Library Board
Regular MeetingFremont, NE · February 21, 2022
Minutes
Keene Memorial Library Board Meeting
Large Meeting Room
1030 N Broad St, Fremont NE
6:30 P.M.
February 21, 2022
Minutes
Held at the Keene Memorial Library Large Meeting Room and Board President Tom Adamson called the
meeting to order at 6:30 pm.
Roll Call
The following members were present: Tom Adamson, Amanda Moenning, Linda McClain, and Becky
Pence. LeAnn Rathke was absent until 6:35. Also present was Laura England-Biggs, Library Director,
City Council Liaison Sally Ganem and Mayor Joey Spellerberg. Senior Office Associate Tracy Parr will be
recording the meeting minutes.
Notice of Meeting and Agenda
The meeting was preceded by publicized notice in the Fremont Tribune and the agenda is posted in the
Administration Office at Keene Memorial Library, 1030 North Broad Street, online at
www.fremontne.gov and distributed by email. A copy of the open meetings law is posted continually for
public inspection and is located near the entrance of the meeting room.
Agenda
Motion to adopt agenda for February 21, 2022 regular meeting. Board Member McClain moved,
seconded by Board Member Adamson to adopt the agenda for February 21, 2022 Library Board Meeting.
Ayes: Adamson, Moenning, McClain and Pence. Motion carried 4-0.
Reading of Minutes
Board Member Moenning moved to dispense with and approve the January 17, 2022 minutes, seconded
by Board Member Pence. Ayes: Adamson, Moenning, McClain, Pence and Rathke. Motion carried 5-0.
Unfinished Business
Community Needs Response Planning Update
Director Laura England-Biggs stated that at the Board’s last meeting we were looking to use a possible
donation and possible foundation grant to pay for the library’s community needs response planning
assistance. However, after discussions with Denise Kay from the Friends of the Library and Linda
McClain she came to realize that this really is part of cost of running the library and after looking at the
budget she saw there were three purchase orders that were over encumbered from previous fiscal years
that if canceled would clear up the money for the library to pay its own way. Director England-Biggs also
mentioned that the folks from Mission Matters capped their proposal at $8,000 and she was able to
support that in the budget. She also stated that there are letters inviting participation from the community
to do a focus group on Saturday April 2nd, this is part of the finding out what the community needs
analysis is involving strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. She mentioned this is an
opportunity for people from all walks of life to have a chance to give their thoughts and opinions on these
things. We believe there is a pretty good spectrum of invitees across Fremont, including folks from the
Hispanic community, business community, homeschool parents, public school parents, public school
teacher, adult readers of both physical books and digital ones as well. In addition, we are inviting people
of all the different age groups too. Board Member Adamson asked how many people would be included
and she said that there would be anywhere from 12-14 at the most. Keeping it to this range makes it
easier to manage and allows for more opportunities for individuals to speak out and have their opinions
heard. It was also mentioned by Board Member McClain that there was a discussion about if there should
be a Library Board Member or City Council Member included in this and it was felt that having someone
of a higher up position could intimidate people. Those types of community members will have an
opportunity to give input at a meeting on April 18th. Director England-Biggs asked the Board Members
how they would feel about having a planning meeting from 5:30-7:30 on that date and following it up
with a regular Board Meeting after that. The alternative to this is to do a Saturday session. Board
Members Moenning and Rathke said it would depend on a couple of factors for them, but if they can
work those things out they were in. Director England-Biggs said we will make it a plan for now since
Greta from Mission Matters was able to make it work for her schedule. At that time, we should have
feedback from the focus group as to what they saw in an executive summary of sorts. Board Member
Rathke asked if the individuals would be told they were representing a specific group of people and
Director England-Biggs said that the drafted letter asks them to RSVP so we can make sure to have a
good representation across the community. She did not go into what specific group she was targeting
them as. Board member McClain asked Director England-Biggs if this would get us into the time frame
where we want to have an actual plan in June and she said that the hope is, by late May we will have a
draft to discuss at the June Library Board Meeting. No action was taken.
