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BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Regular Meeting
Monday, December 17th, 2007
9:00 A.M.

This meeting will be conducted at:

Milwaukee County Federated Library System
709 N. 8th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53233

AGENDA

I.   CALL TO ORDER

II.  APPROVAL OF MINUTES.

      The MCFLS Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, November 26,          2007.

                                                                               ACTION    ATTACHMENT A

III. PUBLIC COMMENT.

IV.  LIBRARY DIRECTORS ADVISORY COUNCIL – REPORTS.

A. Report of the November 1,2007,LDAC meeting.                                                                                                                          DISTRIBUTED AT MEETING
                                                                  ACCEPT AND PLACE ON FILE 

B. LDAC Letter to MCFLS Board regarding Interloan/Holds of media – Letter sent based on motion (passed 11-2) from LDAC Meeting of December 6, 2007.                                                                                                                                           ATTACHMENT B
                                                                 ACCEPT AND PLACE ON FILE

Please note:  Upon reasonable notice, efforts will be made to accommodate the needs of disabled individuals through sign language interpreters or other auxiliary  aides.

V.   BOARD OF TRUSTEES – COMMITTEE AND ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS REQUIRING ACTION.

             A.    Finance and Personnel Committee.

                    1.  Financial Reports – October, 2007.
                                                                             ACTION     ATTACHMENT C

VI.  BOARD OF TRUSTEES – ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS REQUIRING ACTION.

             A. Interloan/Holds of Media Items

                    1. Letter to MCFLS Attorney Graupner requesting Legal Opinion.
                                                                              ATTACHMENT D

                    2. Attorney Graupner’s response.
                                                                               DISTRIBUTED AT MEETING 
                                                                                ACTION   

VII. ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATIONAL ITEMS.

             A.     MCFLS 2008 System Plan – Letter of Approval from DPI    State Superintendent Burmaster.
                                                                                ATTACHMENT E

             B. Director’s Report.                                  ATTACHMENT F
                                  

VIII. NEXT MEETING DATES.

A. Finance and Personnel          January 28, 2008.  8:45 a.m.
B. MCFLS Board of Trustees   January 28, 2008.  9:00 a.m. 

IX.           ADJOURNMENT. 

ATTACHMENT   A

Milwaukee County Federated Library System
Board of Trustees
Minutes of

Regular Monthly Meeting Held Monday, November 26, 2007

At

Milwaukee County Federated Library System
709 North Eighth Street
Milwaukee, WI 53233

ROLL CALL

Present:                  Martin Schreiber, President
                                Paul Ziehler, Vice President
                                Ron Tays, Treasurer
                                Michele Bria, Trustee
                                Dan Devine, Trustee
                                Mardee Gruen, Trustee
                                Mike D’Amato, Trustee

Staff:                       Jim Gingery, Director
                                Steve Heser, Library Systems Administrator
                                Judy Kaniasty, Business Manager/Personnel Assistant (Recorder)

Others:                   Beth Carey,  Shorewood Public Library
                                Bruce Gay, Milwaukee Public Library
                                Paula Kiely, Milwaukee Public Library
                                Pat Laughlin, Hales Corners Public Library
                                Margaret Luczywko, St. Francis Public Library
                                Gary Warren Niebuhr, Greendale Public Library
                                Sheila O’Brien, Greenfield Public Library
                                Cathy Peterson, Whitefish Bay Public Library
                                Barbara Roark, Franklin Public Library
                                Rebecca Roepke, Cudahy Public Library
                                Dennis Jones, City of Milwaukee Citizen

I.                     CALL TO ORDER.   President Schreiber called the regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Milwaukee County Federated Library System Board of Trustees meeting to order  at 9:00 a.m.

II.                   APPROVAL OF MINUTES.  Vice President Ziehler moved and Trustee Gruen seconded a motion to approve the minutes of the meeting held Monday, October 22, 2007, which are shown as Attachment A of the agenda packet.  Unanimously approved. 

