- By Dan Veaner
- News
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Now that the board is an official municipal board, their meetings are held publicly just as they are in any municipality including the town, school and fire districts, village, and county. And like most of those municipalities' meetings, this one was sparcely attended. But the purpose was to get the work of the trustees done, and that is what they did. "What we have here is what we consider a draft of the long range plan," said Board Chairman Dale Baker. "There has been input by members of the Trustees into this."
The plan sets forth a mission statement and a series of goals and actions. Trustees went through the draft document, making changes, and adding items to their 'to-do' list. The first goal is to 'develop effective trustees,' which includes developing and implementing a procedure for self-evaluation. Other goals also involve periodic evaluation and procedures for hiring, dealing with benefits and eventual raises for a librarian, plans for the collection and technology needed to manage it, programs offered to the public including youth programming, and community outreach. The plan also covers building maintenance and financial goals and procedures.
The brunt of the first draft was developed by Trustee Barbara Barry, then amended by the board. Wednesday the trustees scoured the draft to best match their goals for the library. One of the biggest items is the hiring of a professional librarian. "At this point we have a job description written," Marlaine Darfler, who is chairing the search committee, reported. "Civil Service took what we wrote and reformatted it, because they have a particular format. We'll be sending out the ad and the job description by the end of June. Our hiring date is projected for October 1st, because that's when we get our tax money."
How they manage the ongoing salary and benefits of the librarian without raising taxes was also a topic. Trustees talked about moving budget items around to pay for raises. "If someone comes to us who is retired, or on benefits, or on their spouse's benefits, that's wiggle-waggle money," Darfler noted. "If they don't need a full set of benefits that money could be rolled over into salary. There are ways to play around with it, but not a whole lot because then we start taking it from the books."
Dale baker (right) chairs the meeting
The board also hopes to receive an annual $25,000 to $30,000 from Tompkins County, which provides that amount to all the other independent libraries in the county. But Darfler was cautious about how that money should be used. "If we get into the routine of the 25,000 to 30,000 that all the other libraries get from the county we have told the county that we are going to earmark that for an aid," she sadi. "A lot of the libraries do that. We wouldn't use it to staff our main librarian, because if that money goes away we are really in trouble. If we use it for a part time page, it wouldn't be great if we had to get rid of that person, but it wouldn't close down the library."
Under 'outreach,' trustees considered the goal of keeping the community informed of what the library can do for them, and a proactive plan for outreach to civic groups and public officials, as well as with school librarians. It sets the goal of developing a newsletter by 2010.
The trustees made a number of changes to the document with the intention to continue to amend it as time passes and they get a better handle on what it will take to really manage the library. "As trustees we see this as a dynamic plan," Baker said.
With reporting and pictures by Ben Veaner
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