Chicago City Wire

West Chicago Public Library Board of Trustee met February 27.

Here is the minutes as provided by the board:

A. Call to  Order: The meeting was called to order at 7:11 p.m. by

President Nancy Conradt.

B. Roll Call:

Trustees Present: Nancy Conradt, President; Richard Bloom,

Treasurer; Corrine Jakacki, Secretary; Pat Weninger, and Rosario

Herbst, Members.

Staff Present: Ben Weseloh, Library Director; Joan Happel,

Administrative Secretary; Maureen Bajor, HR/Facilities Assistant;

Amanda Ghobrial, Adult Services Manager; Dominique Roman, Youth

Services Manager.

C. Approval of the Minutes:

1. Board Meeting - January 23, 2017: Ms. Jakacki moved to approve

the minutes of the January 23, 2017, board meeting as published;

seconded by Pat Weninger.

Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.

D. Recognition of the Public: Maryann Mileto, Assurance Health.

E. Public Comments: None.

F. Agenda - Additions/Deletions: None.

G. Presentation:

1. Health Savings Account (HSA): Mary Ann Mileto from Assurance

provided a presentation about health savings accounts. She had

spoken last year with Maureen Bajor about HSAs; and while the

library is in the budget season, the library administration thought

it was a good time to talk about HSAs as potentially a way for

helping the employees manage their healthcare as well as possibly

providing some savings to the library.

The Library currently pays 100 percent for all employees'

healthcare coverage. Currently LIMMRiCC has four plan offerings:

A low deductible PPO, a high deductible offer, an HMO, and the HSA,

which is a $2,600 deductible.

Currently 16 employees have their health insurance coverage through the Library.

H. Treasurer's Report:

1. Approval of the Bills for November 2016: Mr. Bloom moved that

the board approve the expenses from November 30, 2016 in the amount

of $135,418.57; seconded by Ms. Jakacki. The November expense

document sent in advance of the January board meeting was not complete.

Roll Call Vote - Yes: Richard Bloom, Corrine Jakacki, Pat

Weninger, Rosario Herbst, Nancy Conradt. Motion carried.

2. Mr. Bloom moved that the board approve for payment January

expenses in the amount of $137,878.33; seconded by Ms. Jakacki.

Roll Call Vote - Yes: Richard Bloom, Corrine Jakacki, Rosario

Herbst, Pat Weninger, Nancy Conradt. Motion carried.

3. Financial Statements for January 2017: The Adjusting Journal

Entries have been made to the financials. Mr. Weseloh will further

present on the January Financial Statements during his report.

I. Communications:

1. Peregrine, Stime, Newman, Ritzman & Bruckner: The Library's

attorney sent a letter regarding the Open Meetings Act requirement

to recite on the meeting agenda the nature of a matter being

considered in advance of the matter being voted upon.

J. Reports:

1. President: President Conradt thanked the Evaluation Committee

for the work they did on the director evaluation tool. Ms. Jakacki

will provide President Conradt an electronic copy of the document.

The consensus of the board is to evaluate the director on the

completion of the goals that were given to the director last year.

For the upcoming year, the director will not be assigned specific

goals in advance of the fiscal year.

2. Library Director: A written report was contained in the board

packet. Fiscal year elapsed is 58.33 percent; the Library's

expenses are running at 57.25 percent of budget. The property tax

revenue is at 99.71 percent. Overall revenue is at 97.9 percent,

$44,000 below the 100 percent revenue figure.

Chicago Sign Company is completing the design work for interior

signage; the proposal is in the amount of $4,500 for the design

work. The project will be going out for bid to implement the

designs and manufacture the signs for the admin offices, the

departments, exit signage, and bathroom signage.

Mr. Weseloh met with Sara Phalen from the City Museum; they spoke

about the museum acquiring the phone booth and the Big Book. A

City Museum representative will visit the Library to look at some

of the artwork stored in the basement.

A staff in-service was held on February 10, 2017. Roger Ritzman

was the most popular of the in-service agenda. Patrina Garza,

Youth Services Librarian, submitted her resignation on February 1, 2017.

Kim Falco from Asset Control Solutions provided Mr. Weseloh a

proposal for doing an inventory at the library for valuation

purposes. Mr. Weseloh is going to follow up with the other venders

as well to see how the proposal compares. Mr. Weseloh is reviewing

the no-cost proposal and quote as a due-diligence investigation.

Ms. Weninger attended the ILA luncheon with Mr. Weseloh. Computer

filtering was one of the points discussed by a Political Action

Committee member. ILA continues to staunchly oppose filtering in

libraries due to their position on protecting the freedom to search

and freedom to view. One of the library initiatives is assisting

library visitors in discerning fact from fiction in news articles;

a brochure has been developed for this initiative.

WebLynx has produced a working draft of the new library website.