III.                 PUBLIC COMMENT.  Barbara Roark, Director of Franklin Public Library, commented on the media holds issue. Barbara mentioned that they had signed the new Member Agreement assuming that conditions would remain the same and expressed surprise when MPL announced their intention to no longer do media holds. We are in a customer service business and need to keep in mind services to our customers. She expressed concern that once we limit DVDs from being held it could snowball to arbitrary designation of materials not being holdable. She asked the board members to look at this issue from a system perspective. Pat Laughlin, Director of Hales Corners Public Library, expressed concern that when the Hales Corners Public Library Board signed the 2008-2011 member agreement, they signed with  the expectation that all resources that had been available in the past via interloan would be available during the term of this agreement as well. Sheila O’Brien, Director of the Greenfield Public Library, spoke and distributed a document entitled “Position Statement of the Greenfield Public Library Board Regarding Milwaukee Public Library’s Proposed Elimination of Media Holds in 2008” (Exhibit 1). The Greenfield Public Library Board urges the City of Milwaukee to restore the $100,000 to the library budget so that MPL can continue to honor its customary practice of sharing inter-loan media materials with all residents of Milwaukee County.  Rebecca Roepke, Director of Cudahy Family Library, mentioned that the Cudahy Family Library had sent a letter to Milwaukee that expressed serious concern over this proposed new policy and believes that this action undermines the same services requirement of system membership. Beth Carey, Director of Shorewood Public Library, expressed concern that this policy by one library would result in an unfair burden being placed on Shorewood media materials, where Shorewood items would go out to City of Milwaukee patrons while Shorewood patrons would not be able to receive Milwaukee Public Library items. Margaret Luczywko, Director of St. Francis Public Library,  mentioned that St. Francis serves many City of Milwaukee residents. She doubts that library patrons would be willing to drive to City of Milwaukee locations where parking is often a problem and thus this policy in effect denies resources to patrons. Cathy Peterson, Director of Whitefish Bay Public Library, stated how fortunate we are to have a library system that shares so many materials. She criticized how this decision was arrived at in that we have only known about this for two months. She believes it is important to stop this policy from being implemented. Gary Warren Niebuhr, Director of Greendale Public Library, stated that the Greendale Public Library Board sees the implementation of a policy of one member opting out of interloan of media resulting in an undue burden being placed on the materials and staff of the Greendale Public Library. Dennis Jones, a  City of Milwaukee citizen, spoke and expressed that he and other citizens would be negatively affected by a policy that would result in less interloan of materials. Vice President Ziehler asked the public if they might stay for the rest of the agenda in case the Board had questions or needed further input later in the meeting. 

IV.                 LIBRARY DIRECTORS ADVISORY COUNCIL – REPORTS. 

Report of the LDAC meeting of September 13, 2007is ATTACHMENT B  and the LDAC meeting of October 4, 2007 was distributed at the meeting (Exhibit 2). The November 1^st LDAC meeting report will be distributed at the next MCFLS Board meeting. Vice President Ziehler noted that the ICC report was mentioned in the September report. Paul had a copy of the ICC report on hand and summarized its findings.  Vice President Ziehler thought that the net result of the process was that MCFLS is doing a number of things well and needed some minor tweaking..The report is a compilation of the workshop activities and other than a short two page summary does not offer much that we did not already know. The two page summary might be worth looking at. The summary mentions that we should continue to foster cooperation.and that two remaining issues are governance and reciprocal borrowing. Paul believes that the reciprocal borroiwuing issue may have been essentially addressed in the new 2008-2011 member agreement. Governance remains an issue of some concern. Director Gingery will make copies of the ICC report available for all MCFLS Board members. 

V.                   BOARD OF TRUSTEES – COMMITTEE AND ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS REQUIRING ACTION.

