Leach Library Trustees - Regular Meeting

So I'm going to call the Financial Ad Hoc Committee to order on Wednesday, June 24th at 7 p.m. So I'm just going to do the pledge of allegiance.

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.

So now we have the book collection budget thing first, but just wanted to touch base on a couple of other things that will probably be hopefully much shorter. So starting with past budget line discussion updates, I don't have any updates from the town.

I have some. Well, not from the town, but from me. So I have what we've already talked about up here. So the one I wanted to look at, I got a notice from that they are seeking a rate increase. It's not official yet, but it's got to go through the state. But I have a feeling it's coming, whether it's this exact one or something else. So we had originally had a decrease, considered or talked about a decrease in water. But with this in mind, I think we should make it the same. Unless you feel differently. We had a 5% decrease, which really only was, what, $300 or so. So would you be okay with me putting it back to zero change?

Yeah, and what's the company's name?

Penachuk.

Penachuk.

And they're saying that the water rate's going to rise, like, immediately, or...? They're saying that they've submitted, they've filed rate schedules with the Public Utilities Commission to increase rates. They still have to go through a conference. There's a whole process, but... I don't know when exactly, if this goes through, when it would go into effect. I don't know how quickly that process goes.

Okay, so we'd anticipated, I'm just trying to make sure I'm right. We anticipated that we're going to reduce it, the budget line, and we're going to keep it the same. Yes. Okay.

That's my thought. Because I think this, at the very least, would impact sometime in FY27. Oh, okay.

Better to be prepared. Okay. All right.

change that so 407 which makes 0% okay so that was one and then the other just refresh my memory I have not gotten an answer from custodial yet. I did ask Justin about electric. He said that we are in a contract. We will still be in the same contract in FY28. So I don't know if that we had put in a decrease of 2%. I don't know if we actually want to decrease it more knowing that we'll still be in our current contract because we I updated this number with what we're We've currently spent, and I believe we just have the one bill left for June that's going to go in. So I would imagine we're going to be somewhere in the $36,000, $37,000 range.

Did Justin have a recommendation?

No, he was just saying that we'd still be in contract. I think we could probably go down a little more in electric if they wanted to. But I'm also okay. I mean, I think this is a safe number.

Yeah.

Um, but I do think there's room if we're wanting, since we're not taking that amount out of water, if you wanted to take it somewhere else, we could in electric. Or we could leave it and see what happens with the budget process. That's another option too.

Yeah, I guess we could see what the other departments are doing, especially if we're on a town-wide contract.

And then if we're looking to make reductions, maybe we'll flag that as somewhere we can revisit as a reduction.

Yeah, yeah. I know we want to be as realistic as we can about the numbers, but it's always nice news to say, oh, we're reducing the number after doing our research. Right. So, yeah, I feel comfortable with that.

Okay. I think that was it for revisiting for me.

Mm-hmm.

I did. I just learned this today, though. I met with Sean, and he did confirm that departments still have to submit their budgets by the end of July. Okay. Even though there was a delay on town council's end, he's still looking for them by the end of July.

Okay. So the timeline that you gave us from them is still... Yeah, our original timeline is still the same.

I guess I had thought that with the council having delayed a decision that it would have affected that, but he said no, he still wants them for July.

Okay, so we're still on a good path.

I think so. Beginning of July? End of July.

Yeah, so I think the original plan... Well, I guess with the original plan, we're a little bit behind now because I think the thought was that we would present a draft budget on the 9th.

Yeah.

And then the board would actually vote on the 22nd. And now we only have the special meeting. And now we still have the two meetings, but we don't have tomorrow's meeting. So...

Or we could send it to people for advance and just say, look at this because we're going to...

When were we planning to meet next, like committee?

I think we had...

I'm just trying to look at what we have left for budget lines too.

The 8th? The 8th, that's what I've got.

We have another meeting, but we wouldn't, it wouldn't be in the 15th. Okay. So I don't know. The tough part is like what we would be posting for the ninth, probably no later than the Monday. So it's not like we would have to put something on the agenda. It could be what we have so far, I guess. Um, Yeah, the tough part is the, and we could bring an update after the, or send an update after the meeting on the 8th. I know there's only like a day to look at that, but.