- Just before going to reports Board Member Adamson spoke up to say that Todd Hansen, a friend
of his from Metropolitan Community College, raved about working with the library. Director
England-Biggs stated that she met with Todd awhile ago to discuss using one of the empty
classrooms while we are located at the City Auditorium and is happy to announce that
negotiations have worked out and we have an agreement that allows us to use a classroom from
July 2022 – October 2023 for story time in particular and is reaching out to see if we can use it for
other programming as well. Adult programming would like us to ask if they are able to use it too.
We are very excited about this partnership.
Reports
Library Director’s Report Month in Review
We had a library staff meeting.
She met with Elisa and Justine about the ARPA Grant (American Rescue Plan Act) from the Nebraska
Library Commission. She stated that she believes we are looking at getting one digital display, some
Launch Pads (Tablets with rugged cases on them for different learning topics), and some better
technology for our outreach allowing us to be able to run our circulation mobile client. That will allow us
to set people up with library cards and check out books etc…
Reading at Head Start on Wednesday mornings.
Library expansion discussion meeting with Warren Hagelstein, the new City IT Director and Mike Fu to
talk about the expansion and the move to the City Auditorium, what that will all mean to them and how
we will make it all work. At the moment it looks like we will be purchasing a bunch of wireless dongles,
plugging them into the computers and making us wireless.
Working with Tetrad our Owners Rep, for assistance on space planning and moving to the City
Auditorium.
Proctoring.
We have a fully scheduled blood drive for this weekend.
Met with the people at Mission Matters.
Creative Districts discussion with Angie Olson, the Mayor and Jody Sanders, all from the City to talk
about how the library may play a part in that.
Grant work with Board Member McClain.
Advocacy Committee meeting with the NLA.
Dodge County ARPA Grant was submitted.
Director England-Biggs and Tracy Parr did a walk through with Steve Boothe and Dean Kavan for our
lighting issues.
Attended the State of the City lunch with Tracy Parr.
Demo for a library calendar, but unfortunately it costs more than what we are currently using so we won’t
be moving forward with it.
Participated in Engage Office Hours training session.
Friends of the Library Board Meeting.
Microsoft Teams Meeting with EBSCO.
SKILLS (Sharing Knowledge and Information for Library Learning and Success) Meeting in West Point.
Meeting with Elisa about book leasing program.
Tuesday there is a contractor selection meeting.
Wednesday she will have a webinar on how to engage your donors with targeted outreach.
Expansion Project Update
Director Laura England-Biggs and Board Member McClain let the rest of the Board know that a grant
was submitted to the CCCFF (Civic and Community Center Financing Fund), which is a potential
$750,000 ask. Dodge County ARPA grant was also done with the help of Angie Olson and Lottie
Mitchell was able to also review it. We had a $25,000 donation come in from an individual. That brings
us to $7,208,545. Two possible foundation follow ups. We are participating with the Friends of the
Library on the next Big Give. Working on focusing on the Commemorative Bricks and we hope to have
forms available at the book sale in March. Board Member Rathke asked if the furnishings and things like
that were part of the expansion budget. Director England-Biggs responded that it is included. 7 million is
for construction costs and 2.4 million is for furnishings and equipment. Both Board Member McClain
and Director England-Biggs spoke about the fact that there have already been some modifications to the
original design because of increasing materials costs in order to trim some of the square footage. Mayor
Spellerberg commented that we are more than enough funded to start construction. We should hear back
about the CCCF Grant in March sometime.
Friends of the Library Report
The Friends book sale is coming up Thursday-Sunday March 24th-27th. The Friends are looking for
volunteers to help with the sale and you can go to the Friends Facebook page or KML Facebook page to
volunteer. Saturday at the book sale there will be a BBQ food offering inside the building.