A.      Finance and Personnel Committee.

1.                    Financial Report – September, 2007.  Treasurer Tays reported that the Finance & Personnel Committee recommends approval of the September 2007 financial report which is shown as Attachment C of the agenda packet.  Treasurer Tays moved and Trustee Bria seconded a motion to approve the September 2007 financial report as presented.  Vice President Ziehler wondered why some revenue lines such as Postage and TNS appear a little short. Judy Kaniasty mentioned that the report does not include 3^rd quarter bills  and that is the reason some items appear to be short of revenue. These items should self correct as the 3^rd and 4^th quarter revenue comes in for those items. Unanimously approved.

2.                    Bargaining Unit Agreement. Treasurer Tays reported that the Finance & Personnel Committee recommends approval of the 2008/09 Bargaining Unit Contract. New terms will include 2.5% pay raises for each of the two years. Treasurer Tays moved and Trustee Bria seconded a motion to approve the 2008/09 MPL Bargaining Unit Contract.  Unanimously approved. 
 

VI.                 BOARD OF TRUSTEES – ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS REQUIRING ACTION.

A.    Report of the MCFLS Board of Trustees Nominating Committee – 2008 MCFLS Board          Officers.  President Schreiber announced that the subcommittee report recommends the following officers for 2008 : Paul Ziehler, President ; Michele Bria, Vice President ; Ron Tays, Treasurer. Unanimously approved.

B.       MCFLS Board of Trustees Meeting Dates - 2008.  Director Gingery reviewed Attachment D of the agenda packet and noted that we want to try to keep dates as consistent as possible. The dates scheduled for 2008 are the 3^rd Monday of each month with the exception of January, which is moved to the 4^th Monday dues to Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Approved by unanimous consent.

VII.               ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATIONAL ITEMS. 

A.                  Director’s Report.  Director Gingery referred to his report, shown as Attachment E of the agenda packet.  Director Gingery mentioned that Ecommerce became available to the public  on November 12 and commended Steve Heser for his efforts in overseeing the Ecommerce implementation. Director Gingery also distributed a 2008 Approved Budget document that is totally filled out with all appropriate numbers (Exhibit 3).
 

B.                   Interloan/Holds of Media Items.  President Schreiber mentioned that we are fortunate that Alderman D’Amato is present to give some insight on the City of Milwaukee process that arrived at this decision. President Schreiber said that in consultation with the Milwaukee Public Library Director, it is his understanding that MPL has no option other than to carry out this budget directive. It is almost like a “Sophie’s Choice” of decisions – but the decision has been made. The City Council had adopted a budget and it will go into effect. Director Gingery has a couple of options – he can continue to fight it and you (directors) can continue to fight it, but what will be the final solution, what is the answer ? – should we go to Mayor Barrett and make him change his mind or should you go back to your City Councils and try to come up with money and give it to the City of Milwaukee to help pay for this service. As painful or disagreeable as this may be, it is Director Gingery’s job to try to make this work. Unless he can wave a magic wand and make this money appear or convince you to give money to the City of Milwaukee,  this is his job (to implement the policy).
 
Trustee D’Amato said that he did not personally support the Milwaukee decision either as a member of the MPL library board or as an alderman, but unfortunately his position did not prevail due to other priorities in the budget. Trustee D’Amato mentioned that this policy still upholds the “same service” requirement since the policy treats both City of Milwaukee and suburban residents the same. If Director Gingery does not implement this policy, it ends up hurting your own patrons. These items will not be held on January 2^nd and  MCFLS needs to take action necessary to inform patrons what the expectation will be on January 2^nd.  It is unfortunate that it happened, but it did, and now MCFLS has to react to what has happened.

