Library Board Minutes - 7/10/2023

Board Meeting Minutes – 7/10/2023
In lieu of an invocation, the meeting started with a moment of silence for missing and exploited children. Following the moment of silence, the Pledge of Allegiance was recited (Item 3).
Item 1- Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 10:10 AM.
Item 2- Member Roll Call: Present were Chairman John Shewalter, Vice Chair Brian Shoemake, Board of Trustee member Dave Ochenreider, Board of Trustee member Dee Mounts, Board of Trustee member Matthew Morris, Library Director Vanja Anderson, Assistant Director Shanna Gibbons, Head of Youth Services Alysha Wogee, Head of Reference Services Andrew Karneges, Michelle Nelson from the District Attorney’s office, and liaison Commissioner Frank Carbone. In addition, various members of the public were present.
Item 3- The Pledge of Allegiance was recited prior to the call to order.
Item 4- Trustee/Director/Liaison Comments:
Vanja Anderson- She has completed going over the personnel policy and would like to know how it should be presented in the board packet.
John Shewalter- Glad to see that the personnel policy is getting worked on and it will be added to a future agenda.
Item 5- Approval of the Agenda: Item 7 (Emergency Items) was stricken from the agenda.
Item 6- General Public Comment:
Carolene Logue- Thanks the library staff for their hard work. The librarians and libraries are protectors and providers of knowledge and the public is appreciative. Acknowledges the American Library Association and the guidance they give. Talks about the history of public libraries and the role of Andrew Carnegie.
Item 8- Approval of the Minutes: Brian Shoemake makes a motion to approve the minutes of the June 12, 2023 Library Board of Trustees meeting. Dee Mounts seconds the motion.
No public or board comments were made. Minutes are approved 5-0.
Item 9- Presentation of Treasurer's Report: Vanja Anderson presented the treasurer's report on expenditures for June 2023, as found in the backup. Vanja said after doing these expense reports for a year she wants to create a master excel sheet for all the invoices received. This excel sheet will be just for her own use to have a better view of expenditures but she will still use the board sheet when building the expense report. John Shewalter asks about subtotals for the expense report. Vanja says she will start adding subtotals to the side. Shewalter asks about the Cleaning charge on the expense report since we have a cleaning person on payroll. Vanja replies that that expense is for cleaning supplies. Shewalter then asks about the Building charge on the expense report. Before Vanja answers, Shewalter asks if our accountant helps with the expense report. Vanja says he does not. Then Vanja says that Jon Aire is part of the Building charge. Shewalter brings up our accountant again and Vanja asks if he wants her to send the accountant this information. Shewalter responds that it might be a good idea. Vanja then mentions that Vortex Doors are also part of the Building charge. Shewalter asks why there was no charge for phones this month. Vanja says the phones are paid for by a grant. Shewalter mentions that Vanja did a good job with the budget as we are at the end of the fiscal year and we are within budget. Shewalter asks about the Grants charge on the expense report. Vanja says that refers to a grant for nonfiction books.
Dave Ochenreider comments that the numbers on the expense report reflect that the library has done a good job.
Vanja explains that the June column on both expenditures (page 8) and revenues (page 9) are not final numbers and could change. She will resubmit both pages 8 and 9 when she has the final numbers. Brian Shoemake mentions that it looks like we are over budget on Retirement. Vanja responds by saying that the numbers will change and that she was told that as long as Total Labor stays within budget we are fine. John Shewalter also asks about Retirement and expresses concern about being over budget in this category. Vanja responds that she has information about the Retirement expenditures in her office but doesn't know off the top of her head but she can go over it with him after the meeting. Brian Shoemake expresses concern that we are close to going over budget in multiple categories. Shewalter asks Vanja to give a presentation during the September board meeting to go over the end of fiscal year numbers to decide if changes need to be made to the 2023-2024 budget. Dave Ochenreider says that when people take early retirement, the money that was budgeted for their salary should go into the retirement budget. Brian Shoemake again expresses his concerns about why we are so close to budget only halfway through the year. John Shewalter explains to him that these numbers are fiscal year, not calendar year, so we are at the end of the year not halfway through.
Vanja then went over the revenues. John Shewalter asks about the changes to the notary. Vanja says that we have raised the prices for notary services but we are still lower than other notary services in town and that the higher prices has had no negative impact.
Item 10-Approval of the Vouchers
Brian Shoemake makes a motion to approve the vouchers for June 2023 through July 2023. Dee Mounts seconds the motion. 
There were no public comments.
Board Comments:
Matt Morris asks about the Jon Aire charge on the voucher. Vanja explains that this charge was for Jon Aire moving the temperature controls to the correct location. John Shewalter asks about the petty cash amount on the voucher. Vanja responds that the summer programs were expensive. Also the Nevada State Bank service charge fee is part of the petty cash amount. Shewalter asks how much the service fee is. Shanna Gibbons responds that it varies every month by how much money we deposit. Brian Shoemake asks about the Blackstone Audio charge on the voucher. Vanja responds that those are audio books. Shoemake asks if we are up to date on our Network Savant invoices. Vanja confirms that we are up to date with the invoices. John Shewalter asks about the Nevada Public Agency Insurance Pool charge on the voucher. Shanna Gibbons says that this was for an insurance claim for Industrial Light and Power put in by John Shewalter last year. Shanna Gibbons says our insurance company hired an outside attorney to look into the case. Michelle Nelson confirms there was a claim made to Pool, there was a notification of a potential claim as required under the insurance documents. Shewalter asks Vanja to send all of the documents related to this to Michelle Nelson at the District Attorney's office. The motion to approve the vouchers is withdrawn. Shewalter then makes a motion to amend and approve the vouchers. The amendment being to remove the Nevada Public Agency Insurance Pool charge until more is found out about this charge. Brian Shoemake seconds this motion.
There are no public or board comments. The measure passes 5-0.
Item 11-Presentation of Librarian’s Report: 
Vanja Anderson read her report that can be found in the backup.
Shanna Gibbons reported the statistics for June 2023 which can be found in the backup.
Alysha Wogee reported that Babytime and Story Time are not going on right now but they will be back in September. The summer reading program events occurred on the five Thursdays in June at Ian Deutsch Memorial Park and there were a total of 1,175 participants. This is the third year doing the summer programs at the park. They are done at the park because each year the programs keep getting bigger and there is more room at the park and it also allows for water events. There was also a train workshop which had 56 participants. The teen club is continually growing with the recent addition of four or five new members.
John Shewalter asked Vanja about who she has made contact with regarding home schooling. She stated that she spoke to several people at the park during the summer events and some people have come up to the children's desk and have asked about it. As the children will be separated by age, John Shewalter asked about how younger children are defined as opposed to older children. Alsyha says that the younger kids are ages 4 to 7 and the older kids are ages 8 to 15. Brian Shoemake asked if we are happy with the thermostat now that it has been moved and Vanja responded yes. Shoemake congratulated Alysha on the successful summer reading program events and asked if the number of attendees this year was the highest ever. Alysha says that attendance at the summer reading program events have been increasing every year and this year was the highest ever.
Item 12- For Possible Action: Assign the Library Director to research how other libraries are cataloging controversial books dedicated to youth services and set a date and time for the Library Director to present her findings to the Board. John Shewalter made a motion to approve and set the date for the Library Director to present her findings on August 14th at 10:00 AM. Dave Ochenreider seconded the motion. 
Public Comments:
Kelly Green- She is a retired librarian. When she read about this agenda item she gathered collection development policies from local and regional libraries. She submitted these policies to the Board for the record. She said that she hopes the Board reads them so that they can see what other libraries are doing regarding collection policies.
Carolene Logue- She said that in the past the library had a Friends of the Library to help the staff. She recommends we form a committee or bring back the Friends of the Library in order to provide more public input and provide assistance to the staff and the Board.
Robin Crowley- She seconded the previous speakers comments and said that she is a former member of the Friends of the Library and she misses the Friends of the Library. She then starts talking about the cost of making copies at the reference desk but is interrupted by Michelle Nelson who reminds her that the public comments are to be limited to item number 12. John Shewalter tells her that she can communicate her concerns directly to the Director or she can send an e-mail to one of the board members or she can bring this up at the next Board meeting during the general public comments.
Jenny Okawa- Concerned about who decides whether a book is controversial or not.
Brian Shoemake asks if the Library Director we'll be researching libraries in a specific region or across the country. Michelle Nelson says that as the agenda item is written there are no parameters about which libraries the Library Director can research. Brian Shoemake says that different areas of the country vary greatly in issues like this and he would like the Library Director to research libraries in places that have a similar population to our community. Shoemake asks if this is a reasonable request. John Shewalter responds by saying “no comment.”
The measure passes 5-0.
Item 13- Trustee/Director/Liaison Comments:
Frank Carbone thanks staff for doing a fantastic job.
Brian Shoemake asks if we got the password issue resolved. Vanja responds that it's still being worked on. Brian Shoemake then asks about the little libraries. Vanja responds that the ones we have are too short so we can't use them. If we decide we want to go ahead with that, we need new ones. Shoemake asks if we still have COVID tests. Vanja responds yes. They are not expired and people are still taking them. John Shewalter says that Vanja is growing in her role as Library Director and that he sees positive things happening. Brian Shoemake says he is proud of the staff.
Item 14- Adjournment at 11:35 AM.
 

ARCHIVED MINUTES

AGENDA FOR JULY 10, 2023