Leach Library Trustees - Regular Meeting

I call this meeting to order at 6:54 p.m.

All right. And pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Right. There's a lot going on in town. Yeah. London is a popping place. Okay. So, you can go right into it. Mhm. Yep.

Okay. All right. So, I want to start first with the purpose of the ad hoc committee. Um because I kind of feel like if we're doing a committee, then we need to know why we're here. Sure. and it's that there are a lot of questions about the finances that I felt like I could not do on my own. Um, also for planning purposes and just really to continue to make the uh special and regular monthly trustee meetings as streamlined as possible so we can bring either decisions that the board has to make or research that we've done um at their request or we request from them. So that's really where I want to go today. We're not going to be making any big decisions. It's really just to kind of mark a path for where we're going, what we're doing.

So that is that. Any questions? Nope. Okay. Can I tag on to that though that um we do or this group will also be preparing next year's budget as like Yes. because we know it needs to happen earlier than normal. So, okay. Which is I know is not here too. Yep. Yep. Yep. And so that goes right into the next fiscal year timeline.

Um I have in my experience not done a July to June. So this is kind of an adjustment for me along with the timeline as well. So, we're doing it a lot earlier this year just to be extra prepared or it sounded like the town manager really thinks of it as a year-long process and not just a certain amount of time. So, yes, I can speak to that a little bit if you want. Yeah. Um,

so yeah, the town manager is actually moving the town towards a budget process that is more based on the strategic plan, the town strategic plan. um which is usually referred to as strategic budgeting. Um so this year is like an in between year. So um the strategic budgeting if the strategic plan is accepted by the council um will begin for FY 20.

Mhm. Um so for 27 it's happening earlier but it's not quite to the strategic budgeting timeline yet. It I my understanding is that will be an entire year process whereas um I think our normal time for thinking about the budget is like September. Yeah. Um so we're talking you know few months early. Okay. Or a couple months early. Um, well, no really. So, we're talking about it now, so it is early. Yeah. Um,

yeah. So, that's kind of where that's coming from. He's leading us into the strategic budgeting. What's challenging for the library is that the library does not have to follow the town strategic plan, but we do kind of have to follow along for the ride with the budgeting. Yeah. Um, what would I think be nice eventually is if the library had its own strategic plan to also do the same thing.

So, it makes more sense um for us, but for now, we're along for the ride someday. Um, I did have some initial thoughts about a timeline too that I can share if I can open my calendar here for a second. Has the library ever had a strategic plan? Not to my knowledge. I mean, you've been here longer than I that I know of. Okay. Yeah. And that would be a long process too where it would be probably a year's process or

and having a lot of trustee involvement so that we're less work on staff. Um, okay. So the town manager is asking that we have a budget. So by that I mean the board as a whole should be should have approved it by the end of July. Okay. So um the Nancy has scheduled meetings for July right now on July 9th and July 22nd. Okay. Okay. So I think 20 the 22nd needs to be like the day it's approve at the latest the day it's approved. Okay.

And then the ninth should probably the way that I think you've been moving through things at the moment is like you're presented with the information at the first meeting, vote on it at the second meeting. So I think this group should be prepared to present the budget by the 9th. Okay. Um and then my suggestion for like how many meetings I would probably suggest four. Okay. Okay. Um, unless you think differently. I I think four you could look at specific lines at each meeting and it wouldn't be like overwhelming all at once. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so my suggestion would be like two for May and two for June if that works out. But if it doesn't then Okay. No problem. So those are my early thoughts. Okay. Okay. All right. And I know that that will include end of the school year. So our schedules might be a little bit erratic. We can use the when to meet or doodle poll to you know whatever days the rooms are available to take it while while it is available

um and go from there. But then that way we have we start to have some sort of trail map for future years so that we're not starting blind and also that we can prepare the board better so it's not continuous back and forth where we're missing deadlines, right? and we'll have a good sense at that point like oh did that really require us to have three meetings in May or just know what worked and we can take notes on what we need to consider for the next turn around. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Um yeah, we could just start with one more in May. Yeah.

Um in as a as a general I know we're going to do a doodle, but as a general rule, Wednesdays are wide open for me, but the other nights I have extracurriculars. So that that's when I've become much more difficult to get on [clears throat] board. So I I will make things work, but I just want you guys to know in advance that like if we if we were to try to nail down a date tonight, those are the I would be pushing for Wednesdays. I I was thinking that if it's not too much, Donna, for you to see what room is available and we just do the doodle around the room availability because it'd be great if we find dates that were available, but if we don't have a space to meet, then that's tricky. Well, I don't really want to open my email on

No, no, no, no, no. We can do that as a followup. Yeah, I want to know if it's going to work for me. Okay. Yes, I can figure out. Um, but so I can start with Wednesdays to get an idea. Um, is that is that okay with everybody else, too? Yeah, Thursdays have been hard because they're my late night at work. Would you prefer So, I know this week's tougher. Your meetings are back toback. Do you want to good do you want to avoid doing that? You have the 19th as your next meeting right now. I think the priority is to get this done. I mean, yeah.