But if they've looked at everything else, we can just say, be aware the numbers might affect flying XYZ.

Right, I guess the question is, are we then saying we're going to draft the rest of the lines by the eighth. I'm not so concerned about, the only ones I'm really concerned about are the salary ones, because I feel like those are the numbers that are harder to dig into. I have received the spreadsheet from finance that helps us go through that. Um, and I can look through it for accuracy sake beforehand so that it wouldn't take as long. Um, but yeah, as long as we're okay with planning on the eighth being, I guess, a longer meeting that we've had.

Yeah. To get the stuff done. And then we would be presenting, discussing, uh, remind me again, what date for the trustees? 9th. 9th. July 9th. Okay. would be unable to get there until 8 to the yeah 8 30 just because of prior commitments so I don't I don't want to hold up right the meeting um but unfortunately I can't change my schedule I mean

There is other stuff I talked to Nancy about that I would have brought to the board tomorrow, but that's going to go to the 9th, so I know there's going to be more than just the budget. Yeah. So depending on if Nancy was okay with it, we could cover other stuff before.

Okay, if that works. The budget.

Not to be a pain, but... No, I mean, we've got a lot that needs to get done, so we can just put this part towards the end and And we could just let the trustees know, expect a longer meeting on the 9th because we do have a lot of things to cover. I'm going to message Nancy now so she knows to plan for that.

Okay. I mean, it's hard to say whether it will actually end up being a longer meeting or... We need to mail down director stuff too.

To get those.

That's true.

With that in mind, yes. We've just got to get that done.

The intro to the budget, I mean, it's pretty easy for us to show the percentages that we've... Like, hey, we decided to... This is why we decided to do this type of thing. And then... If anyone has questions or wants more information, that would be the time for us to gather notes that we can...

But to also, if there is a way, either if it's Nancy or you who's emailing, just to remind people if they do have questions to bring it out during the meeting, during the public meeting, because we need to have those conversations in public about the budget, whether they're uncomfortable questions, comfortable questions that... I want for us to continue to earn back that public trust. And so I just don't want the conversation happening via email.

And if it's a thing where they think of a question after the meeting and ask me to bring an answer to the next meeting, that's fine. But yeah, I agree that the actual discussion piece really needs to be in public.

And of course the conversation will be ongoing when presented to the budget committee, to the town. I'm sure we'll have burning questions.

It's pretty much a guarantee that what we've what we give at the end of July isn't going to be the final. There's going to be changes requested.

Not to jump too ahead, but I know this is your first time as process as interim director trying to do this, but you'll let us know if you need me as treasurer or Nancy or someone to go with you to present or to support, to answer questions. Those meetings will probably be You said you gave dates or rough estimates of time for different departments, but just to let us know.

We will get a more final schedule from finance that's like the whole budget season with meetings and when we're supposed to be presenting and all that. So yeah, it will be clear what we all need to be at. Okay, that's good. Okay. Okay. Do you want to, I don't know what you want to move on to next book line?

Um, let's start or let's just touch base quickly about the other ones. Um, so we can kind of tie up, start to tie up loose ends. So do you want to talk about what you saw with little green light?

Sure. Yeah. Um, so I, so first what I was expecting that session to be was not actually what ended up happening at all. I, it was almost like geared towards someone who was already a customer of theirs and was coming and just like having an open Q and A. Yeah.

It made it sound as though like you could just, whether you're a current customer or past or want to be a customer.

Yeah. I guess I was thinking it was going to be more of like a demo situation. So I basically went in and they're like, okay, what are your questions? And I was like, I don't know. Show me. Show me how the system works. But it turned out okay because they were willing to walk through things for me. But ultimately, the product turns out to be a really like donor management system. It does not do any of the... tracking of the expending of the money like we needed to. So it was a good try, but it's really not what we're looking for, unfortunately. So that brought me back to we really just, I think, need to make our own big spreadsheet. So I... I haven't dug into actually creating it yet, but I decided to get some, at least a place to start from like AI. Um, so I got a pretty good, I think, starting point of what, like laying out the book, the And there were even, it wrote some like equations I can use too, which is great. So I think when I actually can sit down and pull that all together, that we'll end up with a template to start with.

