Leach Library Trustees - Regular Meeting

So I'm going to call our financial ad hoc committee to order today, July 8th at 7pm. And we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, so I don't want to call it the more minor things, but I want to get the smaller conversation things out of the way, and then we'll get to the current budget line discussions. So the Citizens Bank update goes along with... With the missing deposit slips, so I called citizens bank, the one in London dairy briefly explain the situation that we used to have an account for Council citizen. That the signatories are no longer. like associated with their positions, et cetera, et cetera. Um, how could we locate those missing slips? And he said, absolutely not because the signatories, if they don't match, they have a research, um, office that can help with that kind of stuff. But they said, no can do. I said, we're, you know, part of municipal. Is there any way if we get them involved? And he said, no. So I asked if it was possible to get this in letter format so that as a board, we can talk about it. If we need to talk about it with the town, we've got that. But at least some concrete thing that says, no, you can't. So tomorrow, Thursday, I have an appointment at 10 to meet with Matt to get the letter. And I'll have that for everyone. And then we'll see with the board what next steps will be. if we can't resolve it, what we need to do that we don't get in trouble. So I don't know if Donna, you have anything to add to that or? No.

I do know that Colleen's currently updating the list of what's missing. And I think at least a couple of them are going to be actually TD related. So those we might be able to take care of no problem. But yeah, the citizen stuff, I think just at some point if you're deciding to move forward, I think it just needs a memo to document that you're considering them lost. The thing I'm most concerned about, citizens-wise, is the checkbook that wasn't returned, the register with it. I think there was one other item I had mentioned. Oh, the voided, any voided checks. should have been returned to the weighted chunks. Which I would think would all be together in the checkbook, but I don't know.

I'm predicting the same answer, but at least if I'm meeting with him in person, I can ask.

Well, he's not going to be able to return it.

No, no, I mean like if there's no can do. I mean, I'm not expecting a miracle, but if we need to have that written down or I don't know.

Um, those would have to come from Jan. The, specifically the checkbook stuff that I just mentioned. Um, because the bank can't, like, do that. No, no, no. So, again, same thing there. If it's lost, it has to be documented.

Yeah, it's a little bit of an awkward, or a lot of bit of an awkward situation that, um, She's on the board. She's no longer treasurer, so I don't know what the ethics would be with all of that. And again, I don't know with that being more of a board discussion. So I think that's where we're at with that. And then with organizing the trustee donations, you had mentioned you'll be working on a sheet, but right now you've got a lot on your plate, so that's going to be pushed a little bit further.

Yeah, and budget's like first priority because we know our deadline's coming. And then the other priority that was looming was CIP, really. CIP, yeah. So... It's on my to-do list, but other stuff had to come up first.

Yeah, of course. Absolutely. I mean, at least we're keeping it present in our minds, even if it's just we'll be working on it when we can, just so that people are aware. Just trying to be transparent with the public. So there's that. The NHTLA membership, I reached out to them just asking, hey, you have a new system. We have new people. How does this all work? The treasurer actually called me and she said that Erin was the bundle person. And so with the new system and it going to be someone else, whoever it is, she would have to set it up for us. She said that it's... Usually the director, but she's fine if it's the chair or the treasurer. And we can make that decision. And then she would need to know how many people. So typically it's the director and the board members, which would be seven of us. And then the bundle person every year would go in, say, invoice me. Credit card is an option, but I think invoice with us is probably preferable.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we would do that, then pay it, and... Whoever the bundle person is, I asked, say it's a treasure and I'm no longer the treasure, is it still transferable? Because it's not like it's treasure at toll boards. And she said, yeah, yeah, that's fine. So she emailed me instructions. She said, it's fine if you need to talk with the board, but at least we have that line of communication going. And so that's how that'll be resolved, hopefully.

Yeah, I think for now, a board member would make sense. I do think eventually, like when you have a director position filled again, that...

that'll be easier because the director can just hold on to like the well i assume there's login information yeah they just go in and get the invoices every year yeah but i also want to be aware of how much work you and the director do and not wanting to put something else on because it's still work to get all that done um But yeah, she was nice to talk to and I can forward you her email just so you have it. So that's that. So that was a relief. And then do you have any past budget line updates?

Okay, so these are the ones I have for us tonight. The only one I've touched since we last met was the Estovial. I don't have a final answer yet, but I do feel like we should plan on some kind of increase. So I just put in a general 3%. Okay. That's the only thing that has changed.

Do you feel just like after having conversations with people that it's going to likely increase or...

Yeah, just historically, they usually, I mean, there have been years we haven't had an increase. I just feel like because of the state of inflation right now, it's very likely we'll see an increase. But it would be a nice surprise if we had to increase. Yeah. So I just figured it's easier to factor it in rather than adding it after the fact.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Do you want to move on to the new ones? Yeah, let's do that. Okay. Hang on just a second. Okay.

Take your time. What? Take your time. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. I'm ready. So salaries, there's one full-time line, which is called regular and part-time line. And then for overtime, we never budget overtime. We do our best to using staff, exempt staff when we need coverage because we're eligible for admin time rather than using overtime so there's never anything in overtime. The salary number is coming from a spreadsheet that finance has which is this huge thing that I went through and I just go through and check it. The thing, I can't wrap my head around still, is that the full timeline is only showing a 1% increase, which does not seem right. It should be more like 6.5% because that's our COLA plus merit. So the part-time one makes sense where it's ramping up to 7%, but the full-time doesn't quite make sense yet. So I don't know if... Either of you are interested in looking at that spreadsheet or I'll also have finance check it again. I feel like all the numbers look correct to me. I feel like it's an issue with the equation, but I've checked it and I just haven't been able to find where it is.

So it's the increase based on if we had a director, if we had this, if we had that. So it's not based on like whatever we have going on right now with no director.

Right. are factored in, and then this is all the positions that are filled with an actual person right now. So those are based on their actual hourly rate.

And with the pay range for library director or library page, is that factored in? Do you go somewhere in the middle with that?

Good question. So in this case, the number I plugged in for director So I'm bringing tomorrow to the board a suggestion, recommendation to set a hiring range. Okay, yeah. So this number is the max of that hiring range.

So it could be lower.

Yeah, but it's not the max of the position range. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, yeah. The... library page this was it's higher than the base like if we started someone at the minimum and then the children's library it's like slightly higher than the minimum um just in case to give us wiggle room for like negotiating if we had to um i bet an ideal world would be starting at the starting rate And then it factors in things like, I mean, you'll see over here the merit for everyone, the max merit we budget, the COLA, and then there's things over here like, this is where it gets confusing. Certain staff are eligible for vacation cash-ins under the personnel policy.