I So I at this point I've got the mentality of doing doing the intensive hard work up front will make things a lot smoother in like three months. Okay. Yeah. So, I will look at the Well, I don't know if next week would be ideal because we won't really have time to digest anything from tonight, but maybe if I look at 20th or 27th. Yeah. Mhm. But even I don't know, even if we were to walk out of here with assignments to look at, we can start thinking about it at least. Okay. And 700 p.m. is still best or do you want to start earlier? I think seven is 7's fine. Seven's fine. Does that work for everyone? Sorry. Which day is it?

We're I have to look at uh room availability, but if we were to look at another Wednesday, either the 13th, 20th, or 27th, the 20th, I have another board meeting. Okay. Somewhere else, and a staff meeting at the same time. Um how many boards are you on? Two. So, 13 or 27 would be best. Yeah. Yeah. Um but on the plus side, We're having these meetings back to back in terms of ad hoc and then board of trustees. It's fresh in our minds and we're able to just okay, hey, we have these things we want to do.

Are we allowed to do this? Duh. That way we're not waiting like it's y more succinct. It also means that we can pivot more quickly when there's more curve balls that get thrown at us because that keeps happening. So then we can we can accommodate that really quickly as well. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of where to start like budget linewise, I would say we should not touch we should not look at salary. Yeah. Yet because finance [clears throat] is going to be giving me some information or like there's like a big spreadsheet they do to figure out salary numbers. Um so they're going to be giving me that sometime this month. So I would suggest waiting to do that in June. Okay.

Um but we could look earlier like now at um some of the lines that look at like services more. Mhm. Um so like management services which is our programming. Um maybe the book line if you want or trying to think maintenance there's probably going to be a longer discussion on because of the suggest the the suggestion from the town manager. Yeah. Um yeah. Yeah. So I mean we could even start there where it's so relevant.

Yeah. fresh in our minds and and hopefully this will that you won't have another mold problem or a leak problem building and something's going to go at some Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think having more of a wrap around the maintenance in general. So that's that's more succinct. Okay. So I think we're at a good point with this. Yeah. Yeah. I do have an ask um do you would you prefer having like paper copies in front of you? Do you like me showing you digitally like this? Um, combination of both. I think if there's a lot of like

figuring things out, really having to work in like for me a physical copy would be better. This stuff like whatever. But like if it's for me, I think we're send it to me and I could print it home. Yeah. Yeah. mail it out, we can print it and then we can have because I mean you don't have a lot of extra room in the budget for supplies and things like that. Send it to me and I'll print it. Yeah, we can. Yeah, one of us can be point person. Yeah. So, I'll plan to give you like do you want to just look at this fiscal year? I mean, we're not done this fiscal year.

This is a unicorn year hopefully. want like I I hate to say even the word normal because I can't tell you the last normal year we had. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um and with costs going Yeah. with all the cuts we've had to would like for maintenance if I brought you what we spent the last three fiscal years so we could get a perspective on what's sort of the average of it. Yeah. And my my the way I'm picturing that is I actually print the report with that lists like the invoices that were paid so that you know what gets paid every year, what was just a oneoff that year. Um that sort of thing.

If you don't [clears throat] mind doing that, I would find that very helpful as someone who has not ever had this part of the of um yeah, the budget process. And we thinking just maintenance for next time or do you want to look at any other Could we plan on addressing maintenance and maybe have a secondary that we're like try to get like basic preparation for so we so if we're lucky we can go get two done would that be okay or is that too much I'm happy to do whatever like I could yeah yeah I mean if it's two is manageable per

I mean how how we should fit with maintenance utility Utilities cuz management services is your program. So that's going to be another longer Yeah. Utilities. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Utilities. Three fiscal years. Maintenance and utilities. Got it. And if it's easier for you to just bring your binder. Yeah. You know, you can just leave through it at that meeting and just run off. I think that would be more than that would be that would be it's a significant find invoice by invoice be a huge question. So

whatever. All right. Just as long as you know we're not trying to generate more work for you. No. Whatever. Um these are good starts because they're all all the records are under the town. So um it's easy to print our report. Okay. We could address those. Okay. Plan to do that for the next meeting. Okay. Oh, look at us. going right along. Mhm. Okay, we're not overly bad at this yet. [laughter] So, we've got the timeline down, the who, what, when, where, why. So, I think we're kind of good with that one.

Yeah. All right, let's move along. So, financial policy plan. That's another thing that we kind of talked about when we're talking about procedure and what does staff do, what trustees do. We said that we would table that. I we're not going to decide on anything right now, but Donna did have some suggestions about how to approach it. Yeah. So, right now there exists two drafts. One is um based on Oh, can I have copies if anyone? Thank you. Thank you. Yes, please. paper clip.

One is um based off and granted the town has since updated theirs, but at the time when I drafted it, it was based on the town's okay purchasing policy. Um when I brought it to the board, um they thought it was well, I guess Beth, were you there at that point? I can't remember. um the the version of the purchasing policy I brought that was based off of the towns. Um I think the general consensus was that it was more complicated that it that they thought it needed to be.

So um my suggestion at that point was to base it off of another library's purchasing policy rather than the town's the town goes into a lot more detail probably than is than what is needed. So, there's a second version after that that's a draft that's based on the Brooklyn Public Libraries policy. Mhm. I cannot remember how we ended up with Brook Lines, but I think somebody brought up Brookines. Mhm. Um, and it is a lot more simple and easier to follow, I think. Um, but it probably is a good idea to consider whether there's any sections from the towns that you do think should still be in ours. Mhm.