Yeah, and then start to go through the folders of what Anne started and start to comb back through the meeting minutes and at least somehow know what's been given and what's been spent. So once you have the sheet, if you want us to start looking through, I think that'll be good. Thank you for going.

Yeah.

And then missing deposit slips. Um, I know that you need us, you need Nancy and I, or one of us, both of us to have you signed on to be able to deposit the slips. Specifically deposit cash.

Cash. Okay.

Okay.

So they said checks were fine. It was just cash. I would actually need to be on the account as a conductor.

Conductor.

Okay. So both accounts, I should say.

Okay. So do you need both of us signed or one? One.

I think it only takes one of you to add.

Okay, so I can figure something out with you. Thursday mornings usually work, so let me know which ones work.

I don't know if you need me to even be there. I think it's just a matter of you going to TD and speaking with someone to get my name added.

Okay, they don't need your signature?

No, it didn't seem like it because I won't be signing. Oh, okay, okay. I think conductor just stands for the fact that I can conduct business on the account, but I'm not actually authorizing spending or anything.

Yeah, and based on us talking about the procedure and what staff does, what treasurer does, this is more than okay. So, yeah, you and I, or I can just go and figure out and do it if I have any questions. Let you guys know.

And just to make sure I was hearing and writing at the same time correctly, that's just so that you can bring in the deposits and walk away with a slip?

Yeah, so I was able to the first time I did it, I think it was last week or the week before, I just brought checks, and they said that was fine without me being listed on the account, but if I bring cash, I have to be on the account. And eventually we will be going back to... Having cash. Yeah, before we know it. So try to get that done before that.

The missing deposit slips that we've talked about here, but more specifically at our big meetings, I'm going to, because we already talked about it, Nancy's talked about it, to send an email to town manager who would be more appropriate to talk about next steps so we can, while we're working on all of this, we can just figure that if there is anything to figure out with Citizens Bank.

We need We need the slips. There needs to be a way to report to the community that money was deposited.

Yeah. And if we don't have to involve past signatories then we don't have to do that.

So I don't have Colleen and I don't have a updated list of exactly which ones are missing yet. But that is on the docket to figure out. But I wanted to note that if it was more a situation where you want to consider them lost and move on, that we would just need a memo written for auditing purposes to document that they are missing. But if you do want to try going through Citizens First to try to get them, totally understand that's your decision.

I think eventually we may need to close the door so that you can move on with records, but I just feel like there are so many questions about things have been handled that it's just another piece of evidence that things were not done well and we need to know where things not done well or is money legitimately missing or did it end up in a bank account like I just feel like we have a lot of very legitimate questions and and like yeah I feel like we have to answer to them and if the potential doors and we still can't get an answer, then we'll have to resolve it that way. But I just feel like we need to try first because it's very upsetting that that was not done.

And it's not a couple dollars here.

No, it's a substantial amount of money.

Thousands. And so before we do the close the door, do the memo. Yeah. So I'll... I'll talk to Nancy about how she wants to approach it with Sean, and then whenever you and Colleen are able to... Get the actual list. Get the list, and then...

did want to know the things I know are still missing that are probably the most important are the citizens check register any voided checks so I think the only avoided checks with citizens would have been specifically for the trustees account so citizens registered this is from 2025 to the bank was moved over in what fall of 25 yeah so I I'm not sure when that particular checkbook was started, but the end point would have been October of 25.

So up through 10-25.

Voided checks, I think those would just apply to 25, if I remember correctly. And we didn't get the unused checks back either.

The unused checks?

Like checks that weren't actually written, they were just blank. But we didn't get the checkbook.

So in any of the bags and things like that, they gave you theirs, nothing. That's bad. That's so bad. I mean, I know the account's closed, but we should still have it back. But to have evidence of like, these checks were returned, these voided checks, it's just... Oh my goodness, this is just not good. But we're going to find, even if we can't get a resolution, we can at least just do what we need to do and be able to say that we did it. And we're moving on being more transparent, getting our ducks in a row.