How does that work?

It's after you hit a certain, so there are accruals for vacation, they go up every year you're employed. And after you hit a certain number of days per year, you're eligible to cash in up to a week of vacation time. So that is where that's factored in. Not all the staff actually take that benefit. They would rather use the vacation instead. But we have to budget it until the staff makes the decision, which is like halfway through the budget year. The budget, not the budget year, the budget season. So we'll know, they usually have to turn it in, I think it's December 15th is the deadline if I remember right. we typically will go back to finance and say, okay, these employees don't want to use their cash out, so we can take that out of the budget. A lot of our staff have been here a long time. This is actually the first year I've seen this many number of staff that are eligible.

Okay, yeah.

I think almost all except our open positions in one person. Okay.

Is this town-wide, the structure with the payout, or is this library?

I'm not sure it applies to all the unions. Okay. But it applies to our personal policy, and that matches the town's non-represented policy.

Gotcha.

Okay, that's good to know.

Um, the other thing that's factored in is admin time. So we, there are technically four of us eligible for admin time, but we usually only budget for the max hours for the director and assistant director. So that's what I did. I did directors in my position. And then finance has equations to figure out the retirement and Medicare and FICA. So really, though, what our salary lines are pulling from is this total compensation column. So that's where I got the numbers, and they have total. This is where the numbers come from that I plugged in. I cannot figure out why the full time. I will say that it would make sense for it not to be the full 6.5% because the director's pay changed so much. Because Erin was at her... maximum of her position essentially and we're bringing that back with a new person so it makes sense for it to be not quite at six and a half but one percent does not make sense would you feel comfortable sharing this with a budget committee um and seeing yeah I would probably start with finance okay so yeah okay so maybe they can see something that I or explain it explain it okay so yeah alright um assuming it does not make sense as to why that increase is so low um so I would say that number is not solid the full time the part time I'm very comfortable with um yeah so those are that's where I got the numbers from just so that you know all the stuff it's factored in yeah it's a really interesting issue I wish I could look at it and say oh this makes sense because blah I know it's not as straightforward as like okay it's just the six and a half percent you know because you're considering all the other benefits that are in the policy so yeah so I'll ask finance for some feedback on the whole time Um, tuition reimbursement. This is a tough one. So our budget has stayed stagnant at the, as you can see over just three or four years that, um, where we've been stuck at 4770. Um, the, we didn't use any this year cause no one was taking

classes this year. Sorry, could you just explain to me in the public what the tuition reimbursement is about?

Sure. So tuition reimbursement is a staff benefit provided under the personnel policy. that sets a specific amount of money aside for the direct, and it's really at the director's discretion, to evaluate what classes are requested to make sure that they're work-related. Typically, in the past, what we've seen staff use it for is to get their master's in library science. But there have been... like one-off classes that it happened to. There's also, I know one employee that's here actually got their bachelor's first and then went for their master's. So it depends on where they're starting at, if it's undergrad or grad level. But generally, for the most part, we're seeing someone use it for their master's and library studies.

Do you have anyone who's doing the para?

No, not currently. We have offered it. No one's taken the opportunity yet.

Okay. All right. The para librarian is with NHLA where it's, there's different courses and things that you can get different points, credits for. And it's a great program, whether you're in tech services or another department. It's considered a certificate program, right? Yeah.

so yeah we don't probably have anyone doing the para librarian certificate um however i do know that we have two employees starting their masters this year it's exciting that is exciting it is very exciting the challenge is that there's really not that much money like 47.70 does not go far when it comes to as we both know yes and you know your own degree um But it's also, I think, a tough thing to ask for a big increase for. So my suggestion is to bump it up to an even 5,000, which is a 5%. increase um but ultimately if you feel like because if i don't know for sure if the two staff members are doing their degree within like that two-year time frame or if they plan to like spread it out longer um but traditionally in the two-year time frame um this would get them i'm estimating we the library would cover like two classes a year for each of them okay Wow. Which isn't a lot in the long run. I mean, in their case, they're doing a program that's like an accelerated semester, like a seven-week semester. So we're talking two classes out of two, four, six, eight, I don't know how many terms. I can't do the math.

Yeah, yeah. Because if they're due in the summer. 10 or 12, yeah.

So it's really not a lot. And if it were one employee at a time, that's four classes a year. And the challenge, too, is you don't know throughout the year if you're going to have another person ask. So you can't really up front say, I'm promising you two classes. Yeah. So it's hard. I think what's hard about it staying stagnant is that tuition rates have not stayed stagnant. No, they keep going up and up and up. So it's like if you limit yourself to that amount, it's like the less it's really going to do for the staff. Do you think $5,000...

feels okay it feels low it feels low but i also i also get like that we're really tough like we're in a difficult position financially like there's only so we can only stretch ourselves so much like and i don't want to be that guy but not all libraries offer something like this and so i'd rather

we can offer something, and maybe that's something that we just continue to have a further discussion. Because if we have two staff members who are working on it, that means we do have people who are actively wanting to pursue higher education or ongoing education, because that's still a possibility in every world.

And it may be that what we have to do in the future is address a cap on how much we can offer per employee instead of saying we do a full-on reimbursement or we reimburse up to this. Yeah.

And because the way that our budget works versus how the school year works is very dramatically different. Yes. So that plays a part in it too, I think.

Mm-hmm. I mean, so yeah, it feels small, but I would rather give a little bit more to that than stick it, you know, keep it stagnant at 4770 and be able to, you know, I mean, because that's an investment in our staff. It's an investment that's going to come back for the public. That is an investment that will come back and reap benefits for all of us.

And has done so. There's proof.

Absolutely. I mean, when you look at that, that's an additional, what, $230? Yeah. 5% sounds like a lot more than $230. Yeah. Yeah, I feel comfortable presenting that to the public.

Hello, hello. This is probably not a public meeting, is it?

This is a public meeting. Yeah, the door's wide open.

Yeah, please come on in. This looks like something about finance. It's a library. Library finance.

If you want to sit on down, we'll have a comment. No, no, no.

My wife just called. I've got to go.

Okay.

But, yeah, you folks have a burden. You have a lot to deal with, and it seems like the costs continue to escalate. That's a problem in itself. You think you got a handle on it?

We're trying. We're working on it. I know you're trying.

We're having at least two of these meetings a month, if not more, just for financial ad hoc.

So that we can make sure that what we present to the town is tight and efficient and cost-effective and reflects the needs of our community.

