 I think we are all here at this time, Kyle. So whenever you would like to start the meeting, you may call up the agenda here. We'll go ahead and call the meeting of the meet public finance committee at 12 p.m. We do have a quorum and so we'll move on to item 1.2 approval of the minutes. I'm seeking a motion to approve the minutes from April 23rd 2020. This is Maeve. I move approval. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. On to item number 2, 2-1, review and action on payment of current expenditures including payroll and special revenues. I will jump over to Derek. So actually, and I'll delegate this to Debbie D'Amico is online as well. I sent out with comments everything appears to be normal from the payables. I didn't get anything out of the ordinary. So. Any questions for Debbie on the gifts or the accounts payable? Hearing none. I'm seeking a motion to approve the payment of current expenditures including payroll and special revenues. This is Mary Lynn. So moved. And moved. Is there a second? Second. Moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. Item 2-2. We've got a state budget. I will turn that over to Derek and Debbie. Okay. The only thing on that is where I stated in my email is that the city levy posted. So that is not on the financials as of this week. And then we're still, we're still set to approve the budget next week or later this week at the full board. Correct. Um, actually that's just a discussion. We don't really do any action on the budget. Approval each month or each meeting. So. Very good. Any other questions for Garrett or Debbie with that, we can move on to item number two, three discussion impossible action on late fees way for patrons under the age of 18. So before the pandemic, we had had a discussion as a board on a couple of occasions about the opportunity to wave or remove late fees, at least starting with patrons under the age of 18. Obviously COVID has changed the landscape a bit for us financially and really for everybody. And so we will want to circle back on this. Um, May or Garrett is do one of you want to talk at all on this particular topic? Yeah, Kyle, I'll start. Um, this is Garrett. So in January, I believe at the January meeting, I handed out two reports from 2019 regarding, um, the amount of fines that we had charged out to patrons, as well as how much had been collected. And those two documents are reattached to board docs to this item. And, uh, it looks like for youth materials last year, we received about a little over $7,300. And so, uh, Maeve did ask us to put this back on the agenda for finance as well as the full trustee board meeting on Thursday. And so I'll kind of open it up from there on the discussion. So, uh, this is Maeve. Um, I had asked that, uh, this be put on the agenda because, uh, as Garrett rightfully pointed out, we were beginning the process of considering, um, perhaps waving fees for, uh, youth and possibly also adults, but, uh, then COVID, uh, 19 pandemic happened and, you know, good things kind of got put on hold. Um, and just in light of, uh, the personal research that I've done and in talking to librarians and other patrons of the library, um, having a fee structure really does seem to inhibit, uh, some of our citizens from even borrowing books because of the fear of a fee that they're not able to manage a fee. And they're, and, uh, in light of everything that is, uh, more challenging this year and the fact that most likely the school district is going to have some, uh, challenges with, um, daily schedules and getting resources to our youth. Um, I really think it's in the best interest of our library and our mission if at the very least we waive fees for youth that we really need to be a place in which they can access materials and materials, uh, utilize them. And then if they are, uh, a little bit late in returning them, there is no fee. Uh, but I don't want the fear of a fee, uh, to result in our youth not borrowing from our resources because I think in these, this next year, uh, our youth need the support of the community more than ever. So, uh, that's why I asked Garrett to, uh, put this back on the agenda for today. Thank you, Maeve. Um, Garrett, I guess I have a quick question for you, or maybe this is a good question for Debbie. Um, so I would, I would say I'm inclined as well to support removing those fees for those under 18. Uh, the one thing I just want to make sure we consider is here, what does that financial impact look like in the library? So we're, there's about $7,800, I believe what we're talking about would be pulled from the budget in anticipated revenue from those fees. Um, I imagine that that's going to be down this year anyways, because we had essentially a full quarter, um, of no activity or, you know, limited ability for people to, to check out materials. So that would inhibit any, any fees being heard there. Um, but what does that look like if we, we pull that out, what type of expenditures, what offsetting cuts are going to be put in place. Um, as we know that revenue is already a tight conversation. I don't have the answer to that yet, Kyle. I think we're going to have to discuss that in admin about what sort of budget to present. But yeah, the 7,300, it could come from materials, it could come from a savings elsewhere. Um, I guess we have to figure out where that, where that is if you guys decide to