Staff will be testing the website for accessibility and usability.

The quarterly business review meeting with Sikich had to be

rescheduled; the new date is March 6, 2017. Discussion will be had

regarding the email storage/backup and retrieval.

The LINC Board of Directors met at the Villa Park Public Library.

Mr. Weseloh was not able to attend this meeting because it was held

the same day as the West Chicago Library in-service. The draft

budget was presented by the treasurer and administrator for member

review. This document was provided to the West Chicago trustees

for their review. Representatives from SWAN and RAILS were present

to talk about technology needs and grants, and next steps for the

process of joining SWAN.

Mr. Weseloh has distributed a survey to patrons to solicit input

for the purpose of long-range planning. 135 responses were

received in response to the first survey. The next survey will go

out on Monday, March 6, 2017. A couple common responses were to

make the library larger, and move the entrance closer to the

parking lot. Once Mr. Weseloh is able to compile the information,

he'll report back at the next board meeting.

The cardholder percentage is up to 44 percent.

3. Department Managers: Written reports from the Department

Managers were included in the Board Packets. Short oral reports

were provided by Amanda Ghobrial from the Adult Services Department

and Dominique Roman from the Youth Services Department. (Staff left)

4. Finance Committee: The Finance Committee met February 27, 2017,

at 6:10 p.m. Present were Mr. Bloom, chair; Rosario Herbst,

member; Nancy Conradt, ex officio; Ben Weseloh and Maureen Bajor, staff.

Discussion was had regarding the actual expenditures for the first

seven months of the fiscal year '16-'17. Patron-facing software

and technology have contributed to the expenses.

The Cost of Living Adjustment, the Merit Pool, the disposition of

corporate carryover, and the recommendation for external auditors

were discussed, a review of the salary schedule was begun. There

is a state-level proposal to increase the minimum wage from $8.25

to $11.00 an hour, which will be totally implemented by 2021.

If the increase is approved, the start date will be January 1, 2018.

The meeting adjourned at 7:10 p.m.

5. Evaluation Committee: The committee completed a line-by-line

review of the evaluation that was used last year and made some

small revisions. They discussed whether the trustees want to

observe the progress of goals that Mr. Weseloh had been assigned.

K. Unfinished Business: None.

L. New Business:

1. Cost of Living Recommendations: Mr. Bloom stated the Finance

Committee recommends that the board adopt a cost-of-living increase

of 1.0 percent for fiscal year beginning July 1, 2017, ending June

30, 2018; seconded by Ms. Pat Weninger.

Roll Call Vote - Yes: Richard Bloom, Pat Weninger, Rosario Herbst,

Corrine Jakacki, Nancy Conradt. Motion carried.

2. Merit Pool Recommendation for FY 2017-2018: Mr. Bloom stated

the Finance Committee recommends establishment of a $10,000 merit

pool for library personnel for FY '17-'18.

Roll Call Vote - Yes: Richard Bloom, Rosario Herbst, Corrine

Jakacki, Pat Weninger, Nancy Conradt. Motion carried.

3. Disposition of Corporate Carryover Funds: Mr. Bloom stated the

Finance Committee recommends transfer from the corporate carryover

fund an amount of $75,000 to the GASB 54 emergency fund account.

Discussion was had about regarding the restrictions of Special

Reserves versus GASB 54.

Roll Call Vote - Yes: Richard Bloom, Rosario Herbst, Corrine

Jakacki, Pat Weninger, Nancy Conradt. Motion carried.

4. Recommendation for Hiring of External Auditors for the Library

District: The Finance Committee discussed the Library's three-year

contract with Sikich, which has expired, and whether to retain them

or seek proposals from and hold interviews with three or four

competitive companies.

The Committee is very satisfied with the work performed by Sikich;

and the Committee recommends the board retain Sikich LLP as the

Library's external auditors of record for the next three years.

The contract has an out clause which allows either side to

terminate the contract for cause prior to completion.

Roll Call Vote - Yes: Richard Bloom, Rosario Herbst, Corrine

Jakacki, Pat Weninger, Nancy Conradt. Motion carried.

5. Report of the Committee for Semiannual Review of Closed Session

Minutes and Executive Session Tapes of July through December 2016:

Mr. Fokta was called out of town last minute, and the other member

of the committee was also absent from this board meeting;

therefore, the review will be postponed to the March board meeting.

6. LINC Budget: No discussion.

7. Library Director Evaluation Form: The Evaluation Committee

recommended approval of the revisions to the Library Director's

Performance Review document and adoption of the revised document.

Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.

M. Closed Session: None held.

N. Return to Open Session: No closed session held.

O. Adjournment: President Conradt adjourned the meeting at 8:24 p.m.

http://www.westchicago.lib.il.us/media/1759954/2017-02-27%20board%20of%20library%20trustees%20minutes.pdf