So just for accountability, are you messaging the town manager? Do you want me to do it? How do you want it?

Yeah, I think it would probably be best to first talk to Nancy, I would think, or to ask her how she wants to approach it, if she wants both of us to go, or if Sean would prefer we first talk to someone else. Okay. So I'll do that.

Have anyone talked to citizens yet to know like what they would even need?

Would it be weird if none of us are the signatories to talk to them?

No, I mean it's just a general question like hypothetically.

If I wasn't the signatory but we need access to this, what's the process?

I mean I could start there if you think that's fine.

Yeah, might as well because Nancy's not going to know. I mean no one has experience with this except maybe citizens. Like maybe they have.

Probably not.

Like, unfortunately, not their first rodeo. Yeah. So I'll, yeah, I'll first reach out to citizens and maybe even first just call them, but I'll do, I'll do an email. So there's a paper trail and I'll loop you in and then the trustees if, and if, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea.

Then you at least know what you need before you're involved in Sean.

Yeah, I guess I just figured if we're not signatories, I don't know if it was just okay to go in directly.

Honestly, it could be as simple as providing minutes showing that you were appointed treasurer. It could be. I really don't know.

Yeah, and they work with enough towns. It's easy to get stuff notarized. I'll go to them and just say how... With all these transitions, signatories are no longer current signatories. There's missing deposit slips and things like that. So, okay. Now I know what they say.

Okay, perfect.

And then NHTLA memberships, just to bring to the board who wants the membership, who doesn't want it, it goes through one of the town lines.

Yeah, so I wasn't sure what the discussion around this was. Are there trustees that have said they don't want to be members?

No, it's just I don't. So NHLA moved to a new software. And with all of the issues the board has had last year, I don't know who has made a new account, who hasn't. If we want to do the memberships as.

I'm not sure if they're going to continue doing this, but they usually send us an invoice. for the board and we write on it who is a member. So we usually just pay for seven memberships and then we tell them who it's for. But if you're hearing that that might be different.

They have a different software and even if you had an account you need to sign up and so I didn't know if it was just going to be one person because every library does this differently. Some of the directors are the ones that make sure all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. Other boards will have the chair who will do all of that and make sure it gets paid and all that, and some other ones I presume the treasurer is doing it. So I can, with that said, I can just reach out to NHTLA and say, hey, here's the situation. With this new software, how would you go about this?

Yeah. I want to say we would normally get it pretty early on in the fiscal year, so it should be... If it were following the same process, it should be coming soon. Okay. But it wouldn't be bad to get their confirmation on that.

Okay. And also just to get verbally that each board member wants a membership i don't know things sometimes life is stranger than fiction maybe we'll have a trustee who says i don't i don't want it that's tough because the bylaws the way the bylaws are written it's like it's paid for right oh okay okay all right um and if they don't fulfill their term like then it's transition transitions to

Yeah, so we still will have seven paid memberships regardless if they switch to someone else.

Okay. So those will be the action items for me for that. Okay, and then if we want to get to the book budget. Sure.

So this one's A little complicated, well, for two reasons. One is because it's the same situation where we have that new unfunded line that we're, at least for 28, we know where we want to assign funds to, so I tried to factor that in. But the other thing is that I had to bring this Recommendation, not knowing if some of the services that I'm recommending be cut for the $51,000 cut in 27, if the board's actually going to move forward with that. So the big one being Hoopla. So this $60,000 number for e-books is factoring in us keeping Hoopla since the decision has not been made yet.

So that might be a variable that...

So if we don't keep HOOFLA, I would say we could cut another $15,000 off of that.

Okay. I did see recently that Concord had to make the decision because of city decisions. Yeah.

The other thing to factor into is that part of what I'm going to recommend for the $51,000 is the board to supplement the book line or the book funds in FY27 with some money from the trustees account. Um, specifically I'm asking, I'm going to ask for 10,000. So that would be adding essentially 10,000 to what's needed in the physical materials. Um, so when you do that, this doesn't look like such a huge jump. Granted, it's not from the budget though, is the thing.

So, yeah.