Okay, so I'll make it brief. I just have to wonder, okay? we know there's been problems with the building for years okay unfortunately things did not happen that should have happened and things should have been corrected okay so now you're dealing with all this okay so the roof is going to be redone Any leaks and so forth are going to be taken care of. But you're still going to be dealing with the same roof, which is a building here, a building here, pitched this way, one's flat. All of that's unfortunate that you've got to deal with, right? On top of that, then you have air conditioning unit up on the roof. Now, as I understand it, now they're saying that's of age and we've got to get rid of it. So that's got to be replaced. And somebody was talking about putting solar panels on the roof. I don't know if that's any discussion you folks have or even you would even want that. And then you have the whole problem with mold and carpeting and this and that and, you know, I don't even know what else. Sprinkler systems. Piping up in the sprinkler system. How old is it? How much of it's rotted out? We've already had failures with it, you know. So, I'm just trying to pay attention to what's happening. I'm not an engineer, but I've been here a while and I've heard all about this and all of the things that haven't been taken care of and now you folks are trying to deal with it. And unfortunately every time you turn around the costs are escalating. So, I guess good luck.

Thank you.

Because I don't have the answers, but it's just, who is overseeing this? I mean, mechanically. I mean, you are.

Well, she's not working on the knobs, except for herself. There's multiple companies.

I get existence from the top. who's a businessman and I think has a bit of common sense. Oh, yeah, he's been on it. Yeah, so he's a big help. So, yeah. But, you know, I used to work in the field. I'm retired now, but usually any project you have somebody called the clerk of the works, okay? And that's somebody that is there to see if the contractors are doing their job correctly. Because sometimes they cut corners, okay? So... And usually that's like a monthly, no, I'm sorry, a daily meeting. And certainly a weekly meeting. Like, where are we at? Wait a minute, that was supposed to be done. Why didn't you guys do that? It's in the contract here. You know what I mean? So somebody's got to be on top of that.

You definitely are. There's different meetings and checkpoints and all that. Yeah, but what I'm getting at is,

With all due respect to you folks, you're not engineers either. You need somebody that really has a degree, engineering degree, knows whether that's right. Wait a minute, that wire is not sufficient size. It's got to be replaced. It's in the contract. You know what I mean? Somebody's got to keep on top of that stuff. All right, I've said too much.

I recognize you. I think you've come into these meetings before. Remind me of your name, please.

Ray Breslin.

I was going to say, I think you're Ray Breslin. All right.

I just want to make sure. Thank you. A lot of people think I have too much to say.

No, but you know what? This is a public forum. That's why the door is open. So you're welcome to the financial meetings anytime. Yeah.

Carry on.

Thank you for coming in.

Okay.

All right. And yeah, I mean, this is open to the public. Maybe some people might assume it's not, but the agenda is posted, the meeting notice is posted. Anyone is welcome to come. On Wednesday, if you don't want to go to the concert, I'm coming. I have air conditioning, but I know where a lot of people'd rather be. So, all right, let's get back to it.

Okay, so tuition reimbursement, we're good with that recommendation. Legal, I did not, as promised, I did not touch this one. I have, this is the number, the 8400 and change is... what went to the library budget last fiscal year, but there was more covered by the town. So I don't really know, I don't know enough about the board's conversations with the town regarding legal expenses in the future, if the board should have something budgeted there or not.

And I don't know what kind of number. I'm hoping we don't have the year plus that we've had going forward. But I think that probably the town will want us to be realistic.

I have something. This is a really tough thing to budget for because we don't know what the consequences of the past year and change are going to... In the years that follow. And how long it will take to resolve all of that. So we want to make sure that we budget adequately for that, but also know that we're hoping that this is a... temporary set of expenditures and that this won't have to be something that has to be budgeted to this degree in the future.

Yeah, and I can't speak for the past board, but for us, I know that we're trying to be considerate and aware of the lawyer's time. That it's not, you know, a chit-chat. We have serious questions to ask and, you know, how are we resolving it? So I think that's important.

So I think part of this is I don't know hourly what we're looking at for general legal services. So it's hard to calculate even a rough order of what is an appropriate amount of budget for how much we tend to use normally and how much hourly that costs us.

I can tell you, so last fiscal year, The board did submit an ask for legal in the department budget, and it was removed in the town manager budget. So I can tell you how much the board asked for last year.

Yes, please.

I hate this talk.

Is the legal line also something that has to be considered with union? That is an excellent question. Because I don't think that's the discussion for above us, but... In 28...

So you're talking about negotiating now? Or just anything related?

Well, since the three-year contract is, in theory, going to the voters in March 27, the heavy-duty negotiation should be done. So then, in theory, what we're looking at for fiscal year 28 isn't going to be negotiation fees. It's going to reflect just the ongoing touching base that needs to happen. So I don't think that has to factor in substantially for fiscal year 28, but I wouldn't be surprised if, fiscal year 27's actual expenditure reflects a much higher dollar amount because of that. So I think that's a good point. Yeah, yeah.

And also for preparing us for if there is another cycle to have members for 2029, 2020, 30, whatever time.

So, okay. The board last year asked for $7,500. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, I think documentation wise, knowing that's documented, it's a fairly, I would call, safe number. But there's at least a history of having asked, at least for one year, having asked for that.

Okay. Okay. And very hopefully, likely, we'll spend less than that. Fingers crossed.

Okay.

Okay. So are you comfortable with plugging that in? Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Thank you.

I mean, the full board obviously will. OK, printing. Printing is tough because right now printing currently covers the bills for our staff photocopier.

OK.

So that's the lease agreement plus any overages that we go over in what's built into our contract. It also, sometimes if we send out to a professional printer or Staples or something, that would be covered under this line too. But the majority of the money is going to the staff photocopier. We also have a public photocopier. Right now, it is being paid for under the maintenance line. Oh, right. Yes. Which logically makes no sense, but there isn't money in the printing line to cover the bills for the public photocopier. The public photocopier, with our current lease agreement, we spend just over $2,500 a year. Okay. I think throwing $2,500 in that line all at once would be too much. So I suggested adding $1,000 for $28. However, I would still need the board's okay to start actually spending the money from that line because it's going to overspend it, even adding that $1,000. Okay. I mean technically we have the option of like doing some bills in that line and some so that it's not overexpended but like the bills for the public copier will live in two lines which would be Yeah. So I would rather, I guess, overspend it, show a real number for that line so that in the future budgeting cycles, we can say we still need more money in this line. The challenge with it coming from maintenance right now is that we also are asking for an increase in the maintenance line. So it's not like we can say, we're going to remove some money from maintenance So we can put it in printing. We can't really show it that way. It's such a weird thing.