Um, and the big thing that was a question mark is this amount, the amount that determines whether the director needs to bring it bring a purchase in front of the board for approval or if if the director can just oversee the spending within the budget. Yeah. Um, so that the 2500 I believe was from the towns where verbal quotes are um required beyond 2500.

Um, I think that's where I got that number from. Honestly, we've operated historically within like the $1,000. Um, I don't really know where that number came from, but under a former director, we stuck to 1,000. Okay. Um, but I think there also were some trustees that wanted it to be much lower so that so that more was coming before the board. And this includes regular purchases, books. That's my understanding. There is some language in here that um has like exemptions. Yeah, right here. So, like utility bills don't apply because they need to get paid immediately.

Um, expense reimbursements. So, those like $10 reimbursements that staff members have for programming, for example. Um, equipment. I wouldn't necessarily say office equipment because we could bring office supply purchases to the board if we needed to under a certain amount, but maintenance. Um, honestly, when it's not an emergency, we do already bring maintenance to the board. Um, and then payments under an approved contract. So, um, if it's already been approved, I'm not bringing every bill to the board.

Um, and professional services, which, um, is honestly pretty closely related to contract in my opinion, where it would be like your cleaning service. Yes. um which we have a contract for. But um yeah, so there's that language which I do think could be cleaned up to be a little more specific. Yeah. Um because I do think that came from uh the Brookline policy. Mhm. Um but then this also kind of conflicts with the well the exemptions I guess should just be clear that you don't like you override the statement pretty much. Yeah. Um

yeah the thing I like about specificity and and spelling things out I don't want it to be overly complicated but I like that specificity provides protection against things like the micromanaging of like where are all these receipts? Where is this? Where's that when it's not something you have to provide or like the accounting for every pencil nonsense like right and where we didn't have we didn't have a purchasing policy in place it was a constant question. Exactly. So and I I do understand why where there was nothing for us to point to saying this is how it's work how it works. Um well there was in terms of procedures but not a policy that the board had approved.

Yeah. Um the other thing to consider with this is that um the charitable trust unit um recommended some what they call internal controls which I was thinking could be stated in this policy but um you could also have a separate document for those. I mean that's entirely up to up to you. Sorry. What kind of controls? Internal uh I think they called them internal controls. Yeah, that was I think that more lays out like you're going to have a separate person

do this work to double check this but like it's more of a um making sure no one has too much power or authority like checks and balances type of thing but also making sure that there's a second set of eyes that verifies like that something happened. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the 2500 though are you

with book purchases and media if you're making or if you're purchasing more than 2500 that I can speak from experience if you do a big book order you could easily spend 2500. What do you think? So we historically have placed multiple orders of less than $1,000 when we do that. Okay. Is that ideal or something you would like to do differently? Um, I guess the positive of it is it makes it like a more manageable order when it comes to receiving it and or at least I think so. I don't know if you I agree with that.

Um, so I don't really have a I honestly don't have a problem with a $1,000. Mhm. Um I think what could be helpful is spelling out that like that $1,000 applies to one item instead of a whole order of item. Like yeah, that's my thought. Like if it's one service that costs over $1,000, I bring it to you. If it's um a photocopier that's going to cost over $1,000, I bring it to you. Um, whereas just generally saying any purchase, I mean, I'm also fine with

I'm just I'm just saying that like it's going to force us to order those like carts that have many items in it that in total cost over $1,000. say it's going to make us just do two orders, which also is fine because we we're used to it. But um if if your intention is for it to be like the big ticket items, the one item that costs that much money, um it should specify one item or one service or Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, it kind of goes back to intent or what what does the board actually want to approve before it's spent. Mhm. Um,

yeah. I can't answer that question. Yeah. And I think for books and programming, they have these budget lines that they're working with. It's not Yeah. It's so um like it just that's your niche. [snorts] like ordering the books and creating the programs like shouldn't be like a second guess like we shouldn't have to like I don't know I just I think that's appropriate for that. Yeah.

Um but then it would make sense that you'd come to the board if you needed another printer like if it you know if it broke and we like that process makes sense. That's what you've always done. But I feel like we should carve out some language that allows them to just put in the the book orders when they Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you're getting towards the end of a budget year and you're just trying to Yeah. keep your house organized and like if you, [clears throat] you know, deal with delays from publishers or those kind of things where

I don't know like things get in the way of they might have gap orders or something. I don't want you to be punished because of I don't know. I don't know how that we're working with the publishing companies having kind become extra competitive but yeah I guess the scenarios that are good to mention too with with in terms of like waiting for a meeting are like discounts if you're going to miss out on a discount by waiting for a meeting um if um trying to think of another scenario. If um say a printer broke and it's like really slowing staff down. It's like creating more work by not replacing it right away. Um,

can we replace it knowing that it's got to get replaced? Um, yeah. [clears throat] Or do we have to wait for the meeting? Yeah. So, we could be really specific with the language of, you know, what's what's an immediate need, you know, and then you would obviously have to justify to the board, you know, and that, right? That's it's not like you're just given a credit card to just make purchases. It's we are, you know, informing the board at a later date, but this was an immediate need. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I think what could also be in place is like the director has to get for that kind of purchase director has to get like either the chair or the treasurer