It's hard to communicate that need with the numbers on there. But really what's needed for FY27 is another $10,000 to get us more in the range of like 110. We asked in the budget for 27 for 141 and it was cut. That was the line that was cut the most down to 101. So I think a more realistic number is around the 135, but if we cut hoopla, it's gonna go down more. That would be more like 120. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that line is, cut again later in the budget process because this is the line that probably is looked at the most as an area that can be cut I mean you can see the spending is all over the place 24 we spent 160 but we were budgeted 100 it's usually almost always overspent this is for 26 this is actually not an accurate totally accurate number because the insurance revenue still has to be applied um to the books to the book line so this is from the report i sent this week um it was like my answer to jan's email and i sent it to the board um so this is technically what the report is saying right now but once they apply the insurance revenue i think it's going to be either right on target or actually a little bit under um but we were not spending this year like any normal, like it was nowhere near normal. It was extremely tight. Staff was not ordering like they would normally. So while we stuck to budget, it was... at the detriment of patrons looking for, us not having the stuff patrons wanted. Gmail was really filling in a lot for stuff we normally would have purchased, I would say.

So for the trustee account, potentially supplementing the book account, has that been done in the past? I'm more familiar with programs like summer reading or

what we had talked about in the past but yeah so the um actually prior to Aaron um being the director it was very common um mainly that's what trustee funds were used for is to supplement the book account like just be moved to the book account the director at the time would ask the board for 10,000 sometimes 20,000 at a time um to be moved over to the book account Sorry, I'm just writing. No, it's OK. So if I just want to plug in, let's say, 15,000 lists. So if we did go with the assumption of Hoopla being off the table, we'd be asking for a 19% increase over 27. But we do have that paper trail that we asked for 140. Really for us to get to 120, we cut databases, Hoopla plus the two databases I'm recommending for the cut. So there would be digital collection of Hoopla, two databases. There's going to be a significant number of magazines and periodicals that you'll see cut. So if we did get that 141, we wouldn't have had to change anything, but we are. So that's why the amount going into 28 will be less than that 140 ask. But it does still look like a lot compared to 27 because we didn't get what we asked for.

Mm-hmm.

Would you like me to leave the numbers as if we're assuming poop was going away? Or you want me to leave it for now with us not knowing an answer?

I'm okay with taking it off. I feel like that's the direction we're going to end up going. But we can also just put like a a little asterisk underneath it in red just to remind us that that number may drastically be different in a couple weeks. I don't know. Okay.

Or I could factor in us getting rid of hoopla and then do that note of this factors in.

Yeah.

Removing hoopla.

Yeah. So it would be down to 120,000 you got rid of.

Yeah, so I would drop electronic to 45. Right. And so that would change this to 120 here. Yeah, we can leave it at that for now. I can put a note maybe under here. Let's factor in current. Because it's really more than Hoopla. It's like those other two databases plus the, like I said, the magazines and newspapers. They all impact that line.

What lines are increasing for book? Say that one more time. Sorry. What lines within the books and periodical lines is increasing?

There's only the one, right now we only work off of the one line. Okay. Do you mean like a breakdown in terms of like fiction, non-fiction, children's? So I can...

If you don't have that right now, that's fine.

I do, actually. I wasn't going to bring it to the whole board. I feel like the numbers are going to just make it more confusing. Yeah, that's why we have the ad. I'm happy to answer. So this is what I have. for 27 um i haven't done out the like way would necessarily break it down for 28 um i would imagine would be safer physical would stay out i forget um we'd have 75 000 for physical I'm not very good at mental math. Three, six. So in 27, we're looking at fiscal. This is also including if the board supplements. Okay. We're looking at for physical materials spending $72,500. Okay. And then in 28, we're looking at $75,000.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So that's minute, but it's just good to see this breakdown. Okay. Okay. just presume that we're going to be getting rid of hoopla I don't know you want to wait until all is said and done and finalized to start communicating that or we're gonna have the board approval first yeah yeah it's gonna take them the first step is really the

if we're keeping what I will recommend as where the money is coming from, so that we can still hire the children's librarian. And that will be the decision about Hoopla, essentially, and the other items. And then that will shore up the FY28.