It seems like it should be very easy to say these have been separate line items for blah reason because of the contracts we have. But we are trying to reflect that these are different. It seems like the kind of thing that would be very easy to justify with a very quick... verbal explanation, but I understand that it's not easy.

We're asking for more maintenance because of the constant situation that we run into with having to defer things because there's no budget. But there's also the issue of we've been paying this printing costs out of maintenance because that's where the money has been. Yeah. Um, yeah. So.

I was I landed a thousand but if you would rather ask for the full amount knowing it's probably gonna get trimmed back you can do that too I think it just makes sense to put the printers together yeah I think I just I then that way it's easier to explain to the public yeah as well to be like okay printer printer This is how it works with the contracts, this and this, because lumping the other one in maintenance, it gets kind of lost in there.

I'm a big fan of being very direct and saying, this is what we did and why. If you can't grasp that, then I don't understand why that would be difficult to understand, but I also don't.

Or if the town has reservations, can we ask them for guidance? How would this go if we tried to?

Yeah.

So in my short experience through a couple of budget seasons I've been through, The first place it's going to be looked at is the percentages, the percent change. Okay. So even seeing like 18% is going to, in my opinion, going to be like a flag. Sure. Which obviously we can speak to. So I think the realistic number is adding 2,500. I just know that the percentage is going to be even higher.

It's an optics issue. I see that. I appreciate that. I've never gone through a municipal budget cycle before. I've only ever dealt with grant budget cycles, so I'm used to being able to just go in and pass this conversation. So I appreciate you explaining this is why they didn't care.

That's why I put those percentages here so we know these are the lines we're really going to have to speak to because of their big differences. And I mean, this is one we can still speak to. It's just, it's not as simple as saying we're taking the money out of maintenance and moving it to printing. Because we still need more money in maintenance. Yeah.

Yeah.

But, I mean, we could always, if you want, we could start with the $2,500.

I like making a big ask and then being willing to cut back.

And to explain it. I mean, if there's... there's so many steps involved in this that you explain it and then you keep explaining and keep explaining it. And if there's questions, we can answer them. If there's things we need to cut back on, then that's a further discussion. But I'd rather just be realistic and transparent for future budgeting.

Because we're basically going to have to do the same next year. Well, it's going to be 1500 getting moved over and they're going to be like, well, why are you doing that? Yeah. You know, I feel like it's, we have the problem no matter what and it feels like it kind of defers the problem. It partially defers the problem and I think, I'm not disagreeing with your logic because I think, I absolutely see why you That's easier for a budget committee or like the financial department to stop like the smaller percentage. Yeah, exactly. I'm not saying we can't do it that way. I just, I think it makes sense to say, why not just do it all at once and see, see if they're open and receptive to the idea. Okay.

So the actual number out of 2,500 gets us to $8,159, which will be a 44%.

That's going to be...

I see what's going on. I see people 18 to like 24%. And you look at printing services and you're like, are they printing on gold? We need to explain it, especially with... You know, who would think that copiers would be complicated? But in this realm, it can be. So I think, okay, we'll be able to work with it.

Okay. Dues and intuitions. So this is one of the lines that we created a new line to move funds to. So what was coming out of here with the full amount was museum passes and professional association dues, so this is where NHLTA paid from, for example, and Gmail dues. biggest chunk is for gmilks. So that, with the new line for consortiums, is going to be separated out. It'll be a little easier for public to understand why that line is so high. And then what's remaining is the professional associations and museum passes. So the gmilks, this that we owe for 27. It's good to have that number. That ended up being a 3.8% increase over last year. However, the GMOPS board did cut some things in the budget in order to keep that percentage so low. So I don't know how long like that small increase is going to be sustainable for the consortium. So I'm suggesting we budget for a 5% increase. The other thing that went up a lot was the fuel charges for the van delivery.

And I think it's important for the public to know how much the consortium does. So it's van deliveries three times a week. There's IT support there's a whole software system involved there's all these things like the iceberg effect with patrons don't see underneath that are involved in the cost and so yeah there there is a sticker shock but you absolutely have the statistics to back up and unfortunately with building issues how even more important gmilks is and so I know the the number can be a lot, but I think it's more than justifiable. I'm so proud of how you guys have handled everything.

I think it's a good idea to budget the higher number to reflect the fact that it is going to cost more than 2.8%.

I just added a general 3% for museum passes and But I also, if that's an area you'd rather keep flat, I'm okay doing that too.

It's also hard because it's not necessarily that the museums are going to give you the numbers. They're not going to tell you, oh, well, two years out, we don't know what we're going to be charging based on fuel costs, on staff salaries, on everything else. And so then it's up to you and the director to decide, okay, well, this has increased so much. Is this still... feasible within our budget are we going to choose to go with another museum pass and so that's kind of the variable that you guys have got yeah going on yep so that seems legitimate i think so okay yeah so overall when you add them together with look we it's a five percent okay yeah um

Seminars and workshops. This is one that we actually asked for more money in 27 because we knew we were overspending the amount in 26. A lot of that had to do with us actually sending staff to conferences and one-day workshops. our staff development day this year okay so that's yeah yeah whereas we've kind of like done only three things um previously yeah so i do think that that is much more realistic i think we aren't really going to all the conferences and professional development things that we could be going to if we were at a better staffing level and that things weren't crazy with the building. So I do think 2000 is still a good number to stick with. So I suggested just keeping us flat at 2000. That was good.

Yeah. So I'm involved with Mila and this year for 26, it'll be Vermont, which is close. Um, 27 will be Connecticut and then 28, they haven't decided yet. So that plays a factor in, in mileage and at least with the workshops, you get a heads up to see what, they have and what's been going on. NHLA, the big spring conference, at least, is every other year. And so you're able to focus your energies how you see fit. you don't know necessarily what places are going to be charging in 2028 so but i i fully support the workshops and seminars especially for the staff trainings you guys found that so valuable to have that as consideration for even every year i think is important so i feel yeah okay

Travel and mileage. So in the case of a conference, the expenses would be separated between those two lines. The other thing that is mainly going to mileage is... when we go to GNOPS meetings. So that was the number that was really tough when we first joined to estimate because we just had no clue. So this year is really the first year we've had a solid number to work with in 26. So we do have 1500 in the budget for 27, but because we're, we were even under a thousand this year, I actually suggested going to a thousand, dropping down to a thousand. So taking 500 out of that line. The, and I don't think we're really in a place to. we've been talking a lot about a like homebound delivery service um but i don't even see where we are right now i don't see 28 being the like launch yeah yeah of that i feel like many things have to happen before yeah and also gathering the info and with gas prices however they are but

at least you'll have the ability to do research or kind of talk to other libraries, kind of keep track of their stats. And I mean, that's, I think that's a cool goal.

