Jackie was invited to BOCES by Carl Vitevitch, Acting Director of the Nassau School Library System. Carl serves on the LILRC Board with Jackie. After a tour of the building which included some very impressive meeting and training facilities, the possibilities for cooperation were discussed including professional development/continuing education, cooperative grants, bilingual services, BOCES as a source of member library programs, and cooperative bidding. o Meeting with Cooperative Acquisition of Goods and Services Committee - Jackie met with the Cooperative Acquisitions of Goods and Services Committee on May 1Oth to discuss the possibility of rnember libraries obtaining building/facilities maintenance consultant services via NLS on a cost -recovery basis. Construction Grants - DASNY has finished their review of the applications submitted in September They did not change any of the projects or the recommended awards. The next step in the approval process is the signing of the certificate by a Deputy Commissioner in SED; DLD is hoping that this will be done by early June and the announcement of awards can be made by mid-june. As in the past State Legislators are notified of the awards first and given 5 days to announce them. After this, each applicant will receive an official approval notice. Applications for the next round of construction grants are due at NLS by Friday, August 16th. State Aid for The state aid charts for 2013 have not yet been released so the amount of state aid each library system will receive is still not known.

3 APPROVBD Minutes of the NI.ay 29,2013 Board Meeting Page 5 ALIS REPORT ALIS Chair Maggie Marino reported the following: o The Help Desk / Call Tracking software is proving to be very successful. o Issues with Sierra (including new look and feel of the Sierra client) continued to be resolved with the installation of the latest software update. o In response to library requests ALIS has removed several VHS collections from the catalog.. The Way Ahead Committee met and will be bringing several recommendations to the ALIS Executive Board.. The Spring Meeting was held May 16. At the meeting directors voted to approve a 7 day loan period for VHS items and to eliminate item types associated with loan periods in order to streaml ine circulation parameters.. ALIS provided reports to the Central Library Advisory Committee as requested by the Committee Chair. ALIS also is providing weekend circulation reports from April through June as requested by directors.. ALIS is tracking re-entry of the Island Park collection and providing progress reports. STAFF \ryrittbn REPORTS Kathy Seyfried moved the acceptance of the staff written reports as submitted. The motion was seconded by Angeleta Dhandari- Donovan and unanimously passed. ANNUAL REPORT TO THB STATE Copies of NLS' 2012 Annual Report to the State were included in the Board Packet which was distributed to members of the Board in advance of the meeting. The NLS Board must approve the report via a vote worded as per DLD. After explaining the formatting and print report limitations of the online report, the NLS Director briefly reviewed the various sections of the report including the questions about the services NLS provides, statistics, financial report, accomplishments related to each element of the approved system plan of service, a description of the fees charged by NLS, a condensed 2013 budget, and explanatory notes. An NLS Trustee pointed out a typo in one of the notes, which will be corected. Frank ZareT moved the approval of the NLS Annual Report to the State for 2012,which had been reviewed by the Board. The motion was seconded by Ken Ulric and unanimously passed by the Board. DECEMBBR BOARD MBETING DATE CHANGED The date of the December Board meeting was changed from the 23'd to the 1 6th via motion made by Angeleta Dhandari- Donovan and seconded by Kathy Seyfried, which passed unanimously. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION PERIOD #2 Josie Pizer, Great Neck Library Trustee Question l: Jackie, in your director's report did you say that you are investigating pricing and bidding with BOCES to reduce costs? Answer: There has been only one meeting during which very preliminary discussions took place. \ùy'e reviewed the services they offer school districts that might be of interest/use to NLS rnember

