U City Library Board Minutes 03-11-2009

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University City Library board meeting minutes, 3/11/2009 a. A member moved to increase the fine charged on overdue DVDs by $O.SOlday beginning in April. The motion was seconded and approved. b. A member moved to have the library director proceed to select one of the submitted bids for electric hand dryers. The motion was seconded and was approved. c. A member moved to have the library collect non-perishable food for Operation Food Search during National Library Week, April 12-18. The motion was seconded and was approved. d. Member Mary Costantin moved to instruct the city that the Library Board wants to keep the revenue from residential real property tax level with last year, as allowed by state law, by raising the real property tax rate for the library by the amount required. The motion was seconded by Joy Lieberman and Bill Baldwin. Ayes: 7 Nays: 1 The motion was approved. At the time of this vote, the board believed that the rate increase needed would be approximately $0.009 per hundred dollars assessed value based upon the information published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (4% decline in appraised value in UCity school district). A subsequent communication from Janet Watson indicated that the actual decline will only be around 2%, which if confirmed would mean an even lower rate increase. e. A member moved to have the library director contact Bond-Wolfe architects to get a quote for their availability and cost of consulting to solicit bids to do the proposed roof repairs and improvements. The motion was seconded by Joy Lieberman and Bill Baldwin. The motion was approved. f. Bill Baldwin moved to accept the draft budget for the library in FY 2009-2010. It is to include an estimated capital improvement expense of $450,000 to repair and improve the building's roof and to provide a 3% salary increase to most of the staff. The motion was seconded by Joy Lieberman. The motion was approved. President's report None. Committee reports The Personnel & Policy committee (Mary Costantin, David Stokes, Gwen Beckwith, Linda Ballard) submitted their report of the meeting on March 9, 2009. A motion to recommend a 1 pay increase for FY09-10 to the whole board failed. A motion recommending to the whole board a 3% pay increase for library staff, with some exceptions, passed. Old business Discussion from last month on the draft budget continued, focusing on setting the tax rate for next year and on the list of potential capital improvements and repairs that are needed. Although the library is hoping that some of the requested Federal stimulus funds might become available to the library, the members did not think it should be counted upon. There was discussion about presenting a bond issue to the voters to fund the comprehensive list of improvements needed as described byBond-Wolfe's report. But since the school district has put a no tax increase bond issue on the April ballot, and the city is going to put a sales tax increase on the August'09 ballot, it was felt that we should wait to see the outcome of these measures. Because the library is an important resource to all citizens, especially those seeking and applying for new employment, and circulation continues to increase, members believe that we should not reduce expenditures in reaction to the decline in real property assessed value in the city. The draft budget for next year only has $12,000 for purchase of computers. There was discussion about whether this amount should be increased but no change was made in order not to further Page 2 of 3