Yeah.

Um, machinery and equipment. So this is a line that you can see historically was not funded at all. Um, the fiscal year 27 is the first time in some time we've had We asked and got $1,000. But we do have spending that's significantly more than $1,000 each year. Generally, this goes to the years when we've been joining Gmail, so we've been buying new scanners, how we get to get new receipt printers.

Oh, and those are not cheap. Let me tell you, those are like $607 for this tiny little machine. And then including the paperwork, you don't think it is, but...

It is. Sometimes this covers like if we need to replace a printer. Kind of like the smaller electronics I guess you would... say yeah yeah although when you think of machinery and equipment i'm thinking like an excavator or something and that's not the situation or like if we needed to replace our laminator oh yeah like that's another smaller one yeah yeah yeah yeah um so that's the kind of things that we would spend out of here and so because of the history of spending over that thousand i'm suggesting yeah doubling it to two thousand i think that's reasonable Then lastly, furniture and fixtures. This budget line has somehow become a topic of controversy, I think. The fact is, as we know, the furniture in the building Well, we will have new furniture now with the insurance claim, which is nice, but there's a lot more furniture that's at its 30-year mark. And the idea was to fund this line... at a number that could be like consistently used to overturn yeah some of that so it was more gradual it didn't happen have to happen all at once yeah um and library furniture isn't cheap no it's very specific and fixtures does that include shelving shelving and that's another thing because light fixtures light fixtures and with shelving there's only a handful or less of library companies and they're very as far as we know one

in our vicinity yeah so they don't include shipping so that can get expensive so $4,000. That seems like a lot, but it does not go far for a chair. Like a comfy, you know, chair.

Yeah, a music reading chair that is built to withstand 30 years of public usage is not going to be a $200 Ikea chair. It's going to be much sturdier.

And people might argue, why can't you just get an Ikea chair? Because it won't break in six months. But when you think about how many people go through the library, how many people of different body types sit in these chairs.

Different self-control when sitting down. If you're like my children, you fling yourself into the chair with the force of an asteroid.

And you want to make sure that it lasts. Maybe for another 30 years. Ideally. So I think that amount I don't want to say it's easy to explain, but I think all you need to do is bring in one of the library furniture catalogs that I lust over and be like, look and see how much the budget section is very, very expensive. I want to be comfortable at the library. So I think it's something that you can explain.

How people decide to interpret it is a whole other thing. I do want... So this does not... This is like... The 4,000, I would explain it as like getting us by to and expecting that some of the furniture we have now is going to fall apart because of its age. And this is going to help us replace that, that bricks. It is not going to get us ahead. Mm-hmm. Also, when we were brainstorming with the CIP stuff, what something that came up as something that should be budgeted in the future was some furniture. And this is not factoring in any of those ideas. So if the board is interested in doing that, I would say it needs to be over $4,000.

And you're saying that before there was no budget? So even just to have an idea of for ensure that breaks needs to get fixed, whether you need to have a professional to come in.

And this look back, the first year that was budgeted was this year. Just wrapped up. Okay. Yeah. And we overspent it by a grand. And that doesn't even factor in the insurance stuff. That's just us buying. And for the year we just started, we have $2,500 again, which we know isn't going very far. I think the $3,500 covered... I'd have to look back at what exactly we bought, but it wasn't much. Especially, like you said, the shipping costs get you.

Yeah. And there's grants that can help, like that you've had that supplement programs and things like that, but for furniture...

there's just no because that's not considered you know it's not sexy to give to a library but at least like now you're with the budgeting you're having

You're showing the invoices that you have to get fixed or something to update, and so you'll have that pattern, and I think the $4,000 is reasonable.

Yeah, I think that's appropriate, looking at our actual expenditures without insurance. I think it makes sense, pointing it out to the town. Sounds good.

So the thing I know we need to come back to, or at least maybe at the board level since I know this is going to the board, is the full timeline. However, the other thing that we at least need to have a conversation about is whether we are going to ask for any additional stuff. Because there's a separate process for that.

Okay, the warrant article process?

Warrant article, but also before we even get to warrant article, in our department request, we have to submit some stuff to the town. Gotcha. So I don't know if you've... You probably were in at least one of the meetings where they've talked about how the fire department had requested... 12 positions or something. So that would have been in this step of the process. And then the town manager looks at it and is like, no, we're actually going to bring two of those to warrant. So that, that we're doing that first step. It's tough because I don't think, I mean, technically, I don't think the town can really

remove I mean they can say I don't think this is a good year for this and recommend the board take it off the table but technically if the board wants it to go to Warren I think it has to go to Warren but we definitely want to have more support because how we vote that absolutely influences how people vote and so if we need to take extra time, extra years I don't know that's not I'm thinking about the kindergarten board

more article process work by the time the kindergarten issue passed. I mean, it came before the voters three different times and how it was discussed and how and the number of times it came back over and over absolutely shaped the public discourse around what to pursue and how people perceive the final product. And I think I want to hire more staff because we are understaffed and that is... not sustainable for anybody and i want to make sure that presenting that to the town and to the public is done in such a way that voters appreciate why now we are asking for that and why why we feel like this is a good time because i believe it is how do we make sure voters understand that yeah so the the challenge i think with i mean for 28 it would be going to warn in march

We already expect we're going to have a warrant related to the building in March and possibly a warrant for the union contract. That's right. So timing-wise, I don't know if it's the best choice. However, I do feel like, at the very least, we need to go through the process to document the need. Even if later down the road we're like, no, we recognize the timing's not right, but we've documented it so that the following year we can say, we've shown you that we need this, and we're asking for it again. So that's kind of where I stand on it, that I do think it's worth going through the process, even if we don't actually bring it to warrant this year. But it can go to warrant and potentially fail, and then we can rework it and bring it back again.

Yeah, that's the hard part because we don't. And then, of course, all the building stuff influences the public. other town department other buildings are also gonna and those are big ticket items and so when they see a staff salary but even just being able to fill that part-time children's librarian position follow through that and say look at how much this is helping us it's unfortunate that the previous board dealt with it in this way but this is what your vote has helped us right so

The other challenge I foresee, so in my opinion, the staffing that's needed, I personally would recommend bringing an executive assistant back because the admin work is just like drowning us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you mean bringing it back?