um to okay it in the meantime and then it still has to be presented to the board. Um something like that could work. Yeah. Yeah. I I do like looking at one library and also looking at um at the towns as well. Would we want to look into other library purchasing policies? I mean, we have two milks. So,

in my in my incredibly specific and unhelpful research on what is purchasing policies, I looked at a ton of libraries all over the country. I looked at like Milwaukee and Los Angeles as well as like North Conway and like a whole bunch of them. Um, and what I really what I found is like there's almost it's almost limitless what we can choose to do with it in terms of suiting our needs. um that some of them were very specific, some of them were a page and a half. Um Conway's got some really cool stuff about prioritizing purchasing from local suppliers, prioritizing like eco-friendly options where possible, like stuff like that is stuff we can put in there, too. And we can we don't want to be constantly changing it, but we can look at as a living document. Um

if there's things that we have to change, but not too often. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think it's helpful just to have some ideas about like what some of the options are that work for other places that maybe could work for our specific community and our specific library. Yeah. Yeah. Um and where the board voted on this, we would have to do a board vote anyway to update. So, all we can do is present some ideas and ultimately the board has to Yeah. vote on a new policy. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. I don't I was thinking that this committee would present basically a new draft maybe a combination of those two maybe like you said language from other libraries even um to the board to approve. Okay. Okay. Now this is something that we would have to workshop at a meeting. This is not something that we could each make our own. We could each make our own and bring it to a meeting and present it. We couldn't share it back and forth with each other. Gotcha.

Um or you could say, you know, this person's going to work on, you know, this and this person's going to You could take the same document and just break it into three different um responsibilities. Or everybody could just kind of put their ideas in. I think the easiest if you're if you're not going to start from scratch, if you're going to start with one, I think the easiest one to start with is probably the one based on the Brookline. Yeah.

Because you can always add whatever you want. Like it's shorter, more succinct. You can always add whatever you want from the town version. Um, so if you started, my suggestion would be to use this as like you come back with your suggestions or examples from elsewhere. Yeah. Um, and we create a new draft off of that. Okay. So, what do we think? Do we think that this would be plausible at the Oh, yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, that'll be good. All right. So, that'll be an action one.

Colleen, did you have anything you wanted to add or suggest for I should want to skip you if you No, something. You brought up the points that Okay. Okay. Uh this is not on the agenda but just to mention and I'll mention it at um tomorrow's meeting that our budget committee liaison has reached out. Yeah. Nicole

Nicole Derry and I did tell her she emailed yesterday. I did tell her that we're doing a financial ad hoc meeting and so any meeting that we have I'll let them know if they want to be a part of it or not. That's fine. Um, but I think having a good relationship with the budget committee, especially the finances, is important so that it's a ongoing relationship, not okay, when it's budget season, we talk and then whatever else. And they've got really strong people on it this year. So, I think it's going to be really impactful. Yes. Communitywide to to get their feedback on things.

Yeah. Good. Okay. Awesome. Um, so I think that's good. We've got some good action items with that. Uh the last one is organizing donations from trustee account. So that would not be the book one. It would be um the one that includes the donations and keeping track as trustees of what's restricted and unrestricted and making sure things are purchased within the time that's allocated and just making sure that we're up to code uh with charitable trust. And so Donnie, you had some background on that.

Yeah. So Aaron um before she left did a lot of work in looking back. Um I have two years open but she I think there's like back to back to of course this is going to give me trouble now. um she basically had one workbook for every fiscal year um and went back through the trustee minutes to um document what was given, what was the what was the donation for. um some of the high and I don't know for sure if all these I think this one was taken care of but um some of these she highlighted if the money hadn't actually been moved or spent on anything yet.

Um just sorry quick question that has like addresses and names on it and where it's being broadcast. Is that okay or is that a issue? I can minimize it. Um I wasn't sure. I just I wanted you to know that they were there. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. No, you're right. Um that the Aaron had done some of the work. Okay. But it's going to be a matter of putting it all together. Okay. Um and I think the real goal is having like you said like a

when somebody asks for the balance of the trustes account, you need to know what's unrestricted and what's restricted. Um because right now we're saying a balance but there's money in there earmarked for specific things. Um so you don't just have it all to spend on even like the building project for example. Mhm. Um, so it's a matter of I guess if you want to each take specific years to look back on if I don't really know the cleanest way to go about doing it. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, and how to organize it. So, I do think that where all of those are separate workbooks, yeah, I mean, it's great information that she started, but it needs to like be merged into one okay working um whether it's a spreadsheet or whatever you find easiest to use. Um, yeah, but there's I mean there's a lot [clears throat] there's a lot of money in the account that you have to account for. Yeah. Yeah.

So, we would need to go back through those workbooks and identify which are we just going through the the highlighted sections to figure out what amounts haven't been released yet for their intended purposes or it's up to you. Is your I guess first question is your goal to try to account for all of the money that's in the account that's in the trustees account because it goes back well I think it I think it will even go back further than the years that Aaron dug into. Um so honestly I think the easiest thing for you to do is to choose a date mo and move forward.