I mean, in a sense, it's good because so many people are impacted by Hoopla. just reminds the community, this is what you're investing in. And so when we have a leadership that keeps telling us to reduce by $50,000, it impacts us. If they can't see it, then they don't feel it. If it's an invisible reduction, then they're not going to see that something's actually impacting them, but this is the reality of it.

Yeah, and people don't know the cost of Hoopla. They know that they get it for free, but they don't necessarily realize the pay structure or how much it really is. That's not free.

Yeah. It's fantastic, and we all take advantage of it, as we should, but it comes at a cost. So if we're reducing budget lines, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

electricity so no no i can't be like all right we're just not gonna be open for december um okay so i'll leave it like that for now um and then for the next meeting we're planning on all the other lines okay we haven't done is that right okay so um the ones i won't really have like a recommendation for the Well, not the health benefits are under the town budget, but they're like FICA and Medicare and retirement. Those will all come from finance. So all I can really do is plug in the same number we had, and we leave it until we know. We won't know until October, really. We can go over salaries, though, and the spreadsheet is a lot. I'm going to warn you, but we have to go through it. It factors in the merit, COLA, whether someone's eligible for vacation cash out.

And the reality is we don't really have an answer until we vote on this year's, like the next March election. We're going to have to vote. The community's going to have to vote on whether... the unions, you know, collaborative, whatever is going to actually pass. So we don't really even know we can project money, but until we know if that negotiation passes or fails, we really don't know.

And I'm not sure that's might be a good question for finance. I'm not sure. what that means for what we present for a budget. Because usually when something's a warrant article, it's not included in the budget. But you kind of have to include something, because if it fails... Right, you need something. I don't know if we factor in the personnel policy as it is into the budget, and then the extra warrant article stuff would be decided by that. But it might still be a good question for Justin. just because I've never been in that situation before. So really, that spreadsheet that we'll go through from finance is based on the current personnel policy. That's all we have to estimate off of, really. What else haven't we done yet? Tuition reimbursement. Workers' comp is another one that Finance will have to provide for us. Legal, I don't even know how to recommend. I feel like that needs to come from the board entirely or from you guys. Whether you're going to keep it at zero, whether you're going to put something in for it. I'll leave that recommendation up to you. Um, we did management services, no telephone. Did these. I can't remember if we did printing. Let me see.

I'm just saying it was hard with printing because this past six months.

Yeah. Uh, yeah, we did not do printing yet. So we can do printing. Do's, we also have to do... Do's is another one that we have a new line for consortiums to break out the GMOX do's, so... I do have, well, I sent you the dues information for 27, so that is good for us to make a guesstimate for 28. So I can bring that. We have to do seminars and workshops. These are like, they should be pretty quick and straightforward, but then travel and mileage. I think, did we do supplies already? We did. Let's skip that. We did postage. We did maintenance. We did books. The building's property is where the current building project stuff's being charged to, so I think that can stay with zero unless the board feels differently. Machinery and equipment. This is, I don't think we've done that one. We, I mean, as you can see, we sometimes zero it out, but we have also had years where we put money in it. Um, we use it mainly for like, if we expect a technology expense or, um, like the expense here was receipt printers and scanners, I think. Um, I would rather have something in there, even if we don't necessarily foresee that we're going to have a big expense. I'll bring a recommendation for that. Furniture, always the hot topic. If anything, I feel like what we have been going through shows how much we really need funds in this line. I'm probably going to recommend a bigger increase. even if it is knocked down later in the budget process. Just because we're dealing with 30-year-old furniture at this point that really needs to be cycled out.

Yeah, and quality library furniture is not cheap.

No. And then we did the programming lines already, so I think that will cover everything.

Were there any staff recommendations or questions about the programming lines for them?

Oh, yes, I did... I did talk to everyone. There was an ask for, which I plugged in, I believe. I think more children's is where I plugged it in. And the other, I increased because I talked to Becca. So Becca had asked for more funds in, was it adults? Yeah, an adult knowing that she is going to be working on a winter reading program. But after talking about it with her some more, we actually determined that she's going to be doing it for all ages. So I think the expenses for it makes more sense out of all ages that are other. So that's why that went up so much.

