8/25/2026 BM HTML

Board Meeting Minutes 8/25/2026 (html)

Tuesday, August 25, 2026
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:

            Board Members Absent:
            Michelle Sanguinetti

CALL TO ORDER
Chair White called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m.

REVIEW OF AGENDA

Additions under New Business: State Timberland funds clawed back

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Motion: To approve the July 28, 2026, Board Meeting minutes as printed/circulated
            (Motion by: Dmitry White. Second by: Ingrid Donnerstag).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.

FINANCIAL REPORT, JUNE 2026
Last month’s confusion was a semantics problem. We spent less and received more than budgeted, but we did not spend less than we received.

Motion: To approve the JUNE 2026 Financial Report as presented, including checks #18461 through and including #18498, and all EFTs, for a total of $106,238.29.
            (Motion by: Dmitry White. Second by: Nancy Miller).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.

FINANCIAL REPORT, JULY 2026
The Board received and reviewed the following reports:

Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Fund Balances (as of July 31, 2026)
General Fund Statement of Cash Receipts (as of July 31, 2026)
General Fund Statement of Cash Disbursements (as of July 31, 2026)
Check Register – Citizen’s Bank (July 1-31, 2026)
LGIP Account Statement (as of July 31, 2026)
Journal Entries (as of July 31, 2026)

Statement of Cash Receipts:

What is the $1200 in Donations? The Friends made two quarterly book donations, one for this quarter and one for the last quarter of the 25/26 fiscal year.
Interest income may be less than predicted because we will be pulling funds from the LGIP account to pay for the solar construction project before being reimbursed. We can ask ODOE for two 30% payments along the way, then the final reimbursement will arrive on completion.

Statement of Cash Disbursements

Does the Salaries budget line account for the expected retirement of the Adult Services Librarian? Yes, we budgeted for their retirement, vacation payout, and the possible overlap with the new Librarian. Will the new hire have an MLS degree? Yes, it is required for the position.
If the amount spent on Legal Services is only the first month’s spending, will we need a budget resolution? Statute requires a resolution if the amount spent is over 10% of the amount budgeted in a total line like Materials, Operating, or Personnel.
Where do we see the amount spent on printing? Ink cartridges are in Office Supplies, and the copy machine overages is in Contractual Services.

Check Register

What is the payment to Christy for? Refreshments for the group scoring the solar RFPs.
What are the two payments to Pacific Office Automation? One is the quarterly overage fee for copies printed ($453). The other is the monthly payment for our copier lease ($163).
Was there no Visa payment made? No, it was paid before the end of fiscal year.
Is it possible to provide more information about the Amazon payment? Yes, Stacy can include the purchase order in the financial report and/or Christy can add Stacy as a user to the account and she will be able to print a report.
The check register shows some negative balances Were there any overdraft fees? No, but QuickBooks lists deposits after checks written, giving the appearance of a negative balance.

Motion: To approve the JULY 2026 Financial Report as presented, including checks #18499 through and including #18528, and all EFTs, for a total of $101,760.70.
(Motion by: Megan Smith. Second by: Dmitry White).
Vote: Unanimously in favor.
OLD BUSINESS

Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Discussion

Tabled until Michelle can join. Stacy will check the reports against the bequest history spreadsheet.

Community Renewable Energy Project (C-REP) Updates

We received the signed contract today. Power NW sent an invite to log into their company’s dashboard portal for the project, that will include all billing, updates, photos, and other information. The billing feature should be helpful for the grant reporting requirements. Randall Feldhaus from Sunbreak Energy talked to us about software issues with the Solark products, then reached out to other solar firms and learned they were having the same problems. It was decided to pivot to a different company with input from Megan, Nancy, and Power NW. The change will raise the price but not dramatically, and still well within the grant amount.
The schedule in the contract includes design work starting now, construction beginning in October or November, and full implementation in February or March. Does the bill for legal services mean Cable Huston has reviewed the contract? Yes, Eileen Eakins wrote most of the contract, and the bill was the fee for that review and work done on the RFP.