Treasurer Tays appreciated that budgets are always about competing values and that Trustee D’Amato opposed the change, but one of the reasons there were not enough people at the budget hearings is that word did not get out. Treasurer Tays mentioned that he attended the LDAC meeting on November 1^st where this was discussed and there was plenty of emotion about this proposed change and attempts were made to meet with the mayor but it didn’t happen. The problem with making this decision was that it has a very high impact on the rest of the citizens of Milwaukee County. While this proposal may not break the same services requirement,  he believes it may be breaking the membership agreement in terms of interloan.
In the letter from the MPL Director of November 16 mention is made of the requirement of a new interloan rule. If a new interloan rule is needed, then there may well be violations of the membership agreement. If the membership agreement is violated, then the membership agreement is dead for all of us, leading to a truly tumultuous situation. Every library could set what it could or could not interloan to each other and the MCFLS software wouldn’t be able to handle that and it would be a madhouse for patrons. That situation could snowball into something very unpredictable come January or February. It was a decision that impacted a lot of people on a very short notice. If this policy goes into effect as is, it is already a huge step backward for the library system. If others create policies that would further draw back interloan, it would get a lot worse, leading to chaos. He appreciates Alderman D’Amato’s personal stance, and hopes that reconsideration can be made by the City of Milwaukee.

Alderman D’Amato responded that it is the right thing to do to begin to prepare for this change so that it is transparent to patrons what is taking place. He also mentioned that if it is indeed a violation of the member agreement, this should be determined one way or the other rather than speculating on it.

Vice President Ziehler suggested that he as President-elect and President Schreiber try to arrange a meeting with Mayor Barrett to highlight the importance of this issue and find out if there might be some way Milwaukee might find some mechanism to fund this.

Director Gingery mentioned that the City of Milwaukee was not fundamentally in a position to make this kind of decision by itself. Interloan is fundamentally a system issue. There are two fundamental system requirements – same services and interloan. This decision to change interloan unilaterally was a decision Milwaukee should not have made on its own, since it is a fundamental responsibility of being a system member. Any decision by any member could be made and justified as a budget matter, but interloan is a service that takes place within the requirements of system membership. If one member makes a determination to longer retrieve paging slips or do interloan, that action impacts all other members. MCFLS is an organic whole, so this is not properly an individual library decision. We must also stand against this decision because carrying this out will do fundamental damage to CountyCat. The disjointedness of policies creates a catalog that would be a mess and there is no way this could be explained to patrons in any logical way. Director Gingery said he doesn’t know of any system that would put out such a poor catalog. It would be an embarrassment. It is our responsibility to keep uniformity of services both from a statutory and a common sense perspective.

Trustee D’Amato responded that he agreed that it is not a good decision, but MCFLS is not in control of  the budget decision and the question comes down to whether a library is or is not in violation of the member agreement. There is nothing MCFLS can do to change the decision. That being said, the Board can certainly meet with the mayor and others to try to persuade them to change. In the meantime, however, MCFLS needs to prepare to do the necessary things to implement the decision. If the change is not made on January 2^nd, residents of other communities will place the holds but they won’t be filled.

Director Gingery asked once again whether this means Milwaukee would not fill those holds.

Trustee D’Amato said  Milwaukee doesn’t have the funds or staff to fill the holds, the holds would not be filled..

Director Gingery responded that Milwaukee is doing the service now. 

Trustee D’Amato said that the holds will not be retrieved on January 2^nd, therefore the embarrassment to MCFLS would be if we did not inform patrons of what they can expect on January 2^nd. The system must react to the benefit of patrons, not so we can make some point about whether we agree or not. We need to be prepared.  

Director Gingery said  we’re talking about what benefits the patron and yet the MPL policy actually hurts the patron and the system. This particular budget decision made by MPL is “trumped” by the responsibility MPL has to system responsibility. This is a service decision that fits under the member’s system responsibility.  This budgetary option should never have gone to the City of Milwaukee  This was not an optional item that should ever have been considered. It opens the door for any library to do anything. I’ve already heard from a library who wishes to now pull back on the interloan of books. Milwaukee will now have set the precedent. This has a steamrolling effect that could ultimately destroy our system. It’s the Milwaukee Library Director’s responsibility to go back to the Mayor and say oops ! this was a decision that had wider ramifications than just our budget. This involves systemwide responsibility for interloan. We’re going to have to look somewhere else for this money.