So once upon a time, the director had... a designated executive assistant that person like took the board minutes did like all the filing involved with that They were not here when I started, so I don't know how this all worked. But that position still exists on the chart of salary, like the salary chart. And the fire department was just successful hiring or putting that to warrant and getting an executive assistant. which gives me hope. What's hard in presenting that to the public is that it's such a behind the scenes role that it's hard to say it will directly help the public in this way. But what's really happening is that the management staff are so bogged down by these tasks that really the public is paying us a higher amount of money to do because it has to get done. that there could be like a kind of a in terms of time a savings there yeah um but it could be a tough sell because it's not a direct to the public service yeah but it is really needed

And the executive assistant, were they involved in finances at all?

They could be involved in the accounts payable stuff. I could see them doing something that we struggle all the time with, is keeping the website really up to date. They could be involved in doing that. they could help with some of the marketing, honestly, because that's behind-the-scenes work. And no two libraries do it the same way. No. And so... Yeah, honestly, we... That's the thing, too, is there's flexibility to imagine where some of these priorities... Like, for example, we could instead, for marketing, make that part of a new librarian position. Yes. Which would also be great, and we could make more of a case for that being a direct to the public service. But it wouldn't really help us with the... The admin work that's invisible to the public but it's really bogging us down.

And it's important stuff. Stuff that you need to focus, you need to be able to do correctly.

We could be doing so much more if we weren't bogged down by it. It is the real challenge. I think the real need, that's the real need, but it's the like, do we think that, that we could be successful with a warrant article with that? I don't know. Um, so that's a thought. Another thought I, I struggle with and I don't really know how, how we get, let me start over. I think it would be very beneficial to transition a part-time role right now to a full-time okay um what would be really difficult is like most of our part-timers really want full-time and it would be so that internal yes yeah um and my library however i don't want that to hold us back from doing it doing it yeah it's just that it would be That might be the best way to go forward right now. Transitioning a position? I don't know that I don't know that they'd go for it because when you think about it, it's, um, 12 more hours of work essentially, but a lot more in terms of the benefits. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I can also like in terms of actually having retaining a staff member, um, and then. Having the time in their day to actually be, I mean, not that I wouldn't, it's hard to say this because our part-timers are amazing and with the hours that they have, they do amazing things. Yes. And they wear many hats. They wear many hats. But I can see that the challenge in the limited hours is that there's less time for them to Really know always be on top of like what's happening? Yeah, and there's just that I don't know. There's a whole other level of The word is Yeah, but kind of like just like this dedication is not even the right word but to Getting to know the town. It's more than just what's happening at the library. It's what's happening everywhere locally.

Being part-time makes you disconnected. Yes, there is. I haven't been a part-time employee.

It's nobody's fault that's part-time. It's just like you only have so many hours and you don't have the time to... to be aware of what's happening besides what's in the library and there's a real in the library there's real value to knowing what else is going on because we're the ones that get questions about all those things so there's value to the public in that for sure but not really in a numbers sort of way which is hard and it would be hard for presenting that in a warrant.

And also presenting it after this weird six, eight months, nine months of discombobulation too.

But again, does that prevent us from saying we have a need? I'd rather not wait another year to even just document that we have the need.

And there's something to be said for saying that, you know, our staff... shifting and having to operate under duress and, you know, that really laid bare the ways in which we are stretched so thin that, you know, being able to manage this. I feel like there's a way to say, you know, without creating any diss on the staff for how incredible you have been throughout all of this, that going through an experience like this was also very dramatically highlighted in how little extra exists on the staff's workload and time load to be able to do the things that really we need to be able to do. And I think it's completely legitimate to say Coming out of this, lessons learned. Don't underfund the maintenance of the building. Don't leave things for a decade that should have been addressed 10 years ago. Don't understaff the library. I think that's... I mean, you can say it much more beautifully than I just did, but I think that's a very valid thing to say coming out of a crisis like this. Personally.

So we... Two... Man, they'll be years blown together, honestly. I want to say it was two years ago that we brought a new full-time library technician role to Warren, and it failed. Okay. But the part-time position, the children's one, is that the same? No, not the same year. Oh, not the same year. Oh, okay. Prior to doing the children's librarian position, So kind of what came from the conversation after the failed article with the technician, we felt that the technician role was not really clear and understood to the public. So we reshaped it and were like, you know what I think the public would really truly understand is a children's librarian position. It's very clear what services a children's librarian would provide just from the title. Whereas a technician, it's not so clear. There's going to be an education piece to the public with that. And the children's librarian, the part-time position did succeed in passing. I think that had a lot to do with it, that it was very clear what position it was, how it would affect or impact the public. What I like about bringing just a whole new full-time position is that we'd still, if we promote someone who's part-time now to full-time, we could then have another, we could fill that part-time opening. Whereas, but it's a bigger cost. The benefit in instead just like transitioning someone we already have to full-time, it'd be a smaller cost than the other. we could consider kind of like what we did with the children's librarian and give like, here are your two options. Um, you can see that one costs more than the other and maybe the one that costs less would be more likely to pass.

I don't know. Yeah.

But as a, as a citizen, you have a lot of foreign articles. Yes. There's a lot.

It's overwhelming. And so you've, are developing carpal tunnel as you're trying to do it. Not to say that it's not important, it's just there's so many factors.

It seems to me like part of what's coming up here is an issue with marketing, like how to make sure the public is informed on what this is. It almost seems like something that would be beneficial is how do we then get the word out about this is what we're asking for and why we're asking for it. And it seems like information... I don't know. My head is already going to, like, okay, what about letters to the editor, if anybody reads those? What about, like, information sheets that are ready for distribution, like, at the circulation desk?

What about... And there's certain, like, laws and no-no's and all that, but right within those. The trustee's a big part of our job is advocacy. Yeah. You know, the staff is working on the day-to-day, but for us, when we're looking at the strategic plan, what is the library's future and we're looking at staffing, the advocacy should be on our shoulders.

I was going to say, we need to be planning that and preparing to do that because even if we're not expecting to be able to You know, even if we're expecting that this is sort of flagging for the town, hey, this is something we're going to start asking for because we know we need it, that is where we lay the groundwork for the advocacy we do as we push forward on this, whether that's this year or in the future. Like, we need to, that's our job.

And even just in general, advocating for our budget, not leaving that on Donna's shoulders as a staff to advocate for. So showing up at the budget committee meetings, showing up, you know, on voting day.

Yep, showing up at the town deliberatives. Yes, exactly, to show that the board supports it. And also being able to publicly state, hey, there's a 44% increase in this line because it now reflects two printers, which it always has. They're just in different lines for silly bureaucratic reasons, which I get.

Making a point to the trustees that, yes, I understand life happens at the deliberatives around the weekend, but showing up as many of us can.