Keizer library application to CCRLS

Earlier today Christy met with BJ Toewe, the current president of the board of the Keizer Community Library, and a former director of Salem Public Library. They discussed many aspects and concerns of the library’s application to CCRLS. BJ is trying to talk to as many CCRLS directors who are willing to meet with her prior to the September Polk, Yamhill, Marion (PYM) Counties directors’ meeting. Things are more financially complicated than they may seem due to Keizer being incorporated fairly recently, in 1982. As BJ pointed out, there was no Keizer women’s library group that formed in the earliest years of the 20th century such is the case with our library and most public libraries in Oregon. There’s little to grow from. Also, the Marion County commissioners said they would not support the formation of a library district in Keizer because the area is already at compression. So, the choices are complicated for the funding of this library. One possibility is to add a small amount to each household’s city utility billing, but Keizer City Council may not support that. BJ has been promised $30,000 from the city’s transient tax, which will be matched with grant funding to fund a library director at 25 hours per week, and a Spanish-speaking coordinator at 8 hours per week. BJ brought an analysis of impact based on a 2023-2024 CCRLS distribution schedule that was created by former CCRLS director, John Hunter. We are awaiting current director, Doug Yancy’s impact analysis.
BJ also said that Keizer Community Library’s materials collection is being curated, and volunteers and board members are donating new items and bestsellers. Jane Downing, director of the Center for Hope and Safety, has recently joined their board and has plans to help raise enough funding for a new building. Currently, the library has no program room and closes to the public for story times. When they have performers, they must go before City Council to ask the city to use one of their meeting rooms at no charge. A recently started Friends of the Library group is applying for 501c3 status, but those applications are not moving quickly through the process.
BJ kept reiterating that Keizer Community Library is applying within the rules for CCRLS membership, and that it meets the current requirements. The Chemeketa president told Doug Yancey that CCRLS will have to consider Keizer’s application within the current rules when he asked for time to update them. BJ wants the member libraries to remember their mission and not be hostile toward Keizer’s efforts. Christy also wants member libraries to be kind to the people of Keizer, and the volunteers and staff at Keizer Community Library, who may not know all that goes into the funding of a public library and the limitations of the current funding plan. The city of Keizer has historically not been in favor of raising taxes and tries to do as much as possible with volunteers. Keizer Community Library will not be a city department or government organization and will depend on the city to share the transient tax, which although promised, could change.
Keizer Community Library has been functioning since 2008. BJ said that Keizer citizens already borrow from CCRLS member libraries, but Christy reminded her that currently they have to choose one of the libraries as their home library, and travel to that location to pick up materials. Joining CCRLS will mean that the courier would deliver those materials to Keizer. It could be that member libraries borrow more from Keizer than they loan to them.
CCRLS just changed the basis for distributing the formula-based payments to member libraries, making it a set amount. This means that sometimes our library will be receiving more or less than it had in years past, but the amount is more predictable. Salem Public Library almost closed last year due to low funding, so the timing is not great. The optics of Keizer (with higher property values and incomes) appearing to take advantage of Salem (with lower property values and incomes) are also not great. For us, $5,000 less per year (the amount in John Hunter’s 2023-2024 estimate) is not a large impact, but the impact is much greater for Salem. Salem’s library director is reportedly in favor of Keizer’s application.
Doug Yancey will create a new financial impact report, and the PYM directors and CCRLS Council will meet in the fall, but Doug is not planning to make Keizer’s application a priority over other CCRLS business. If there are no guarantees of the funding Keizer is planning, will that fall to the other member libraries to prop them up? It’s not clear. The application rules could be rewritten, and most members would want to include financial requirements to be met, but that’s not in the current rules. We don’t know what happens if a member library becomes insolvent. The board can write letters for Christy to summarize or share at the September PYM directors meeting, but if the Chemeketa president says CCRLS must use the current rules, then it seems there’s not much more to be done. Provisional approval for a few years could require Keizer Community Library to meet public library standards and funding requirements if the rules or application were updated during that period.

NEW BUSINESS

Adopting a Resolution for Accounting Changes in Accordance with GASB No. 103

GASB No. 103 requires that the Notes to the Required Supplementary Information (RSI) provide an explanation of significant variances between the original budget, final budget, and actual results. The audit team at Accuity suggests the board choose a percentage, a dollar amount, or a percentage and dollar amount that would define “significant” and trigger an explanation in the RSI. For example, an actual result of 140% of the final budget amount may not be significant if the dollar amount is only $500. The audit team recommends $5,000 and 15% for a district of our size. Nothing from the 25/26 fiscal year met those criteria.
What if we received a large increase in income and weren’t going to use it in that year? We wouldn’t have to do anything, but if we adopt and use any of it above the percentage and dollar amount, we will need a budget resolution but not a meeting of the budget committee. Large windfalls, when received, are deposited into the LGIP account and wouldn’t trigger a resolution unless we wanted to spend it within that fiscal year.
What happens if we go over budget for the solar project? We included a 15% overage for materials, so it would have to go another 15% or $5,000 over to trigger the resolution. We will prepare the resolution to be voted on at the next meeting.

