Library Board of Trustees

By City Clerk at 1:17 pm, Apr 13, 2023 Amesbury Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes - March 8, 2023 Amesbury Public Library Board of Trustees Location: Amesbury City Hall Auditorium Wednesday March 8, 2023 7:00 PM 2023 Board of Trustees (BOT) Members present: Anne Campbell, Laurie Cameron, Pam Gilday, Brenda Rich, Jessica Ducrow, and Audrey Proctor APL Staff present: Aimie Westphal, APL Director and Meghan Fahey, Head of Archives 1. Call to order at 7:00 PM by Anne as chair. 2. Secretary’s minutes Motion to approve February 2023 Board of Trustees meeting minutes by Jessica with identified minor edits, second by Brenda. Motion is approved unanimously. 3. Communications There was no email and no communications to report. 4. Budget report • Aimie presents the FY2023 monthly APL budget for March, including these highlights: • We are 67% of the way through FY2023 (as of 3/3/23) and have spent 63% (62.83)% of the FY23 department budget. • The salary line item will end up being 20-30K underfunded because of the staff turnover this year – that may be a solution to the fact that the electricity line item is going to end up being overspent because of the increase in electricity pricing this winter. A line item transfer is likely and that would need to be approved by City Council. • Aimie has attended her 1st coaching session, the expenditure of that first session is reflected in this report. • MBLC – our 2nd state aid allotment of FY23 is coming in early April. • The Massachusetts Cultural Council has awarded the APL an :MCC Cultural Sector Recovery Grant for Organizations’ in he sum of $73,940 as notes in the report. The time frame to spend the grant begins April 1, with a report due on July 1, 2023. This award must be approved by the City Council. First reading is scheduled for March 14. 5. Facilities report • Aimie presents her monthly Facilities Report to the Trustees for March 2023. This document is included in the addendum (Addendum 1), including these highlights: 1  Amesbury Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes - March 8, 2023 • Per the Silverfish issue, the selected climate control vendor is scheduled to begin work the last week of April. • Per the lintel, a quote of $20Kish has been received, so the job will need to go out to bid. As reference, the mason who provided the quote is currently booking 2 months out. • No word yet from the City insurance company (MIIA) on the downstairs water damage claim. • A facilities issue occurred today on the first floor. The public water bottle/jug emptied onto the floor, soaking the carpeting and damaging some of the drop ceiling tiles in the downstairs break room. Service Master dried the space and removed the damaged tiles (there are replacement tiles in the boiler room). WB Mason will be coming to replace the water dispenser/jug unit. DPW was not available to help with this event today. 6. Capital Project update • Climate Control Project update This downstairs-level project is moving along and has been scheduled. Once completed, the silverfish and other reported issues should be resolved. Special collections will have to be moved offsite while this project is being worked on and their access will need to be closed to researchers for awhile. This project also involves the walls being completed. • Facilities Master Plan update Meghan and Aimie propose the creation of an adhoc committee to help draft master plan scope and RFP documentation. The adhoc committee would include folks with expertise in this area – including 2 representatives from the BOT, an engineer, an architect, and others with expertise in finance and municipal buildings. The City can provide an RFP template that the committee would populate with content such as project definition, required deliverables, timeline, and other standard elements. The objective of the Facilities master plan itself would be a 5 year plan for how to prioritize APL projects to be tackled, conditions and needs for the site, building systems, building itself, community feedback, and so on. More on this subject will be presented at subsequent BOT meetings – this is an update on what Aimie and Meghan are proposing – they cannot create the RFP themselves. 7. Director’s report Aimie presents her monthly Library Director’s Report to the Trustees for February 2023. This document is included in the addendum (Addendum 2). 8. Sub-committee updates 2  Amesbury Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes - March 8, 2023 No subcommittees have met since our last BOT meeting. 9. Old business FY24 Budget update In our packet tonight are 3 budgets – the 2 that we’ve already seen in past meetings (see previous minutes) and a new budget that the Mayor asked Aimie to prepare that represents what the APL budget would include if the City only funded to the state-required MAR. This is not the budget that the BOT recommended last month, nor does it represent a budget that Aimie is advocating for – it is simply a budget that she was asked to prepare for informational and comparison purposes relative to the budget that the BOT did recommend. Aimie, Anne, and Meghan will have a 2nd budget meeting with the Mayor at the end of March. 10. New business Communications subcommittee proposal • Discuss the idea of a new subcommittee chartered with unified messaging and community engagement regarding Amesbury Public Library activities. Areas of responsibility would include messaging out to the community, Facebook and other social media channel posts and conversation threads, unified messaging, promoting activities and programs, advocating for the library, etc. • Anne has the authority to create new subcommittees and thus can create this BOT subcommittee. • As of this evening, Jessica, Anne, and Brenda have expressed interest in being made members of this new subcommittee. The subcommittee would create its mission statement and action items. Further discussion is expected at the next BOT meeting as some members are not present this evening. 11. Matters not reasonably anticipated in advance of the meeting. Jessica has created a draft New BOT Member Orientation document, or packet, for new Amesbury Public Library Board of Trustee members. She met with Aimie and Meghan and created an outline and is developing the document/packet now. The BOT does have access to a OneDrive and we will be storing source documents such as bylaws, BOT mission statement, and subcommittee descriptions, as well as this document and any other helpful source material on the OneDrive. Jessica will share this document with the full BOT when it is ready. Big thank you to Jessica! 12. Adjourn: 8:46 PM. Motion to adjourn by Laurie, second by Jessica, unanimous. 3 Amesbury Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes - March 8, 2023 Addendums February 8, 2023 -- APL Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes Addendum 1 – Facilities Report to the Trustees for March 2023 4 Amesbury Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes - March 8, 2023 Addendum 2 – Library Director’s Report to the Trustees for March 2023 5