And it may be something we want to put on the boards. The board's agenda is divvying out who's going to go to which. Yes. And to maximize it. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think being proactive like that and being formally committed like that makes... Yeah. And that also goes into a strategic plan.

I don't think we should weight necessarily the staffing, but I find that strategic planning can help.

Mm-hmm.

put all this together, even if it's furniture, it's staffing, it's being able to have a concise something to show to the public of like, this is where we're at, these are our goals, this is what we want to do, but we need support.

So I guess I'm struggling with what does the path forward look like in terms of making this decision regarding whether we bring, I mean it has to go to the full board. tomorrow we don't have a lot of time yeah no tomorrow the other aspect well tomorrow is like meant to be the present what we've done what we've put together and um then there's time for thinking about it asking questions and then the 22nd will be the vote yeah um so what i could do is and what's tough is that like there's not a lot of time for someone to think on it but um I could put I guess another memo together with like my initial ideas on what asking for staff would look like in terms of positions um I won't go through the whole like I'm not going to know how much the cost is for all of them that soon.

Is there one that's a priority above all else?

Or is there one that you could focus on the most? That's tough. I think it depends on, like, the factor you're considering. Is it more like you want to free up some of the management staff? I would definitely say executive assistant. Okay. If it's more like we also want to show the current staff that there's room for them to grow. Because honestly, a lot of the part-time staff, there's no further growth, like, opportunity.

Mm-hmm. unless they go get their masters and that's important but I also know that the public is going to be looking at how is this benefiting us as the public I think it's good to think on it I know we don't have a lot of time to me it sounds like the executive assistant right now that seems like it's really important I think the reason why I'm turning to that instead of

librarian because honestly it could be another librarian that just takes some of that admin work and also does like desk coverage and whatnot.

That's just a band-aid though.

More like a band-aid but it would give us probably if we did a librarian I'd be looking more at them to do like the Marketing and communication stuff combined with something else, like the direct service to the public.

Adult services. Becca does a lot in her role. And obviously there's a lot of interest. I mean, your registrations fill up fast. Right. And there's a lot of positive community discussions.

So here I am muddling the water when I'm telling you, like, can we focus on one maybe?

But... I wonder if the title executive assistant would suffer from the same issue as the tech librarian, where people would be like, why do librarians need an executive assistant? But if we were able to title it something else like communications and...

paperwork specialist I don't know like you know I can't wordsmith but it's also very niche yeah marketing and also admin work yeah but like if there was a way to it's an opportunity for it to be a slightly more affordable position um because you don't necessarily need someone with a master's degree true true um it gives I mean I'm thinking the ideal would be a full-time role um It could potentially open a door for someone internally who would like to move into that as the full time role they're looking for. So I still think that there's it adds that factor of like potential movement for someone internally really helpful with like. bogging down management less yeah would the executive assistant also be involved with scheduling they could be involved because that's a big that's a big headache something like supply order like inventorying of supplies and ordering administrative and communication specialist i think that's i think we got it yeah i think that that could be and it's

communicating about a communication coordinator and someone admin. I think there's enough people who are in the business world or in the nonprofit world where they can understand that more concretely, I think. And it also speaks to the growth of the library. Nowhere has it been more apparent having a communications coordinator than with all the things that have been going on with the library of the building, but then ongoing. you know, communicating about, you know, programs about that, it takes so much work. And that could really, I think, people realize. And that could really help, you know, Becca and Jennifer with their work.

And I think that's also an easier sell to the town because whether or not we, you know, actually are able to go for it this year, it's easy to say to the town, look at how much we needed somebody to be able to do this.

Yeah.

Like, think about how much easier it would have been to have a dedicated person to communicate about everything that's been happening.

Yeah, a great example would be like, we've had an ask from the public to make like a web page dedicated to the building project. And we like, that would have fallen on me and I literally have no...

You don't have any space to do that.

That is obviously something that would have been perfect. I would have loved to have been able to do that. I just didn't have the bandwidth. At the time, I was the only one trained to be able to do it.

and now there's such a nice website yeah it's like very um mobile and everything and to be able to keep up that momentum so i that's a great example to point to as to like hey if we had this person this would have been way better public perception wise and like just knowing what's going on um and that would also free up your time and Megan's time, Jen's time, whoever the future director is, that is also a huge help because that person's coordinating amongst all of you.

I think that would be realistic.

And I think that as a board, if we understand that this is something we want to move forward with, that we have the time to really start advocating for this and pulling those numbers and showing it. Because I don't think it's fair just to have it on staff to advocate. And they really can't within the realm of what they're allowed to say and not say.

That is a very tough it's position you have to be very yeah, like like Justin you're the facts like yeah, which I mean we do anyway, but yeah it's tough where You want to be able to say like even the word support? stay away from the work.

Here's a fact sheet about the Board of Trustees request for a new employee. Here's an information sheet about it.

Or having a web administrator who can be able to put that together. Yeah, it's really on the board because you with election laws and everything like that, you have to be so careful about what you say because you can get in some serious, serious trouble. So you really can only say like vote and here's the like voter guide from the town or whatever.

Yep. That was one thing that Colorado did really, really well. Like it was, they, um, for every election, first of all, they did mail-in voting, which was amazing. Um, and you got that like two weeks before election day. So you could like sit down and go through your ballot, but they, when you picked that up or when it was distributed, they also distributed a, like a newsletter or like newspaper formatted type thing that had every single candidate and issue on the, on the ballot. Every candidate they got like you know 300 words to summarize their positions and that was included in there, and then every art Warren article had a you know, one of the advocacy groups that we really promote like that brought that one article to the public. Um, could you had like, you know, a quick position, you know, stating the pros of it. And then, you know, whoever was against it, there was like a group, a group would have a way to put an anti. So you had at least a quick summary of every single thing that was on there. And then you had something to go off of to do your further research. It was amazing. We could produce something like that, that we could find a way to work within the law work within. you know, to be respectful of all the restrictions and boundaries around how we advocate, to be able to say, to be able to communicate that information to the public and say, this is what we're asking for and this is why we believe the benefit would be. Here, this is a fact sheet about what is being requested, what this person's job would do, and what the impact would be to you.

Yeah, I think so. I think that's very good. I'm happy to write something like that. And I think now that we've been doing things far more ahead, that'll at least prepare us if you decide to go forward.

So I think the answer, I'm guessing, is we want to go for the administrative and communications specialist executive assistant type role. I think so.

we bring that forward to the board tomorrow for the okay and actually doing the paperwork stuff and then for the 22nd i could bring the draft of the paperwork by paperwork i mean like the request forms that the town has um for the board to approve or not approve not approve but yeah i i'm i'm hopeful that based on the past year that we've had that the board will overall

be supportive or at least overall in pursuing it further.