Trustee D’Amato appreciates the spirit but it is not ultimately our decision to make. As an alderman he was not able to convince the council otherwise and therefore the decision has been made. Unless Trustee Ziehler and others can be more convincing than he was, the decision already made is what’s going to happen. Once again if we don’t follow through with implementing this, MCFLS will be embarrassed

Trustee Bria stated that she concurs with Alderman D’Amato. She is aware of the processes of the City and the decision has been made. To reverse that would likely take a long time, so it’s important that MCFLS collaborate with MPL to make sure the implementation goes as smoothly as possible and that patrons are properly notified of the change.  Trustee Bria also mentioned that we underestimate the power of our citizens. It isn’t that MPL is no longer going to allow DVDs and Cds be checked out, and the City of Milwaukee has wonderful, walkable neighborhood libraries and a wonderful, downtown library.  If the suburbs start denying holds on spirit rather  than budgetary issues, then that is a more severe problem. If this is such a severe problem, perhaps the suburbs need to help come up with the $100,000 and not place the burden completely on Milwaukee.

Vice President Ziehler said he saw an email from Mike Cross indicating that this was a system policy issue.  The question becomes how can one member make these kind of decisions without the system board weighing in on it. If it’s a system policy issue, then on one hand it likely means it does not violate state law (or Mike Cross would have said so), but if it’s a system policy issue,  then it must be a question of whether or not it violates our member agreement’s clauses regarding same service and/or interloan. It is therefore important to resolve this issue immediately through our attorney, because if it does violate interloan, then we should  not take any steps to implement. If Mayor Barrett and the council are told that it does violate member agreement then that would force another direction. A policy changing interloan would then be ruled out as an option. If it is found out that the policy does not violate interloan, and we wanted consistency across the system, we might want to tell the other libraries that they should do the same, although I know they don’t want to. He thinks the libraries would be irate, but it does give us consistency. It doesn’t deal, however, with the deterioration of service. If Milwaukee can change interloan in one respect today, then another library could do something regarding interloan tomorrow, and another library something else. Then we’ll wake up some day in the future and we’ll have no interloan left.

Trustee Gruen said that it’s extremely unfortunate that after the big accomplishment of concluding a four year member agreement (2008-2011), that whether it’s legal or for whatever reason, this will be a very difficult sell. It seems like immediately after the conclusion of the member agreement with all its components, about five minutes after it was completed, there is this Johnny-come-lately issue that results in the result that the member agreement is not exactly as we had expected. While not knowing whether it’s legal or not, the possible reinstatement should be kept alive for the next budget cycle.

Trustee Bria reminded everyone that the Milwaukee Public Library budget funds have decreased over the years and as staff gets cut, the issue becomes a question of service hours or holds, not access to materials.   The priorities of the city became service hours and ensuring safe havens. This issue seemed to have been decided last month and she is not quite sure why this is still being debated.

Trustee D’Amato said that a broader issue emerged with the Milwaukee Common Council in that media items such as CDs and DVDs are not a priority. The feeling is that holding/interloaning these items is a luxury. Trustee D’Amato does not agree with that opinion, but it is a strong opinion among many members of the Common Council.

Vice President Ziehler stated that the MCFLS Board, as a system policy decision maker, (if  DVDs and CDs were considered as luxury items for holding/interloan), could move that this be represented in the interloan policy of all 15 libraries, and this then could be understood that there is no advantage or disadvantage for any particular library. Perhaps we ought to do this for all 15 libraries. This would at least retain consistency.

Trustee D’Amato would not support mandating anything for the other communities because he thinks this is a decision each community must make for itself. He wouldn’t want to tell a community it can’t provide that service. It is a decision that must be made by each community.

Vice President Ziehler responded by saying where it becomes a system issue is on the issue of consistency. If we can’t explain it to users and the only way we can explain it is through consistency, then it would be done for a good reason.

