Minutes for Dec. 17 Trustees Meeting

Present: Cindy Binzen, Curt Albee, Marty Frank, Melissa Strayton (librarian), Carol Wilson, Rachel Kurland, Kerry Claffey (bookkeeper)

Minutes from the November meeting were accepted.

Librarian’s Report: Melissa reported that she had received a certified letter from the estate of Anne Aversa notifying us that the library had been named a beneficiary in her will. The regional Girl Scouts organization plans to use the library for a meeting on Feb. 4. The library has again received a Turrell grant for $2,000 to fund children’s programming. Melissa has checked with the courier service and was told that they plan to provide service on the Mondays preceding Christmas and New Year’s. The trustees voted to close the library at 4 p.m., three hours early, on both of those days.

Rebecca reported, via Marty, that the Holiday Sale yielded between $4,600 and $4,700 this year.

Bookkeeper: Kerry reported that the transition from Rebecca to himself is going smoothly. He intends to set up automatic depositing for Melissa’s pay. At Rebecca’s suggestion, the librarian will be paid at the end of the month rather than the beginning of the following month to avoid having the final paycheck be accounted for in the next year’s books.

The trustees voted unanimously to grant Kerry authority to write checks from the checking account at Mascoma Savings.

Children’s Programming: Melissa calculates that if she devotes two hours of the time scheduled for regular librarian responsibilities to children’s programming, the Turrell grant will be sufficient to cover the additional hours she will be working to do 22 after-school programs, 10 pre-school storytimes, six summer reading programs and the cost of one performer during the summer. Melissa says she feels comfortable committing those two hours to children’s programming, both in terms of having enough time to take care of other library work and by way of recognizing that children’s programming is an important function of the library.

Treasurer’s Report: Rachel reviewed the proposed 2019 budget. Among the major changes: We’ll be receiving less  than $200 from our endowed funds, a decrease of more than $1,000 from the current year — a reflection of what’s happened to the stock market. Depending on what Melissa finds out about how it works, we’re likely to be spending a significant sum — perhaps $500 — for a group subscription to the New York Times. At this point, it’s unclear how much it will cost and how many people will be able to use the service. The librarian will receive a 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase. Although Melissa predicts we’ll need to replace our laptop, no money is being budgeted for computer equipment because we have plenty set aside in our reserve fund. Postage costs are predicted to drop from $890 to $625, a reflection of the savings we’ve achieved by using the courier service. Snow removal is increasing from $500 to $1,100, largely because much of the shoveling in 2018 was donated labor. 

The trustees unanimously approved the budget as amended. It projects income of $54,652.  income and expenses of $54,884, with $4,000 of income coming from our checking account. 

Next meeting will be Jan. 14.

Submitted by Marty Frank