Yeah, I think that. I think when we present it to the full board tomorrow, what we will want to make sure we say is we are aware that timing is not ideal, that the goal of this, we would love to pursue this all the way through to a warrant article, but we also recognize that part of the service of bringing this to the town right now is to get it on their radar that this is something we need so that we can pursue this. If now is not the time, we at least are laying the groundwork for when it is the time. And I think if we frame it that way, that will also help overcome reluctance from people who are like, how can we possibly ask the town for more? We can say, well, we have good reason to.

And we'll do our research and we'll advocate. I don't want to say that's the only thing that you can do, but if we're doing our due diligence, then we can feel confident in that. There's so many steps along the way with budget committee and town council, and so we don't know for sure what they'll say, but we'll have all of our ducks in a row.

So action items, the budget draft will be presented to the full board on 7-9-26 for consideration prior to a vote on 7-22. Is that the next? The special one. Yeah. Okay. the position of it?

I don't know. I was trying to think. I don't even know if I have a really old job description for that position. I think we'd have to start from scratch. Start from scratch, yeah. So I... I'm just trying to think what can I actually bring to the meeting tomorrow. I mean, I don't have much aside from the salary range.

Yeah, we can certainly talk about what we've talked about here and summarize. I mean, make bullet points. I think that that's a good starting point in the short amount of time that we have. I feel comfortable with doing that.

I think presenting an idea is a completely appropriate thing to do with this.

Yeah.

Sounds good.

Yeah, the only line I know needs to change, well, I shouldn't say needs to, because maybe there's a good reason why we're only seeing 1%, but needs more investigation, I should say, is the full-time salaries. And I'd like to get a better idea from the custodial company regarding the increase. Yes. But aside from that, any other changes you want to see before it goes to the board?

I think this has been a really thorough and thought-out process.

And unlike last year, this has been recorded, so the public can always email us, ask questions. They can show up to our meeting tomorrow or on the 22nd and ask questions.

And we've been taking thorough notes, so every single discussion, like every set of meeting minutes has descriptions of what has been discussed and why items have been addressed the way they've been addressed, so that there's also points of clarification there too. Okay.

And in terms of formatting, do you want me to keep kind of what I did for those new lines? Yes. Yes. I like the colors.

I like the... Okay.

As long as it's not, I don't want it to be too confusing. Nope. No. I think it's actually very clear. Okay. Yeah.

Beautiful sheet. Yeah. That satisfies so many of my... You sort of never get to satisfy.

Do you want... To keep the same order, just the order that we reviewed them in, or do you want me to make it more in line with the order of the accounts?

I think this makes sense, especially if you're presenting things to us on monthly or showing the budget lines, to keep it as is, so then that way we can at least compare and contrast. Sounds good.

So all I'll do before it goes to the board is I'll move what we've discussed today, so it's all in one big chart.

Thank you.

And I'll keep this noted because there are numbers that we adjusted to reflect what I'm bringing for recommendations tomorrow that will, like, they impact 27, but they'll continue to impact 28. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I love it.

Yeah.

Sounds good.

All right.

now do we need to meet again between we have a meeting scheduled on the 15th yes okay I would say I think it would be good depending on what's brought up tomorrow regarding the budget if there's like

questions that need to be investigated yeah I think especially since you've got medical leave coming up um this this gives us some opportunity for anything additional you need to communicate before then for us to focus specifically on that um the other thing I was going to ask is if you want also wanted to do to look at the purchasing policy again next week the what purchasing purchasing um so we've kind of talked about how how you envisioned it to be updated last meeting um i think what i could do for next week is bring because we talked about how the town has that form yes we're going to basically adapt for us for us um so i could bring a draft of what that would look like and i think there was just going to be a minor language added to refer to it if i remember yeah

the for the 15th meeting yeah yeah that'd be perfect and if if there's questions about the conversation with citizen and the missing deposit slips if there's things that we need to do which i have a feeling there probably will be yeah um that will probably be involved in that conversation um And then tomorrow I'll also bring up the NHTLA and just see how we want to go about it. Yeah.

Sounds good. Thank you.

Oh, there's some overlapping meetings for, I think Beth might have to go to another meeting before our meeting, so I'm not sure if she'd be here right away. But I did book it, so we have Sunny Crest at 6 o'clock on the 15th.

Awesome, thank you. We'll talk about that then. Okay, awesome. I think it just helps having these, and then that way for future budget seasons, we have an idea of, okay, how many meetings, what are we going to discuss, how is this broken down, so at least... future boards have a template and so it's not as chaotic as it was last year and the public is more involved and informed. So I think this has been good.

I do like that Ray Breslin keeps showing up for encouragement. I think that's lovely. It also shows that this is open to everyone.

The door is open and you can come in. Yep. Okay, awesome. So with that said though, is there any public comment? Okay. All right. So I think if you guys are good with it, we can adjourn. Adjourn by consensus at 8.30. Yes. Oh. Sorry.

I think we got everything. All right. Donna, I am going to email you these notes right now. Okay. Perfect. Also, I'm not sure what happened, but I missed, like, so I know I missed the ad hoc meeting two weeks ago. A week ago? I don't even know anymore. And then there was a whole pile of emails that I just never got notifications for. So I'm so sorry. Like, I missed some of the stuff, like, you had sent out that was like, you know, oh, hey, here's the schedule. Here's what we're, you know, here's what we're.

I had some weird time. with my email yeah like the meeting minutes like Beth had I didn't realize Beth had taken minutes and posted them and I was like I'm so sorry I didn't like thank you in a timely manner I had no idea so yeah mail was not letting me log in it was saying incorrect password so I'm like okay I tried to blah blah contact in town but then in the meantime it just decided to come back I'm like okay technology is a lovely thing yeah I felt bad about it

Erica, at some point, I want to go over... There's some minutes that were technically approved, but I don't have the approved version. Oh, okay. I don't even know that necessarily there were any changes made. There were no changes made. I just need the draft to be taken out of it.

Sure, yeah. Which ones do you want me to just go through? I'm assuming that's pretty much everything.

I think it's mainly from when you started, but I think there may be one that you did... Those were modified like five times. I think that one's good. So there's probably one you can skip over.

Okay. If you want, what I can do is I can just take all of those. Um, cause I, any changes I've made, I've saved on my computer. Um, so I can just take out the draft. Yeah. And you can send like a bunch to me. Okay.

And then I can just get them uploaded.

I will not be doing that tonight, but I can do that tomorrow. No, that's fine.