4 N4.ay 29,2013 Board Meeting PageT Marietta DiCamillo, President, Great Neck Library Board of Trustees Question 1: V/ho is treasurer of the board? Answer: Kathy Seyfried Question 2: What is the approval process for payments made between board meetings? Answer: Two board members - usually the Treasurer and the Board President - review the warrauts, checks and documentation for payment before signing the checks. These warrants are included in the board packet for retroactive review and approval by the full board at the next regular meeting of the board. [This approval process is authorized at the annual reorganization meeting of the board via the approval of a resolution.] Question 3: Is the public receiving the same packet as the board? Answer: Yes. All public session documents in the board packet are in the packets available as handouts for the public at board meetings. We used to have the various documents available as separate handouts. This is the first meeting where we have put them together as a packet. Question 4: It's difficult to go through the board packet during the meeting. Is it possible that we can see the packet prior to the meeting so we can review in advance? At Great Neck we allow public questions and discussion on each agenda item at the time it is discussed before it is acted upon. NLS Attorney: It is rare for boards to allow public comments to be made and questions asked on every agenda item as it takes place throughout their meetings. One public participation period is common, although some boards do have two - one near the beginning of the meeting and the other at the end. Ms. DiCamillo: I am not asking that you change your procedure for public participation. I am asking you if we can be accommodated by allowing us to review the packet in advance of the meeting. Answer: The packet is rarely finished before the Friday afternoon prior to Board meetings and sometimes not until late in the afternoon. It's not likely that there would be time on Friday to make pdfs ofeach document packet and post them online. An NLS trustee suggested that if someone wanted a packet in advance once they were ready they could come to NLS to pick thern up. Question 5: Is your 2012 atdit complete? Answer: No. Most of the work is done. The Management Analysis section has to be written. Our auditor presents a draft audit to the Board at a board meeting. He cannot attend the June meeting, so he will present it at the July 22"d meeting. Question 6: Do you know what the reduction of NYS state aid was? Answer: There was not an additional reduction in There was a restoration of a small amoul.lt of the nearly 22%oreducfion which resulted from a series of cuts beginning in Ms. Thresher said she would have to confirm the exact numbers, but she believed the small restoration that NLS had received in2012 had lessened the reduction from the approximaiely 22o/o Io sonrewhat nore lhan 19o/o. fafter the meeting it was confirmed that NLS received 19.64% less in state aid in 2012 than it received in 2007 prior to multiple cuts totaling nearly 22%.1 Question 7: Catl you explain the process used for the allocation of the MTA refunds? Answer: NLS did not determine the amounts individual libraries were allocated. V/e received a single, aggregate check frorn the State and a chart indicating each library's allocation. Vy'hen

5 NI.ay 29,2013 Board Meeting Page 9 Dan Glaun, Reporter, Great Neck News I The Island Now Question: Tl-re agenda says you will be moving into Executive Session to discuss pending and proposed litigation related to a member library's claims related to contractual revenues and services, Is their actual active, ongoing litigation or is it theoretical? Josie Pizer Answer by NLS Attorney: V/e will not comment on matters discussed in Executive Session; tl-rey are confi dential, Comment: I note in NLS' Annual Report to the State, it says there is a fee for delivery service. I will be ing you about this. RECESS Response: The report says that iri 2011, the member libraries agreed that beginningin2012 member library support of NLS would no longer be tied to delivery service but instead would be a fee for all non-mandated services. At9:14 pm Joe Carroll moved that the Board recess for 10 minutes after which the Board will move into Executive Session. The motion was seconded by Kathy Seyfried and passed unanimously. RBTURN TO OPEN SESSION At9:25 pm the Board reconvened in Open Session EXECUTIVE SESSION Angeleta Dhandari-Donovan moved that the Board move into Executive Session for purposes of discussing with NLS legal counsel pending and proposed litigation related to a member library's claims related to contractual revenues and services, The motion was seconded by Franl<Zaretand passed unanimously. The Board moved into Executive Session at9:28 pm. RETURN TO OPEN SESSION The Board returned to Open Session at l0:19 pm via a motion made by Barbara Behrens and seconded by Ken UIric, which passed unanimously. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 10:20 pm via motion made by Kathy Seyfried and seconded by Frank Zaret, which passed unanimously. Respectfu I ly subm itted, Certification these Minutes Stø,c,e4 HíIL Clerk of the Board Trustees \e à5 \ Date