Um I don't think that should be like today. I think you have to go back a little ways. Um, but it's up to you. Okay. Cuz I think I mean if I if you were going to try to do every penny in there as of now, that's a huge undertaking where that I don't even know how long that account's existed for. Since I've been here. Yeah. Okay. So, I think the past three years is probably Good start. Two years, three. Are you suggesting quite a bit more than that or um

how far does that document go? Do you know how far that document goes back? So Aaron went back to FY19. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Um, I feel like the COVID time is going to be kind of wonky no matter what. Mhm. So, I I almost would suggest maybe from the time like Aaron started, she she started in 21, September 21. September 21. So, that's fiscal year 22. So maybe fiscal year 22.

That gives you fives. I think five is a good solid number. And everything on those spreadsheets you can find in like the meeting minutes of the board because all the donations had to come before the board to be approved. So that's where the information is coming from that went into those spreadsheets. Okay. And I'm assuming with the meeting minutes that would also say when it was spent, but we also haven't had treasure reports. No. In a very long time.

Well, it's going to get it's going to get messy because the money hasn't been spent the way the charitable trust unit wants you to spend it. like the board hadn't been paying directly for um well like for example a donation comes in for a memorial um order of books and say the order of books was like 5 cents less than the total or something. The board wasn't paying that invoice directly. It was just you were we were moving funds to the book account. Oh and you cover it. Okay.

Um, and now we we know we can't mix. So, um, I think there's going to be scenarios that you're going to look at and say, "Okay, do we move it now? Do we have to assume it was spent?" Like, there's there's going to be stuff like that, but you won't really know until digging. Okay. All right. Oh boy. And we have 2026 on there. Okay. Mhm.

Yeah. So, obviously 26 is still part of the year, but I mean we've gone through most of it. So, should we work backwards? Yeah. I think backwards could work. I think that would make sense. Yeah. I think what you could do right off the top is because the other money that's in there is um book sale money. So you could take that right off from the um annual reports.

Um or for this year we would um just tally I guess treasures reports or internal whatever we're calling it right now. Um, so you could see you could pull that right out because that's unrestricted funds for the board. So that's accounted for. Um, I'm trying to think. Is there anything else that it's easy to remove like that that you can think of, Colleen? But I think it's just books that money. Um, trying to remember that it's interest booky on donations. So I mean would be another one's unrestricted.

Um, and I don't know if this is the right time to to ask, but am I correct in thinking that generally boards don't control the money that comes in through the book sales? Is that Yeah, it's not a typically practice. It's usually a friend's Yeah. thing. It's pretty. Were you the one that was telling me that S might also do it the same way we do? Like there I don't I've never even heard of another library prior to Ashra telling me that that does it through the board. Yeah. And there's pros and cons to each. I think as

we're moving along with this, I think that will be an important question to research and bring to the board and Yeah, because it just I was thinking in terms of like when the library has a big problem like it does now and we're freezing funds that kind of freezes money that was donated from like the book sales and that kind of makes it unavailable for you to use it in other ways. I feel like if the friends were able to take that money and give it to you for books directly, I feel like you you'd get I don't know, you'd have access to it

like in a situation that we're in right now, but it's you are allowed to order books. Yeah. So, right now, um the funds that have already been moved from the town budget to the book account Yeah. um are not considered part of that. Yeah. I just was thinking like as an extra put into programming or something. I feel like by us taking um you know possession of it, it kind of

makes it unavailable for you to use in like programming situations if we're on like a budgeting freeze. And I don't know if I'm reading too much into that or not, but it was just something I was thinking about. It seems like the kind of thing that's worth putting a pin in. And as we go through this, we can say, you know, is this something that feels appropriate to maintain control over or would it be better to put it under control somewhere else? I I don't think that's an unworthw. Yeah. I don't want to like muddy the water. It's just something I was thinking about. Yeah. As Especially as we're looking at policy and procedures and trying to get the house back in order and the house is back in order. Yeah. Where did we want to remodel, [laughter] so to speak? Um, so that's definitely something to to keep in mind for future.

Yeah. And it may honestly it may come down to actually writing out a procon. Yeah. Listen to present to the whole board. Yeah. Yeah. And it's at some point it would have to involve the friends as well. Like if they're even willing to take it on, I have no idea. Yeah. And just like trustee's friend boards change. So yeah, if we decide to look at this a year from now, that could also be different. I don't care one way or the other. I just wanted to make sure we're not taking control over too many things that don't need our input. But um would you be willing to share these digitally? Oh yeah. Are these are these editable digitally or are they PDF? No, I have them documents.

Thank you. Yeah, that'll be good. Colleen, I am so sorry. Your last name is Hoover, correct? No. majors. But why was I thinking not [laughter] author? I am sorry again. It's okay. [laughter] Nick made I was going to get chocolate on the way here and Nick made me like think of and then decide that getting ice cream afterward was the better idea. I'm deprived. Yes, I am deprived though. And that but it's not the way that would be easy to spell. Do you spell for you? Please do. Oh, that's right. I had to spell this out and I did it wrong. So please M A G D Z I A R Z pronounced majors.

Yes. Okay. And what is your official title for the for the record, please? Senior library technician. Thank you. Thank you. I just have to have that in the notes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. [snorts] I'm really embarrassed. No, I'm not putting that in the notes though. It's library [snorts] related time. YEAH. SHE READS [laughter] THAT'S OKAY. You can't even expect library to know everything, right? Like ask a librarian to list all the Harry Potter books in order. Some Some cannot. I can't right now. You're under pressure. I CAN DO IT. OKAY. Next [laughter] time staff challenge.

