Library Board of Trustees

RECEIVED By City Clerk's Office at 9:40 am, 4/23/20 Amesbury Public Library Board of Trustees Amesbury Public Library Wednesday, February 26, 2020 6:00 PM Members present: Anne Campbell (AC), Brenda Rich (BR), Bethany Sullivan (BS), Gail Browne (GB), Laurie Cameron (LC), Michelle Lamott (ML), Sarah Downs (SD) Members Not in Attendance: Delia Rinaldi (DR), Nicole Harry (NH) APL Director: Erin Matlin Guest: Caitlin Thayer, Communications Director for City of Amesbury I. Call to order at 6:03 p.m. by Laurie II. FY2021 Budget: 1. Finance committee met on February 24 to review proposed FY2021 budget request to mayor, narrowed down and prioritized new budget requests from initial meeting on February 12. Mayor asked departments for level service budgets. 2. Part A of proposal includes union-required step increases, state-required increases to pay rate for pages, and inflation increases for line items that usually go up every year. Part B is new budget requests and memos justifying new requests: a. Increase to library director’s salary, bringing it up to MBLC average for library directors b. Increasing more hours for archivist from 18 to 21 to allow time for work on grants and work assisting city hall. c. Adding a 10-hour maintenance position to help with everyday fixes and smaller projects to alleviate the numerous requests to DPW so that they can be taken care of in house. d. Increasing children’s library assistant from 18 hours to 35 hours to meet growing demand in children’s room and help with overall library coverage e. Adding technology line item – Repair and replacement currently done out of state aid, but it’s an ongoing need and should be budgeted item. 3. Correction made to calculation for increasing archivist hours to reflect 21 hours instead of 20. Michelle asked about when rate increases go into effect for student pages. Numbers were doubled checked to make sure totals reflected rate change halfway through fiscal year. A+B = $53,453.27 increase over FY2020 budget ($843,250.38). 4. Municipal appropriation requirement (MAR) for next year is $859,623. If only required items in Part A are approved, budget would be below MAR and library would lose state aide. Board decided to move technology line item to Part A so proposal would  meet MAR. Technology line item is in line with level services as we spent over $5000 last year in state aid on technology. With that change, Part A = $18,282.61, a 2.17% increase over FY2020 budget. Total for A+B remains the same and is a 6.34% increase over FY2020 budget. 5. Bethany makes motion to approve FY2021 budget providing level services and new budget requests of $896,703.65. Brenda seconds. Unanimous. Gail suggests finance committee meet again to work on wording of memos ahead of Erin’s March 10 meeting with the mayor. III. Other 1. Caitlin Thayer, Communications Director for City of Amesbury, introduced herself and let the board know she’s available as a resource. Told the board the mayor wants more boards to meet at City Hall, and invited the Trustees to meet there when it’s free. IV. Adjourn: Anne made motion to adjourn at 7:10 p.m. Michelle seconded. Unanimous.