Library Board of Trustees

By City Clerk at 4:17 pm, Feb 17, 2026 Library Board of Trustees Finance Sub-Committee Meeting January 29, 2025 In attendance: Aimie Westphal, Library Director; Meghan Fahey, Library Archivist; Library Trustees Jessica Ducrow and Anne Campbell, and Mary Chatigny, Library Trustee and chair of finance sub- committee. Meeting called to order at 7:07pm. The mayor requested that budgets be level service for FY26.The Finance Committee understood this to be good news. Assuming a 2.5% COLA this puts us above the MMAR by about $20,000 for existing staff without including keeping us at level service. Negotiations are still ongoing with the Union so the Library Director does not know what the ultimate COLA will be. The Library Director is preparing her staffing request to include increasing a currently PT Reference Desk Staff member to Fulltime. This position would also provide assistance to the Archivist by helping with genealogy services. The two PT Circulation Assistants would also be increased to 13 regular weekly hours and the Library Director’s assistant would return to nine hours/week from the current two hours/week. The proposed staffing request would add roughly $76,000 to the budget and is necessary to provide level services. The Committee discussed applying a 5% inflation rate to the book line over FY25 amounting to an increase of $10,747. In addition, the Library Director proposes shifting $2,000 from the Operating Budget to cover archives services rather than using state aid for that purpose. The Library Director and Archivist have met with the DPW Director regarding municipal maintenance. It doesn’t look like this year he is able to provide the Library with Project Management services and suggested that the library budget for non-emergency maintenance service in the library budget. The Library Director is proposing a cost of $66,000 for this purpose in FY26. In addition, the new threshold for capital projects has been increased from $5,000 to $25,000. This may impact such things as air conditioner replacements as they may not meet the $25,000 threshold. Requests for capital projects are informed by the Facilities Master Plan. The Library Director is working with the new Maintenance Manager and he will hopefully be able to provide her with more accurate budget figures for things such as heating. A very brief discussion was had on the Library Endowment Fund and whether we should establish an account within the current Charitable Trust or establish separate Trust. Meeting was adjourned at 8:20pm.