Is anybody else watching Good Omens, by the way? No. I It's on my list. I'm not currently. Ganon is not affiliated with it. So I don't feel too guilty about watching season 3 when it comes out. But I am counting down the minutes for that. Very good things. It's so good. So well cast. In terms of keeping record of things. Yes. Sorry. No, you're fine. Keeping record of donations. How is there a way that the town does it or would want, you know, do they use Quickbooks? Do they use like a cloud system? What do you think would make the most sense? Um, so we the library already uses Quicken.

Quicken. Okay. Um, I'm not totally sure if there is already a tool in Quickn that could really help us with this. But we don't enter any of the stuff into Quicken. Like that's not we only do book account stuff. Yeah. So, if the board wanted something like that for a trustees account, um I guess that'd be another thing you'd have to do some research on because if we're looking at the back years and we're trying to figure out a procedure or something moving forward, it'd be good to know

where we're putting all of this in. Um and that might involve more research, but I mean that could be an easy well I say easy but [laughter] um ask to the G milks board maybe. Yeah. Um I don't mind reaching out about that. Like does anyone have a really great system for or know that their trustees have a really great system for this? Yeah. And if there are ones if they would be willing to share template or Yeah. Yeah. HLTA. Yeah, but I think that would be a good start if

Okay, I'm willing to Yeah, please because with Gmails there's a came of really big libraries like Manchester and then different population sizes. So there might be a variety of ways that we can pull from. Okay. So Beth, are you going to reach out to the NHLTA to see if they have any?

Awesome. Thank you. Um, do you want to start any digging into actual fiscal years or do we want to look at more of like the system, the organization system first? I think maybe organizational system first if that makes sense so that we know when we're looking at this what we're inputting. Does that make sense? Yeah. So we'll do it in that order. That way we don't make double the work for ourselves.

I'm really sorry. Could you repeat all of that please? That was terrible sentence and my brain [clears throat] shut down. [laughter] So, Donna was wondering, do we want to first uh reach out to NHTLA and reach out to Gmails about how do the trustees organize their donations? How do they keep track? Whether it's efficient or inefficient, we want to know both. And then we can start figuring out a plan to dig through the years and try to make sense of some things that might feel like nonsense. So, at least like moving forward, we have a system. we have something that we can show to the public like this is how it's being organized

the prior things congruent with our current practice for documentation and tracking. Yeah, I think that's good. So what I will suggest in the meantime though is that whenever the board is considering a purchase or putting money towards something that there really needs to be the disclaimer that you don't know yet what's restricted and what like you have the balance but you don't know what's restricted and what's unrestricted. Yeah. So that um yeah [clears throat] that so it's like a risk like just to know that there's risk involved there.

Yeah. And so that goes into I know this isn't tomorrow's agenda, but since the agenda for tomorrow got posted, we're going to try to have treasure reports again be part of the monthly meetings. Um whereas before it wasn't, even if it's just saying how much is in the accounts. Um and of course we'll have notes about this in the um committees section. I think that would make the most sense. But um also being transparent now that we have the procedure of what staff does and what

um trustees do and that we're hopefully going to be working on a policy plan just to keep the information flowing I think is probably the most important. but also talking about um how that all works because it's all been sort of muddled previously. Um so that I would be presenting the the treasur report and getting information from the two of you. Please clarify. [laughter] And so just talking about what what would make the most sense is that where I ask Colleen for the most recent information or she puts

which information are we referring to? So the for the monthly ones uh oh so like quarterly. So the treasures reports are usually quarterly but you want to bring something monthly to the board. Oh, so the quart the quarterly one isn't the more involved one. And so that's what tomorrow we're going to have, right? The previous ones. But if you're talking about monthly, you could always grab because I put a monthly folder together and put it in the treasurer's file. Okay,

that has the bank statement from both the book account. It has a bank statement from the trustee account. It has a check register from the book account. it has uh the reconciliation from the book account. I don't reconcile anything from the trustee account. Um so like I mean you can give your own synopsis or whatever. I mean anything that comes out of that account is presented at the board meeting anyways. Um, so I mean I guess you can also mention like I don't think the interest is usually reported because sometimes when you are spending nothing in a month you're still get you're still getting interest. So

okay um yeah so these are the quarterly reports. So [snorts] there's three going to the board meeting tomorrow that haven't been approved yet. Okay. Um so they're still in draft form. Um, I don't know if this committee wants to like have each of you dig into double-checking them where they I mean they haven't been to my know I don't know I don't know if Jane had double checked them at all. I doubt it since so this is the beginning of the fiscal year through March 31st. Okay.

Yeah. Um there's three quarterly ones to look at total. The I will say that the um October to December one is like the hardest. No, I shouldn't say the hardest. Colleen did a great job in laying it out, but it was challenging where there were two accounts involved. Well, really four accounts involved because um we still had Citizens Bank and then the moving of everything to TD. Mhm. Um so this one is particularly tough to um go through and double check because of that.