Finance
Director England-Biggs reviewed the Finance report, pointing out that under other contractual service we
still show to be over encumbered. We canceled a couple of purchase orders after this report was run so
we are no longer over encumbered. Both Director England-Biggs and Tracy Parr explained why we have
these over encumbrances.
With no further business, motion to adjourn was made at 7:21 p.m. with Board Member Rathke making
the motion and Board Member Moenning seconding it. Ayes: Adamson, Moenning, McClain, Rathke and
Pence. Motion carried 5-0.
Next meeting will be held in the Large Meeting Room at the Library on March 21, 2022 at 6:30 pm.
Prepared by Tracy Parr, Senior Office Associate
Signed by Amanda Moenning, Library Board Secretary
Agenda
Keene Memorial Library Board Meeting
Keene Memorial Library-Downstairs Large Meeting Room
1030 N. Broad St., Fremont, NE
6:30 P.M.
February 21, 2022
AGENDA
Call to Order/Notice of Meeting
1. Roll Call
2. Motion to adopt current agenda for February 21, 2022 regular meeting agenda
3. Dispense with and approve January 17, 2022 minutes (attachment)
4. Unfinished Business
a. Community Needs Response Planning update
5. New Business
6. Reports
a. Library Director’s Report
i. Month in Review
ii. Expansion Project Update
b. Friends of the Library Report
c. Finance-Library Expenditures Report (attachment)
7. Adjournment
Next Meeting March 21, 2022 6:30pm – Keene Memorial Library – Large Meeting Room
Agenda posted online at www.fremontne.gov/library and emailed to Library Board members on
February 15, 2022. This meeting is preceded by publicized notice in the Fremont Tribune and the
agenda is displayed in the Administration Office at Keene Memorial Library, 1030 North Broad
Street. A Copy of the Open Meeting Law is posted at the entrances of the meeting rooms. The
Library Board reserves the right to go into Executive Session at any time. The Library Board
reserves the right to adjust the order of items on this agenda.
Keene Memorial Library Board Meeting
Large Meeting Room
1030 N Broad St, Fremont NE
6:30 P.M.
January 17, 2022
Minutes
Held at the Keene Memorial Library Large Meeting Room and Board President Tom Adamson called the
meeting to order at 6:30 pm.
Roll Call
The following members were present: Tom Adamson, Amanda Moenning, Linda McClain, and Becky
Pence. LeAnn Rathke was absent until 6:45. Also present was Laura England-Biggs, Library Director,
City Council Liaison Sally Ganem and Mayor Joey Spellerberg. Senior Office Associate Tracy Parr will be
recording the meeting minutes.
Notice of Meeting and Agenda
The meeting was preceded by publicized notice in the Fremont Tribune and the agenda is posted in the
Administration Office at Keene Memorial Library, 1030 North Broad Street, online at
www.fremontne.gov and distributed by email. A copy of the open meetings law is posted continually for
public inspection and is located near the entrance of the meeting room.
Agenda
Motion to adopt agenda for January 17, 2022 regular meeting. Board Member Moenning moved,
seconded by Board Member Pence to adopt the agenda for January 17, 2022 Library Board Meeting.
Ayes: Adamson, Moenning, McClain and Pence. Motion carried 4-0.
Reading of Minutes
Board Member McClain moved to dispense with and approve the December 20, 2021 minutes, seconded
by Board Member Pence. Ayes: Adamson, Moenning, McClain and Pence. Motion carried 4-0.
