1/28/2025 BM

Board Meeting Minutes 1/28/2025 (html)

Tuesday, January 28, 2025
LIBRARY BOARD MEETING
SILVER FALLS LIBRARY DISTRICTSilver Falls Library Program Room
410 S. Water St., Silverton, Oregon

            Board Members Present:                             Staff Present:
            Ingrid Donnerstag                                           Christy Davis, Director
            Dmitry White                                                  Stacy Higby
            Nancy Miller
            Megan Smith                                                   Public Present:
                                                                                    None

            Board Members Absent:
            Michelle Sanguinetti
CALL TO ORDER
Chair White called the meeting to order at 5:33 p.m.

REVIEW OF AGENDA

Additions under Old Business: Engage Eileen Eakins of Northwest Local Government Legal Advisors LLC for attorney services in review of solar proposal contract.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Typo on Page 3 – “the is” should be “there is”.
On Page 2, shorten heading to “C-REP grant – Review of RFP, report on community engagement”
On Page 2, change “decision to” to “instructed the Director to.”

Motion: To approve the December 3, 2024 Board Meeting minutes as amended
            (Motion by: Megan Smith. Second by: Dmitry White).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.

FINANCIAL REPORT, NOVEMBER 2024
The Board received and reviewed the following reports:

Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Fund Balances (as of November 30, 2024)
General Fund Statement of Cash Receipts (as of November 30, 2024)
General Fund Statement of Cash Disbursements as of November 30, 2024)
Check Register – Citizen’s Bank (November 1-30, 2019)
LGIP Account Statement (as of November 30, 2024)
Journal Entries (as of November 30, 2024)

Check Register

Deposit on 11/13 is our regular weekly deposit of money collected for Fines and Fees plus PGE Smart Thermostat rebate.
Deposit on 11/20 is our regular weekly deposit of money collected for Fines and Fees plus 2 checks from the Friends of the Library for their quarterly book donation and their annual donation for Employee Benefit.
Stacy will make note of splits on deposits and some checks moving forward.

Motion: To approve the NOVEMBER 2024 Financial Report as presented, including checks #17889 through and including #17913, and all EFTs, for a total of $97,017.21.
(Motion by: Ingrid Donnerstag. Second by: Dmitry White).
Vote: Unanimously in favor.

FINANCIAL REPORT, DECEMBER 2024
The Board received and reviewed the following reports:

Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Fund Balances (as of December 31, 2024)
General Fund Statement of Cash Receipts (as of December 31, 2024)
General Fund Statement of Cash Disbursements (as of December 31, 2024)
Check Register – Citizen’s Bank (December 1-31, 2024)
LGIP Account Statement (as of December 31, 2024)
Purchase Order – Visa (closing date November 20, 2024)
Journal Entries (as of December 31, 2024)

Statement of Cash Disbursements

Why does Group Health show a negative? Our payment to CIS was made after 12/31 but employee deductions came out of paychecks on that day.
What is the payment of almost $3,000 for Equipment Maintenance? It is our annual gate software and maintenance service contract with the electronic gate vendor, Biblioteca.
Are there funds for parking lot upgrades in Building Maintenance? Yes, that’s why the percentage spent is still so low.
What is the charge for website ADA compliance? It is a monthly charge for a tool used to help with ADA compliance on our website. Did we do an audit after the Board discussed it previously? Yes, but that company wanted us to purchase their services which were above our budget at the time. The Board would like to add a discussion about another audit to a future agenda.

Check Register

Deposit on 12/18 is our regular weekly deposit of money collected for Fines and Fees plus money emptied from the copier.
Checks to staff members are often splits. Stacy will make notes on the financial reports for these checks moving forward.

Motion: To approve the DECEMBER 2024 Financial Report as presented, including checks #17914 through and including #17935, and all EFTs, for a total of $86,744.73.
            (Motion by: Dmitry White. Second by: Ingrid Donnerstag).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.

OLD BUSINESS
1.         C-REP Grant Status and First Quarterly Report to Oregon Department of Energy
            The first quarterly report was easy to complete as no contract has been signed and no funds have been spent yet. The contract has been reviewed by attorney Eileen Eakins of Northwest Local Government Legal Advisors, who offered some suggestions. Randall Feldhaus of Sunbreak Energy will be at the Library tomorrow for a site visit. He confirmed with Christy that the C-REP grant does not use federal pass-through funding and Jason Knaus of ODOE called during the meeting to confirm that as well.

Motion: To approve the engagement of Eileen Eakins of Northwest Local Government Legal Advisors for legal services in reviewing the solar proposal contract and to approve payment for those services.
            (Motion by: Dmitry White. Second by: Nancy Miller).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.

Did any of the firms ask for feedback? Yes, Power NW did and Christy told them about the close scores between the two firms, with the points awarded for experience with ODOE grants and for COBID certification making the difference.

Motion: To approve the special services agreement with Sunbreak Energy.
            (Motion by: Dmitry White. Second by: Nancy Miller).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.

2.         Parking Lot and City of Silverton Updates
            Christy met with City Manager Cory Misely and showed him the Amerititle report and the estimated costs of bringing the North parking lot up to the condition of the Community Center lot. We tried to get 3 quotes for the paving but only 2 of the 3 paving contractors we met with sent in quotes. Cory asked about scheduling a meeting between City Council and the Library Board, but he and Christy decided that meeting could come later if there are questions or concerns. Cory saw no problem in presenting the cost estimate to City Council.