Um but they're all there. Um yeah, it's kind of trustes decision on whether you want to go back and ensure the accuracy of those um whether you just want to focus on the most most recent one. I also can't answer that for you, but they are [snorts] on the agenda for tomorrow. Okay. All right. It may be that we have to approve them but then can come back to the board if we find a discrepancy that we have to correct. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And really these are used um to create the annual report. So obviously if we got to the annual report and realized these numbers aren't matching or something y we'd have to let you know about a change on quarterly. So, okay. Um, but I think it's pretty rare that that happens thanks to Colleen's super high level of accuracy. Um, yeah. So, that's where we're at with those. You'll be seeing all three of those tomorrow. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I wasn't second guessing you were just

as we're going through this process, the donations. I was thinking more about the banks and all the flipping of funds back and forth and how and that's why it is on that second report um three months it's two pages and it is there's a lot it's that's why I broke it into accounts um it was very challenging to figure a lot of work you had to do I mean I know it's a lot of work you have to do every time you do it but like especially dealing with all of that. So, thank you for putting together as clearly and succinctly as possible for us. Okay.

With all the attention to detail you put into it. Good. I don't know why. One thing I forgot on the agenda or that we need to bring to the attention of the bigger trustee board is that from the trans transition from Jan to me, there's been a lot of hiccups and one of them is trying to figure out these checks that were reordered and they say trust on them instead of trustee and that is an issue in terms of a routing number is different. And so just asking the board,

can myself and probably Nancy since we're signers go and and get this figured out so then that way there's no more questions about it. Um because so we looked [laughter] at them again, Colleen and I the routing number issue seems to have been fixed. Fixed. Okay. But the um with the trust account name um it it is correct on the bank statements. Correct me if I'm wrong. Yes, it's correct on statements, but the deposit slips and the checkbook still say trust account instead of trustee account. Okay. So that's where we're still Okay. Well, it's on wrong on the deposit slips and on the checks.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. the bank has the official name, right? It's just that the I'm not sure if again it's probably worth having the whole board's opinion whether it's worth getting them reprint like everything reprinted. Yeah. Um I don't know if the bank would charge for that. I have no idea.

Yeah, that that'll be a good conversation to have. And then just updating the trustee board on things that have been changed, including not having the checkbook and everything else at my house, which was done in the past that it is in a secure location um because that is something that I felt uncomfortable about. And in the meantime where the library isn't accessible, do we have a space that interim time to Yeah. to have all that stuff. Yes. Yeah. But good to let the public know because we are trying to be more transparent with them.

Um um the other outstanding thing for us is that there are still outstanding things in terms of documentation Gotcha. that are missing. So, I mean, if it's if it's just a thing where like they don't exist anymore, they still need to be uh it needs to be documented that it doesn't exist for auditing purposes. Yes. Or that that they can't find it, it's missing, whatever.

Yeah. um because I was given a list to try to figure out when I was finally given um the items from the previous treasure and it was an I spy adventure that was not fun at all. And so there's things that you have not found and I don't think I'm going to magically find in that basket. So, are there things that we need to go back to like an original source like Citizens Bank to request evidence of?

Possibly. I think um there might be some other deposit slips still missing. Possibly. Like I have to go through and find which um I definitely got some Azra found some of the stuff. I do have to go and make a new list of what go through and make a new list and see what I'm still um missing. Um the big one I will say is that the citizens bank checkbook and register was not returned which that is part of this fiscal year. Yeah. So you still need to register of everything that

occurred including those voided checks. wherever they are. Yes, cuz I I was just given a big messy bin of But I do know that's not in any because I did look through all the files. Yeah.

And that is another question, too. Um, and it's up to you guys. I organized the stuff that I had currently and put the new folders in. So, monthly folders. So, there's a February, there's a March. Um, there'll be an April one soon. But as far as me going through and looking for this stuff afterwards, there's like a stack like this. Do you want that? Is it worth my time or your time to reput that all back into order again? Um, and it would just be a matter of going through it and putting it by month or

I mean, however I mean I keep getting it organized, but I mean it's up to you. If it doesn't serve a purpose for you or Azra, I mean, I don't need to necessarily look back at it because I have my own. The library has our own records. It's just more for your purposes. The board. happy to sort bumps if that's something you need to or if it's worth just leaving in the box with it's just referencing and we need it. Mhm. Yeah.

Cuz the other thing is if you're looking for something specific, I could probably find it in our Okay. records, too. Okay. Well, hopefully go moving forward we'll be able to we have to keep things accurate, but previous ones I think it's probably more accurate to rely on what you have based off of what we got in the bin.

Can I Sorry. I found a McDonald's receipt. Awesome. I um just want to state for the record and for the public that I think it's best that the board take accountability for this moving forward. Um I mean staff, we've done what we can to speak up about it and um we know how that went. Um and I think we the staff need to focus on here moving forward. So, if the board

thinks I do appreciate you offering to do the like sorting of the files if if that's something that you want to do. Um because I do think that staff time needs to be focused on the current moving forward. Um and same thing for, you know, trying to find the missing outstanding stuff like Yeah. No, that's on us. Yeah. you tell us what and if we ever miss like a you know like an obvious thing like oh god you should not have to do that like please honestly just be like this is actually more of a trusty thing like please don't let us wrongly assume something if it's just because it's been done that way

no for sure do not want to push work on to you've got plenty to do yeah and yeah so with the deposit slips and things just letting us know what is outstanding and we'll go on. Yeah. And it may be that we just need to schedule an appointment with Citizens Bank and just say, "Please print off everything for this fiscal year." And we'll start from scratch and just make sure things are identified and we will know what check is missing. We will know if we have to record it as an accountable and likely voided or whatever. um although not through the proper channels,