Unfinished Business
Community Needs Response Planning Discussion
Director England-Biggs stated that based on last months request to look for more proposals for
Community Needs Response Planning assistance, she has been working by both phone and email to do
this and has little to no luck in this. The 2nd name she was given is looking to retire and let her know of a
couple of people who may be able to help, but they have no availability until April. Given the time
sensitivity of this she did ask the Board for approval to move forward with Mission Matters, the company
whose proposal was brought to the Library Board at the December 20th Board meeting. She let the Board
know she has been looking into funding options for hiring this company and that there is an anonymous
donor who is willing to help with part of it, we are looking at going to the Fremont Area Community
Foundation for a mini grant and the possibility of the Friends of the Library helping as well. This service
wasn’t budgeted with the City so she is looking at outside options to help fund this service this time. In
the future we will look at having it budgeted through the City. Motion to support moving forward with
Mission Matters, knowing that funding will be overridden by donations was made by Board Member
Adamson, seconded by Board Member Pence. Ayes: Adamson, Moenning, McClain and Pence. Motion
carried 4-0.
New Business
Annual Report Presentation
The report was presented by Director England-Biggs and was well received by the Library Board. She
made a point to give credit to the library’s Youth Services Librarian Justine Ridder, for creating the
highlights page. She also publicly thanked Kristin Klingsick from accounting for the quick turnaround of
the Library Budget Report numbers for the 2021 fiscal year.
Motion to accept and receive as presented was made by Board Member McClain, seconded by Board
Member Adamson. Ayes: Adamson, Moenning, McClain, Pence and Rathke. Motion carried 5-0.
Reports
Library Director’s Report Month in Review
She started proctoring a new student on December 21st.
Was on vacation December 27th-31st.
December 28th the Fremont City Council approved sending a letter of intent for CCCFF (Civic and
Community Center Financing Fund) grant in January. This is a potential $750,000 grant that will be
submitted by February 15th. We will be notified in March if we were awarded this grant.
January 3rd, she attended a Friends of the Library Board meeting.
January 4th, bi-weekly one on one meetings with staff were started to discuss what’s on their minds, ask
about stress levels to observe trends and get feedback.
There was a KML project update meeting with the Mayor, Jody Sanders, Tetrad and Travis Jacott (City
Attorney) to discuss contractor process re-do.
Attended NLA Advocacy meeting.
Transparent Language database orientation, a new language database for the library. Laura reached out to
both WholeStone and Lincoln Premium Poultry about this and really good connections were made with
WholeStone.
January 6th, attended a Kiwanis meeting and volunteered to deliver 64 dictionaries to Washington school
third-graders with the help of Tracy.
January 11th BLUECloud Mobile kick off call. This is something we are working on as a new service
which will be our app for patrons to interact with the library.
Attended January 11th City Council meeting with Cassie Paben from Tetrad. She was a great asset to our
team, explaining the contractor process and construction ins and outs to the Council.
January 13th, digital signage review with Add-Savvy for a possible expenditure for NLC ARPA Formula
Grant.
January 14th, talk with Catherine Brown who was recommended as part of the Community Needs
Response Planning process. Catherine would only be able to assist with the needs assessment piece, and
is putting a proposal together. Laura is still trying to connect with Kim Roth Howe, who is unavailable
until April.
Expansion Project Update
Director Laura England-Biggs let the Board know that we received a $250.00 check that day and $27,000
in checks were received while she was on vacation from the year end push letters that were sent out. She
also stated that as of that morning $7,168,220 had been raised or committed.
Friends of the Library Report
The Friends book sale is coming up Thursday-Sunday March 24th-27th. The Friends are looking for
volunteers to help with the sale and you can go to the Friends Facebook page or KML Facebook page to
volunteer. Unfortunately Laura will be unable to help this year due to an out of state conference she will
be attending. Board Member McClain said she would volunteer in her place.
Finance
Director England-Biggs reviewed the Finance report, noting that there weren’t any surprises and stated
we will continue to work on closing out purchase orders that are no longer needed.
With no further business, motion to adjourn was made at 7:25 p.m. with Board Member Moenning
making the motion and Board Member McClain seconding it. Ayes: Adamson, Moenning, McClain,
Rathke and Pence. Motion carried 5-0.
Next meeting will be held in the Large Meeting Room at the Library on February 21, 2022 at 6:30 pm.