Trustee Tays mentioned that it is difficult to discriminate what is entertainment or not, and that becomes a slippery slope. Where that ends and begins is difficult. You might be able to say that about “Spider Man”, but what about “Citizen Kane?” Where is the line drawn ? It’s a slippery slope that is hard to answer.  The other issue is the impact on the suburbs as it does increase the work that is needed, it increases the reciprocal borrowing numbers, but there is no additional compensation under this Member Agreement. The workload goes up and causes a negative financial impact on the suburbs.

Director Gingery mentioned that this has been characterized as a $100,000 issue, or 2.5 positions The issue is retrieval of materials at Central Library. Under this new policy, since media is 30% of retrieval,  retrieval of materials will still continue for 70% of the material. In other words, staff will still need to be employed to do this service. From a budgetary standpoint, how does cutting 30% of retrieval at Central translate into 2.5 positions ?

President Schreiber said that is a question that this Board is unable to answer. 

Something has happened that we do not like, but it’s there. It has occurred. On January 2 it is going into effect. So what do we do ? We’re confronted with an issue.
1) We need a legal opinion regarding the member agreement as soon as possible and the legal opinion should go to each individual Board member as soon as possible

2) There will be an attempt to have a meeting with the Mayor.

Trustee D’Amato made a motion that MCFLS staff be directed to immediately begin preparing for the change on January 2^nd.  Discussion ensued regarding this motion.

Trustee Ziehler requested that we wait until another Board meeting takes place on December 17^th in order to see whether we will be required to make the change.

Trustee D’Amato requested that a plan be developed outlining the steps necessary. The MCFLS Director should work with MPL to develop a plan that would outline the steps necessary to implement the policy by December 14.

Paula Kiely, Milwaukee Public Library, outlined what would be necessary on the MCFLS side  to implement the plan. Mostly, MCFLS would need to create the Item Types necessary to allow the plan to go forward.

Trustee Ziehler asked if various combinations of interloan decisions among the libraries could be done.

Director Gingery said that various combinations could be accomplished with one exception. We cannot have a policy where some suburban libraries will serve Milwaukee patrons with media interloan and some libraries will not serve Milwaukee patrons with media interloan.

Trustee D’Amato said  that suburban libraries would be breaking the same service requirement if they allowed media holds for their patrons but denied City of Milwaukee patrons the same.

Trustee D’Amato moved and Trustee Gruen seconded a motion that (1) MCFLS seek a legal opinion by December 14, 2007, from the MCFLS Attorney as well as Milwaukee Public Library seek an opinion from the City of Milwaukee Attorney as to their interpretation of whether any member agreement violations would occur if Milwaukee discontinues interloan/holds on their entertainment DVDs/videos and music CDs and whether discontinuation of that service would be a violation of the interloan requirement for system membership as stated in the Wisconsin Statutes.  The opinions are to be shared with each MCFLS Board Member as soon as received; (2) that MCFLS Board Members try to hold a meeting with Mayor Barrett and Alderman Hines with the purpose of  sharing with the City of Milwaukee implications to MCFLS and  member libraries if Milwaukee discontinues interloan/holds on their entertainment DVDs/videos and music CDs ; (3) to direct MCFLS staff to begin developing a plan in collaboration with MPL so as to be prepared to implement changes so MPL’s change in interloan policy can take place January 2, 2008.  Motion passed on a vote of 6-1. 

Vice President Ziehler stated that if the MCFLS Attorney should indicate that  the change in interloan policy by the City of Milwaukee would, in the Attorney’s opinion, be a violation of the member agreement,  then at the MCFLS meeting on December 17^th,  , the MCFLS Board, as an option, could then direct MCFLS staff not to implement MPL change in interloan policy. 

VIII.             NEXT MEETING DATES.

A.                  Finance and Personnel.  Scheduled for December 17, 2007,  beginning at 8:45 a.m.

B.                   MCFLS Board of Trustees.   Scheduled for December 17, 2007, beginning at 9:00 a.m.

IX.                ADJOURNMENT.  With no further business to come before the Board, rustee Gruen moved and Trustee D’Amato seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting at 10:50 a.m. Unanimously approved. 

ATTACHMENT   B.

ATTACHMENT   C