NEW BUSINESS

1.         RFP for auditing contract discussion
In 2022, we prepared and sent an RFP for auditing firms to 14 municipal auditors and received 2 RFPs to review. At that time, we chose Isler based on costs. The 2023-2024 fiscal year was the final year of the contract and Isler sent a final invoice for $1,000 more than the contracted amount, saying that our audit took longer than expected and that they had underbid their costs. They amended the invoice down to the agreed-upon amount. Our experience with Isler has been good otherwise, but as we haven’t signed a new contract, sending out an RFP again is advisable. Christy presented the 2022 RFP for the Board to review. She will update it and send it out again in the next 2 weeks with a deadline that will allow review before the March Board Meeting.

2.         Oregon Library Association’s Public Library Standards, 2021 edition, pages 1-13 (Introduction through section 1.2)
The standards are used by boards, trustees, advisory groups and more to evaluate libraries, setting baseline expectations. It can be a good tool for use when drafting a strategic plan. The first section covers governance standards, making sure that Library governance policies meet minimum conditions.

The entire Policy Manual is not available on the Library website, but most public-facing policies are, including the ALA appendices. They show under the Collection Development policy section, but that’s not an easy place for patrons to find them. In addition, the Collection Development policy has been updated by the Board, but the website has not been updated with the new policy. The same is true of the Gifts policy. We may want to review which policies are online and where they are available on our website.
There is no budget line for continuing education for Board Members, but SDAO historically has made scholarships for trainings available for new Board Members and offers additional trainings at low cost. We generally have enough in our Conference/Training budget line for one board training or conference per year. Have we received an update about the required trainings from Oregon Ethics Commission? Not yet.
Orientation for new Board Members is usually done by Christy. Is it specified in our policy Manual? Yes, with a list of documents and materials that are provided to new members.
Contact information for Board Members is on our website. However, the drop-down menu with minutes and agendas is confusing as it is not intuitive that one can also click on the heading. All functions should be listed on the drop-down menu or they should all be separated out for less confusion.
Board Meeting minutes past the 3 most recent should be archived on the website. Board packet materials can be included if there is any demand to see those materials by the public.
The Library’s mission statement is on the website, but the strategic plan is not. The policies are also not listed in multiple languages, but the standards include a demographic percentage which triggers that.
We do not have a technology plan separate from CCRLS as most of our computers are owned by them and they host our servers.
We don’t know what is meant by “Business Services” so Christy will follow up with members of the committee who helped create the standards.
Christy is due for a performance evaluation. Stacy will send the evaluation documents to Dmitry, who will pass them along to Board Members with the goal of discussion during executive session at the February Board Meeting.

LIBRARY DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Director Davis reported on the following:
Good things:

In conjunction with Sheltering Silverton, we’re doing a screening of the 45-minute documentary called No Place To Grow Old. It features the plight of unhoused senior citizen Oregonians. There is a $5 suggested donation at the door to benefit the shelter, but no one will be turned away for inability to pay.
As of yesterday, our new Wi-Fi tracking device is installed, and we will be able to collect usage statistics of numbers of users and numbers of sessions. This is for the State Library Report but also helpful for us to know exactly how much our Wi-Fi is being utilized. It was noted that the Terms of Service isn’t popping up when patrons sign in. Christy will contact Woodburn IT to restore that function.
At year’s end we had made a total of 931 new library cards, compared to last year’s 1,017 cards.
We had a fun holiday party this year and thanks to those of you who attended. Traditionally we’ve done a white elephant gift exchange but this year we had games, a hot cocoa bar, and more of a potluck. There was lots of laughter and positive feedback about the gathering.

Challenges:

City of Woodburn IT is supposed to be assisting in moving our file libraries from the physical server at Chemeketa to a Microsoft cloud server, beginning in mid-February. When CCRLS originally began hosting our files, they told us that they backed them up every 24 hours. Earlier this month large chunks of files went missing from our file libraries. Many of them contained templates that took hours of work to create. CCRLS IT did scans to see if there had been any security breaches and found none. We did learn though that they had not been backing up every 24 hours, and consequently we lost about a month’s worth of files. However, the most critical documents were recovered.
On January 16th I emailed the Marion County Elections office about how they intended to bill our upcoming election in May. I have not heard back.
A book was returned by a minor patron with a sticky note – ostensibly from the child’s father – complaining about content. Dena and Christy discussed the complaints/suggestions written on the note. The complainant is not a library patron. The policy/process is clear that the District only responds to complaints made in the provided format, by registered library users.

Changes:

Again, the interest rate for the Local Government Investment Pool has dropped. This time it went from 4.85% to 4.7%, effective January 8.

Building report:

Our new mini-conference room is done, and the new door on the original study room is finished. It’s still far from soundproof. We need to add sweeps to the bottoms of both doors and may need to get a white noise generator for outside the door in the youth area. We were not wholly satisfied with our contractors, but we’re done with their part of this project. We will likely be adding ventilation for that room next fiscal year.
Valley Roofing came back on January 6th and worked on the roof all day long. We have not yet received a bill from them. We don’t know if we will. If we do, we’ll be turning the information over to SDIS to determine next steps.
We have water flowing back under the building on the north side of the building, despite adding a downspout splash block. The next time the ground is soft I will need to use a shovel to see if I can dig down enough to divert the water away from the building.

Miscellaneous

The director used 2.5 hours of vacation in December and 5 hours of sick leave, and she will be out of the country from April 27 through May 13.

AGENDA SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE MEETINGS

1. Executive session to discuss performance evaluation for library director

ADJOURNMENT
Motion: To adjourn the meeting at 7:30 p.m.
            (Motion by: Ingrid Donnerstag. Second by: Nancy Miller).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.
__________________________________________

The next Library Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. in the library program room.

Approved: _________________________(date)

            _______________________________________
            Dmitry White, Chair
            Library Board of Directors, Silver Falls Library District