So what would the winter challenge cost?

So probably like the prize cost the I don't know if she's going to do an incentive like she does for summer. That's mainly prize cost I would think. I think that was it though. Children's is more to reflect the fact that we're going to have a children's librarian, hopefully have more programming. Also, I feel like, I mean, you probably noticed too that a lot of the children's programs, they're so resourceful in not having to spend a lot of money for them. But I think some of the time we're taking it

too far because you're spending staff time trying to balance I guess with the winter challenge I don't know what the town or budget committee will say about that especially if we're not we haven't done it before and we're not sure how much it will cost I guess my consideration would just be to try to think about if there's any way to ask trustees for something like that if it's the first time doing it

So the first time doing it will be 27. 27. Okay. So... we won't have the info for the budget, but 28 will actually be the second year.

Okay. Right. The timeline is so confusing.

So, but it still is. You're right. It's still going to be a hard sell not having any info, like data to back it up. Yeah. I think what I could ask Becca is, um, to maybe draft a budget for the 27 one. Um, Knowing that, I mean, we have no idea what we're going to see for participation, but we can guess that it will grow from 27 to 28. Yeah.

And cost is so variable with things increasing for items, even just for prizes or...

any kind of supplies yeah and I mean the other big factor is like how success if she's gonna do another like call for donations or anything like she would for the summer how successful that would be there's a lot of unknown the other thing we haven't really done the past year at least that people have really been asking for us for us to bring back the, um, like after hours events that we would sometimes do on Friday nights. Yeah. Um, Megan's doing some over the summer. She's going to do movies and Moose Hill. Um, but there were the way we were doing it would come with a cost where we provide like pizza and, um,

so some of that was factored into that would be an all ages thing too and having to adjust staff time which hopefully when you have the new children's person will be easier to do that yeah people really like the after hours stuff which is really fun

We did a concert, the first concert that was like really successful. I'd love to be able to do that again, but it comes with a cost. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you have staff who are willing to do it.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. All right. So we have, I think we have our action items for in between. Um, so I will talk to TD about putting you on and if there's anything else they need besides me, just saying this is the person. Um, and then I will call your email citizens just to say with this kind of situation, what do you recommend? Yeah. Um, And I'll keep you in the loop with that. And then NHGLA just, since part of me is kind of going in blind, just to ask them for how.

I guess I would just ask in terms of billing. Billing, yes. Are they still sending just one bill to the library for the board? Yeah. Or is it going to work some different way?

Yeah. And since they, with the new software, people are making new accounts, do we just need one person to make one account?

be okay yep and I will try to plug away some more at the workbook Excel workbook for donations to get us like a working template there's something else I said I was going to do oh I will get recommendations for the remaining lines with the exception of legal for our meeting on the 8th. And then in terms of the agenda for the full board meeting on the 9th, is this what you want me to attach for our working document? I mean, I can clean it up to make, I've split it up into each meeting we've done, I can make that.

Yeah, I think it might even help us memory wise to think about like going sequentially like when we met the first time these are the things we banged out yes because otherwise it might be a little harder to track it because i don't know we can pull out our like i don't know if you want me to make it match more to what the actual budget report would look like i think it goes in the order of the account numbers I don't know that anybody's familiar with that. I don't have it memorized. So stick with what we've done.

Much easier to digest. And if this process works for us with financial ad hoc through the whole overall budget process of the town, then we'll at least have a template for next year. Next year.

Yeah, I think it's a better template just to even present to town council. It's just easier to... Okay. Thank you for all that work. Yes, thank you.

What I'll do too is as, I mean, it probably won't be 100% accurate for the whole fiscal year, but I can update the FY26 spent closer to when we post the agenda so that it actually has the most up-to-date numbers it can. Because there's still invoices being processed.

Yeah, yeah. I think we're in a good spot, unless there's other comments, questions.

I haven't asked about another topic, but I'm good with this.

Do you have anything else?

I wanted to ask about the last board meeting. The board essentially sent the purchasing policy back to the committee. to review the, I think specifically that last section, like disposition. Is that what you remember as well? Just to make sure I'm not misremembering.