um we can make notations for an auditing situation that we, you know, spoke with the bank, we looked for check number 562, um and we can at least document the effort and then if it's unavailable, well, one person was responsible for that and we've done the best we can, but the the trail went cold. Yeah. Yeah. I think that'll be good. Yeah, that'll be good. And I think having the procedure that we voted on at the LA last meeting will be make things clearer and more of a flow um so that Yeah. to avoid such situations in the future. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And then um the other thing we've been kind of like holding off on um I mean it is covered in that um like differential of responsibilities but um staff doing deposits. Yeah. Um I mean we're not collecting cash right now, but there are some checks to be deposited. Um [clears throat] am I good to prepare a deposit and actually bring it to the bank myself? Would you rather be the one to bring it to the bank? I mean, Colleen, there's always someone who double checks it. Yeah. If not a third check, too. Um, but it's at least me and Colleen. Okay.

Um, and then obviously going to the bank, I'd have to bring back the deposit slip and everything right away. So, there's that paper trail and it's not [clears throat] getting lost. Well, it'll stay here. It's not going to be my house. So that goes into the original deposit slips actually go into the monthly folders for Yes. the treasurer. So they're all there. Okay. Right. So it sounds like you'd be okay. If that's not cumbersome. Yeah. Cuz I'm happy to go to the bank if that's No, honestly, I find it easier for us to manage because the the money's leaving here. I'm going straight to the bank, coming back with the paper. we're not losing anything.

And you can do it on a schedule that meets your needs. Like if there's $5, it doesn't have to go in that week. Yeah. Right. And it also again removes the option for future board members to create problems that make it harder by having hands in things that they don't have to have hands on because now we're going to have to go chase deposit slips that this could have easily been avoided if we had this procedure that worked. Exactly. I think the only caveat I would add is if at any point that becomes honorous for you or a burden, please let us know so that we can create a system or you know develop a new procedure that is more equitable and appropriate. So

yeah, I think that's like the standard disclaimer for everything is we don't want to be more work for you. Yeah. Than we because the other alternative [clears throat] is that we could take that responsibility and send you like a scan of the deposit slip, you know? So like Yeah. If it becomes something that you're like, you know what, on in hindsight, I just don't have the time for this, then let us know and we'll create a policy where the person takes it, deposits it, and immediately scans it to you. Um to create and I mean on a normal on a more typical basis, have a director and an assistant director. Could be either one going to the bank. So, it's a little easier to manage. But um I think even right now it's easier to manage where we're not collecting cash. Mhm.

So, um I know I'm not going to be having to go Yeah. really frequently because we don't have any cash. So, Okay. All right. So, I think we've got a good plan and we'll have um some information to give to the board for the committee report. I'm okay to write it and present it or do I need to have something printed out ahead of time for people? No, thanks. We haven't done this. Okay. All right. Just want to make sure that I'm doing this by the the rules and you're going to present it to the board tomorrow. Okay. And it doesn't have to be a written statement. It could just be like just notes. Just Yeah. This is what we talk about. This is

Yeah. Because there's nothing necessarily for them to go down right now. Yeah. But just think the way I've been trying to think of it because I really love that Gmail does this is like the bullet points for the board. Yeah. Um exactly like that. Okay. Bullet points from this meeting for the board. Yeah. Yeah. I like my bullet points. So, that'll be Oh, I mean things easier to organize. Okay. So, that'll be that'll be good. But just to have that on record. Um especially as we keep going and these minutes will be I will be sending them out when we close the meeting this evening because you guys have talked slowly enough I've been able to Hey, there you go.

So, awesome. So I can send them to all of us and to Donna. Well, all of us including I just assume that anything I say has the best of intentions. Words mean things. Words mean things. All of us and then in particular for posting. [laughter] Yeah. So we'll have those notes and I'll bring up most importantly just the action items that we're going to be focusing on next meeting. Um questions that we might have for the board. Um and then I think that's good. Yeah. All right. Good. We'll uh take a look at the purchasing policy and make notes for Yes. creating a So, do you want me to read out the action items that I've got here? Yeah. [laughter]

One thing at a time. All right. Um we've got prepared draft purchasing policies based initially on the Brooklyn public policy public library version, but to be reviewed and compiled at the next ad hoc committee meeting. U interim director of plant will contact Gmail's boards about their donations tracking practices. Um vice chair Morocco will contact the NHLTA about their suggestions regarding donation tracking services. In the interim knowing that the trustee account is not clearly delineated as far as restricted/desated funds are concerned any purchases from it must be made carefully and treasurer payload will present the update from this meeting to the full board on 52 5726. Awesome. Anything I missed? I had one more. I don't know if you want it in action items, but I'm going to be

providing um or sent or emailing digital copies of the last three fiscal years. Yes. For maintenance and utilities. Yes. So we can be prepared for the the next meeting which is when we'll talk about those two budget lines. Yep. Maintenance. budget preparation. All right, we got that on there. I think that's action items. Colleen, do you have any outstanding questions or anything that you need from us? No, Donna. Okay, public comment is next. All right. Yep.

Public comment. Public comment. Seeing none. Okay. All right. I think we're good to adjourn at 8:04. Second I I sojourned.