CLAN STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING OCTOBER 26, 2006

1. CALL TO ORDER
This regularly scheduled meeting of the CLAN Steering Committee was called to order by President Regina Slezak at 9:40 A.M. at the Warwick Public Library.

Steering Committee members in attendance: Dan Austin, Susan Aylward, Judy Bell, Carol Brouwer, Donna DiMichele (representing Beth Perry), Shirley Long, Laura Marlane, Leslie Page, Regina Slezak, Eileen Socha, Kathryn Taylor, Ulla Virks. Absent: Karen Taylor

Also in attendance: Joan Gillespie (CLAN); John Carney (EPL), Doug Pearce (WAR)

2. MINUTES OF September 21, 2006 STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING
VOTED unanimously to accept the minutes of the September 21, 2006 meeting as presented. (Eileen Socha, Kathryn Taylor).

3. TREASURER'S REPORT-Shirley Long
Shirley presented the budget-to-date report for the period ending 9/30/2006. We have expended $502,379 of the $1,557,585 budgeted and we have received $405,300.47 in income of the $1,557,585 budgeted. There were no questions for Shirley on the report.

4. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT-Joan Gillespie
Joan reported on the following items:

• Atrion Contract-She has all but come to an agreement with Atrion regarding CLAN's contract for maintenance on the telecomm system.
  
• New retirement plan-Working in conjunction with CLAN staff, Joan has evaluated retirement plans and has made the switch to TIAA-CREF. There is a $2,000 startup cost and an ongoing $250 annual charge.
  
• CLAN office phone system-Joan has been investigating a new phone system because CLAN is currently on Warwick's phone system, which it is not supposed to be according to the lease agreement. It will cost roughly $6,742 to install a new phone system for the CLAN office. Joan has determined that there is money in the current year's budget to make this change. The Steering Committee discussed the process of changing services, such as telephone service, in the midst of a budget year. It was the consensus of the Committee that this is a judgement call on the part of the Executive Director, if the amount in question is in the $5,000-6,000 range and the budget can support the expenditure. The Committee also felt that we should have a written policy that outlines this consensus opinion.
  
• Membership fee delinquency-Joan reported that the North Providence library has not paid its membership fees for the first two quarters of the year and that this is a chronic problem. It was the consensus of the Steering Committee that any library delinquent in its fees should be charged the 1 ½ % interest that is stated on the bill. If a library does not pay for two quarters in a row, service should be shut off until the membership fees are paid.  
  
• Innovative consortium conference-Joan reported that she felt the conference was very valuable in terms of making connections with executive directors of other consortia and hearing their concerns.

5. SYSTEM STAFF REPORTS (Peter Bennett, Cindy St. Amour, Rick Payette)
Joan presented the written reports from Peter, Cindy, and Rick. The reports outlined issues involving the Millennium upgrade, the Telecom upgrade, the patron purge, DP staffing while Renee is on maternity leave, the Internet Explorer release, the Bradford Wireless project, the Dell OptiPlex 745 computers; and the new Millennium client. There were no questions for Joan on the reports as presented.

6. LIB FUTURES COMMITTEE REPORT (Eileen Socha)
Eileen reported that the bill to establish the 21-member commission was enacted in June. Betsy Dennigan has proposed a bill for $3 million to fund the study, the one catalog, and statewide database licenses. There will be a meeting in mid-November for the commission to establish its procedures as a commission.

7. REPORT OF HELIN/CLAN EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING (Regina Slezak)
Regina reported on the meeting that had been requested by HELIN's Executive Board. HELIN's agenda at this meeting was to get CLAN's help in looking at ways to share materials in case state funding does not come through. The two boards discussed setting up an ILL trial for direct borrowing and lending between HELIN and CLAN. The Steering Committee discussed this trial and since the Steering Committee was not opposed to the idea, Regina will talk with the HELIN president about the next step.

8. BUDGET DRAFT FY 2008 (Shirley Long and Joan Gillespie)
Shirley and Joan presented  a line item outline of the FY 08 budget along with the proposed fee schedule. This draft of the budget represents a 3.12% increase over the current year. The committee discussed adding a modest contingency line of $35,000 to cover unanticipated cost increases. Since Joan will be conducting a thorough audit of our personnel practices and policies in the spring after the budget has passed, there may be some changes she might propose which would involve cost increases. This contingency line would cover these possible increases or unanticipated increases in other line items, post-approval of the budget. Joan will add this contingency. There was also an error in the amount presented for network equipment maintenance. That error involves a $25,000 amount, which can be used to fund the bulk of the contingency line. Joan will correct the error. The Committee also felt that Conferences/Continuing Education should be a separate line in the budget, not bundled into the Professional Fees line. Joan will separate this out. VOTED unanimously to approve the budget as presented with the amendments discussed above. (Kathryn Taylor, Susan Aylward)

9. OLD BUSINESS
CLAN NAME CHANGE-Joan reported that all of the comments she received on the proposed new name "Ocean State Libraries" were positive, with one exception. Joan is estimating that the name change will cost in the ballpark of $6,670. This includes designing the logo; changing the name and logo on printed material; registering the new domain name; changing the corporation papers; and getting legal advice on the protocol of the name change. Joan presented two possible logos that had been designed and she is awaiting a third design. The plan is to bring the new name to the membership on November 14th for a formal vote.  

TELEFORMS-Joan would like to hold off on purchasing the new messages for the Teleforms system until CLAN staff is certain that this product is really working and that it is one in which we want to make a significant investment, both to purchase the additional messages that it will take for the system to say the pickup location, and to fund the ongoing annual maintenance fees for the added service.

ST. GEORGE'S SCHOOL-Joan had not prepared a formal proposal of the "fee-for-service" option that was discussed at the previous Steering Committee meeting. But she suggested that we could do something like charge a library 75% of what a membership fee would be. Joan has talked to Peter and he believes the "fee-for-service" model is an easy one to implement. There was much discussion on these issues questions:  to what services would a "fee-for-service" library have access; what would be the per-hour charges for additional services; how much should be charged in order for CLAN to see an economic benefit; how much income can we generate before we get into tax-related issues. The consensus of the Steering Committee was that it wanted to pursue the "fee-for-service" idea in conjunction with this one request before us from St. George's School. Joan will give a progress report at the November 14th meeting, but we will wait until the February meeting to ask for a membership vote, since there are several aspects of the proposal that need to be more clearly articulated.

10. NEW BUSINESS
DEPRECIATION POLICY-CLAN's accountant, Bob Allen encourages us to adopt a formal depreciation policy. Joan presented a draft of the policy with a figure of $300 as the threshold above which all items purchased will be capitalized. The Committee felt the $300 figure was low and asked Joan to go back to Bob with a proposed figure of $1,000 for a capitalization threshold.  

INSURANCE QUOTES-Joan presented information on adding $1 million liability and property insurance, officers and directors insurance, and life insurance for CLAN staff. There was much discussion on the topic.

ADDING PARTIAL BENEFITS FOR PART-TIME EMPLOYEES-Joan presented a proposal for adding partial benefits for part-time employees working between 20 and 37.5 hours a week. The Committee discussed the proposal and VOTED nine in favor, one opposed to accepting it as proposed (Eileen Socha, Shirley Long).

GROUP PURCHASE COMMITTEE-Laura Marlane would like the Steering Committee to establish a charge for the committee that would allow them to look at other group purchasing issues beyond that of statewide databases. This will come up for discussion at the next Steering Committee meeting.

11. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 12:05 PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan Aylward, Secretary