Prepared by Tracy Parr, Senior Office Associate
Signed by Amanda Moenning, Library Board Secretary
NLFS001 Auditors Trial Balance
Accounting Period: 4/2022
Fund(s): 001 - General Fund
Report Generated on Feb 14, 2022 10:08:26 AM Page 1
Fund: 001 - General Fund
Account Account Description FYTD through Original Budget Encumbered Budget Balance Prior Year Prior Two
1/31/2022 Actual Years Actual
001-2031-419.20-12 Communications 300.00 2,500.00 900.00 1,300.00 2,400.00 2,400.00
001-2031-419.20-65 Service Agreements 19,855.21 25,000.00 5,144.79 28,026.79 21,525.39
001-2031-419.30-55 Software 528.87 5,550.00 5,021.13 5,486.10 4,885.56
001-2031-419.30-56 Parts/Mach & Equipment 14,000.00 14,000.00 718.66 474.41
001-2031-455.10-10 Salaries/Wages 208,681.05 584,963.00 376,281.95 463,993.58 468,654.57
001-2031-455.10-14 Health Insurance 26,719.50 95,522.00 68,802.50 110,909.22 94,250.09
001-2031-455.10-15 Overtime Wages 357.17 1,750.00 1,392.83 207.10 1,087.97
001-2031-455.10-22 FICA/Medicare 15,583.05 43,786.00 28,202.95 33,851.10 34,569.52
001-2031-455.10-23 Pension 5,214.77 20,537.00 15,322.23 15,991.38 17,792.41
001-2031-455.20-11 Postage & Printing 800.00 5,550.00 7,200.00 (2,450.00) 1,600.00 2,400.00
001-2031-455.20-13 Training & Travel 2,215.96 12,000.00 1,541.00 8,243.04 3,016.24 4,607.17
001-2031-455.20-33 Legal Advertising 18.87 100.00 81.13 50.13 271.18
001-2031-455.20-41 Utility Services 12,057.67 52,000.00 39,942.33 41,991.45 38,211.98
001-2031-455.20-60 Repairs & Maintenance 370.00 10,000.00 9,630.00 3,787.96 14,381.82
001-2031-455.20-65 Service Agreements 7,240.88 31,500.00 17,709.00 6,550.12 22,735.27 13,063.98
001-2031-455.20-70 Rents 295.14 800.00 298.00 206.86 590.28 591.09
001-2031-455.20-93 Dues & Subscriptions 545.00 18,000.00 79.96 17,375.04 17,049.27 29,458.36
001-2031-455.20-98 Taylor collection 500.00 500.00 469.19
001-2031-455.20-99 Other Contractual Service 4,490.42 44,000.00 42,217.16 (2,707.58) 21,436.26 26,825.53
001-2031-455.30-31 Office Supplies 720.98 10,000.00 381.19 8,897.83 3,011.77 2,971.65
001-2031-455.30-35 Printing 500.00 60.00 440.00 767.42
001-2031-455.30-41 Food Supplies 4,000.00 4,000.00 345.20 597.35
001-2031-455.30-44 Fuel/Oil/Grease 250.00 250.00 33.96 38.98
001-2031-455.30-49 Bldg/Structural Materials 510.67 10,000.00 9,489.33 6,241.12 14,516.59
001-2031-455.30-51 Books & Periodicals 52,372.85 135,000.00 72,474.57 10,152.58 139,526.82 149,083.37
001-2031-455.30-63 MV Fuel Parts 37.17 7.99
001-2031-455.30-76 Signs 1,000.00 1,000.00
001-2031-455.30-79 Other Commodities 1,216.33 10,000.00 477.91 8,305.76 4,382.96 14,443.25
001-2031-455.40-13 Bldg/Improve Acquisition 3,500.00 4,253,229.00 286,650.00 3,963,079.00 197,315.00 32,617.50
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363,594.39 5,392,037.00 429,988.79 4,598,453.82 1,125,971.40 989,727.71
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