State Timberland revenue claw back

The email forwarded from Marion County was not clear, but it appears that maybe the state took a loss on a timber sale and are passing that along by pulling it from our property tax turnover from the county. Megan read the statute and didn’t find anything about what happens when there is a deficit. The board would like to know why the state or county would distribute funds for timber sales that aren’t finalized, and how the state justifies taking money from our property tax turnover to make up for a state loss in forestry revenue. The email from Marion County includes contact information for Kevin Boyd at Oregon Department of Forestry and Dmitry will call him to find out more. Christy will also forward the email to the team at Accuity and ask for their input.

LIBRARY DIRECTOR’S REPORT

Director Davis reported on the following:

Good things:

The soffit above the north awning of the library was repaired by Pfiefer Roofing for under the quoted price. There were wasp nests inside the area, but no living wasps were present during the repair.
Thank you to Nancy and Megan for coming out and meeting with the solar project team of Randy Feldhaus, the library’s owner representative, and Heath Kerns, the primary contractor for Power Northwest. We had good discussions and decision making about the placement of the batteries and the number and color of solar panels. The support from this committee means a lot.
The Friends of the Library book sale earlier this month was the most profitable successful sale since my tenure here. The Friends brought in over $1,700. Up almost $500 from last year. It’s worth noting that close to $300 was generated through the implementation of the Friends new Venmo account, and that the Friends did a teachers and homeschoolers presale the Thursday night prior that brought in about a dozen shoppers.
I wrote to all departmental supervisors who engage with volunteers and asked them simply to acknowledge volunteer applications either via email or, when it can happen, in person. If a person’s skills don’t match the needs that we have at the time, staff are to state that, and that they will keep the application on file for up to a year. Staff want the Board to know that volunteers are great and amazing, AND that training them is a real investment of time. When we find a volunteer whose skill and schedule works with our library’s needs, it is truly a beneficial relationship.
We applied for a plant grant from Marion County Soil & Water Conservation for 30 free native pollinator plants. If we get them, our landscaper will plant them for $6 a plant. We think this is worth it because we suspect they will take care of what they plant themselves. We also have lost some plants this year and have long needed some new species to add to our perimeter.

Challenges:

We were set to sign on with the company called Streamline for our website migration. This was a budgeted expense for this fiscal year. However, Streamline was bought up by CivicPlus, the leading government website vendor in the U.S. Pricing, implementation, and customer service appear to have taken a negative turn. I have been going through the list of Oregon Library District websites and for those that meet two criteria: 1. They’re not with Streamline, and 2. They have a nice-looking website, I have been contacting the directors and asking them who they are working with. I am following up on a couple of leads, including the company that we used for website migration when I was in Klamath County. Yesterday, we had a Zoom meeting with a representative from a government website company called Granicus. The representative said that he would follow up with some quotes via email. We have not received them yet. Also, Christy and Stacy generated a list of questions for our rep from Streamline/CivicPlus and sent them last week. We haven’t heard anything. I also plan on having a conversation with the State Library as I know this will impact other districts.

Changes:

A note that today, August 25, 2026, we lost one of the world’s greatest supporters of literacy and books. Rest in peace, Dolly Parton.

Miscellaneous:

The director used 29 hours of vacation and 3 hours of sick leave in July

ITEMS NOT ON AGENDA OPEN TO PUBLIC, BOARD AND STAFF PARTICIPATION

Dmitry met with audit team on Friday and found them helpful and friendly. The team gave a glowing review of Christy and Stacy, saying our records are well documented and that we have good financial processes.
Thanks to Nancy and Megan for their help with the solar construction project.

ADJOURNMENT
Motion: To adjourn the meeting at 7:15 p.m.
            (Motion by: Nancy Miller. Second by: Dmitry White).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.
____________________________________________________________

The next Library Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 29, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. in the library program room.

            Approved: __________________________ (date)

            __________________________________________
            Nancy Miller
            Vice Chair, Library Board of Directors
Silver Falls Library District