I don't know why I'm not remembering. I was there. Let me bring it up. I missed the beginning, but I don't think that was at the beginning. Purchasing policy.

So this is the draft we brought to the board, and there was discussion on the property disposition.

Right, right, right. And the form, and what does the town use? Yes. Okay, yes.

So I did ask Sean about that today. He said it's in their asset management policy, and the form is attached. And he said it's on the website, so we can... I wasn't sure how much time you wanted to spend on that tonight or if we wanted to look at it separately and bring back our suggestions for the youth.

Because we're going to have a lot to talk about if you feel comfortable pushing it off or if you wanted to talk about it now.

Yeah, I mean, I guess... I don't feel like this has to be, like, pushed through immediately. I'd rather it be, like... Thought about. Yeah. Okay. In a good state when it's approved. So I... Why don't I... Let's see if I can... I don't know if it's hit or miss when I can bring up things on here. Okay, the form should be at the end. It's an agreement form. Okay, I think this is the one. But it's a request form, because in their case, like the department head sends it to

So I would just change the heading.

I think it could just be for us to keep the record. Tracking form.

Yeah, tracking form.

If the board's going to leave it up to the director to make the decision, then it should just be like, yep, this happened.

Because we have declared that it's not the board's business to worry about where a chair went. And we can track it. We can say this chair was thrown away. But we don't need to make it a meeting.

No, it doesn't need to be like a whole new section. Not that we're throwing out French all the time or something.

I do think in that case, obviously the policy needs to refer to this form, whatever it's going to look like for us. And then I think it also needs language... um added to like give clarity on what is expected to be documented so it's not like right every pen or pencil it's like specific furniture or a specific value or the value thing might be it's a little yeah i mean it's a little bit market value i don't know like

How do you know the value of something that's depreciated over 30 years?

Or like current value of a chair? I don't...

I guess the director could try to find what it would cost to replace in today. It's just such a waste of resources.

I would... It's hard to have like a whole list.

I would say outside of expendable items, like... Like, you know that a pen has a limited life source.

I would say more big-ticket items, like the chairs, the tables, the bookshelves.

I could see technology, but at the same time, we work so closely with the town that honestly the IT handles a lot of the technology.

And once things become obsolete, there is no real value anymore.

Right. So I think even naming a value could be hard. Yeah. Um, I mean, it does kind of list office equipment, furniture and technology, but even office equipment, someone could be like, Oh yeah. So here, that's just what I'm going back to. But, um, Yeah. I could see something bigger for office equipment being like our laminator.

Yeah.

Or, um, and we have a binding machine.

Yeah. But if it's like a rusty cabinet, what's the value anymore?

I mean, I would kind of put that under like a cabinet or something. I would still probably document, but, um, Yeah, as much as I think we can clarify the language for the expectation of what's documented, I think the better. So I can think on it a little bit, and then I can, if you're good with it, I can take this form, make it more applicable.

We can get rid of all the signatures at the bottom.

Yeah, I mean, it can have a director signature.

It can also be, like, instead of submitted by, like, the meeting date that it was just shown to the board.

Is that the plan for it to be brought forward to the board?

No. I don't think it needs to. I think it's just in case someone's like, hey, where did the table go? Oh, it's right here in this folder. Okay. But that's, like, the purview of a director. Yeah. It's not trustee-worthy. Like, it's just, that's your job as a director.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, I mean, just make it to however suits your needs. It's not, like, it's not a tax form. It's just a law. Yeah. Everything. Everybody lost sleep putting that one together, you know, like it's just documentation.

Back this way. If you, but again, it's all working documents, so if you or the director finds that the form works for you, or doesn't work for you, then... Yeah, add as much or little information as you need.

It's literally just to cover yourself so that... My next question comes.

Okay. So, do you want me to bring back another draft on the eighth? For us, sure. Okay. It's going to be a change to the wording here and then attaching that form. I don't think there were... I don't remember there being any of the sectionals that needed attention.

No.

Okay.

All right.

I can do that.

Okay.

Anything else? No. Okay. All right. Open it up for public comment. Okay. No public comment, so we can adjourn at 8.02 p.m.