pass that. It's not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things. When you look at, um, the total amount of the budget, but it's certainly always a struggle to find anything here and there because we're, we've been so tight for so many years. And then we did get the revenues from, um, Monarch and we're slightly on the adjacent. That might help off that, that a little bit. So. Okay. I guess I'll put out to either other committee members, any other thoughts, share your ML on, um, waiting this and essentially incurring that expense, if you will, uh, to our kids. Um, I think it's a really good idea. Um, and, um, I, I wholeheartedly support it. Obviously we need to look at it after it's been in place for some period of time to see what the impact is. And then, uh, you know, and I, I have to say that the materials we got quite a while ago, I haven't looked at in a long time. Do libraries, let's look at it in a non pandemic kind of situation. What do libraries, ways, like these do, if anything with respect to educating patrons about responsibility to the library, to other people and that sort of thing. We. Is there, is there stuff in that material? And I'm sorry, I just don't remember. Well, as far as the materials, we're still going to charge a lost fee if it's not brought back within a certain period of time. I will say on the positive positive that the libraries that have done this have actually seen a large increase in the use of the materials when they're not worried about fines. And I can just speak from, um, some of the local school libraries. Uh, the librarians have noticed that, um, families who, um, you know, they don't even have a late fee, but there is such a fear of a fee being enacted if their child even brings home a book from the school library. So it really seems this, this just the practice of having a fee structure for youth collections has a ripple effect that seems to even be impacting how families are utilizing resources that are local schools. Uh, and I know that I've heard from, uh, local teachers that have said that families, uh, do not let their children take books out of the me public library because there is a fear of the fee. And it's just really, um, trying to change that dynamic is, is kind of my hope for this fee that we do end up with having more families utilizing the library in a way that they've never had before. It seems that it just kind of on its own leads to improvement and any kind of caught consciousness raising about, um, you know, the fact that when you don't return a book it means other people don't get it. You know, yada, yada, it really isn't probably that necessary. That's what I think I'm hearing. Which is good. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm fine with that. Great. The other thing that I would just like to add, which is so interesting to me is that, you know, many times, uh, libraries have talked about how the whole fee structure builds in responsibility, you know, in the citizen like this, this pack that they have with the community. But, you know, if we look at our mission and our vision, that's not, that's not our aim in our community. Right. So, uh, we really want to instead educate and to entertain and inspire. And the only way we can truly do that is if more people utilize our materials and not feel somehow, um, threatened by a fee structure. So are you looking for a motion to approve eliminating overdue fines or fees from material to the end of the year through perpetuity, just ending it, period. I mean, I think, I think we could make the motion permanent, but maybe there's a, uh, a period of time that we come back and look at this again and just to make sure it's working. I mean, if you want to do, like, I think that's fine. Yeah. So I make that motion and I move to eliminate the overdue fees for juvenile materials. Second. Moving seconded. A quick parliamentary inquiry, um, may even, uh, we're looking to prove it at the committee level and then submit that recommendation to the board for approval or is this fully controlled within the finance? Right. It's a, it's a recommendation to the boards, uh, for the board to consider this, um, issue on Thursday and then the full board will have a discussion and then vote. Very good. All right. Uh, any further discussions? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Uh, I am seeking for discussion of possible action meet public library investment. I think you're the right person to turn this over to. Is that correct? Actually, I'm going to turn this right over to Garrett. We're having. We're just clicking on buttons here. So, okay. Yeah, I thought I would start off Kyle and just set the context. Uh, some of you that haven't been on the board as long may not have all the background in it, but, um, this started off really in 1969, Ethel Everhard estate, uh, gave the library around $37,000. Uh, by 1974, the Everhard estate had given 133,000 overall. And then several other states in this, in the city began to give significant amounts to the library as well. Um, this money was all controlled by the library trustees and it was invested, uh, mainly toward through the Wisconsin state investment board, also known as SWIB. Um, and the fund on the library budget part of the city budget was called, it was the line was the 850. Um, and so this became known as the 850 fund, um, which we've also called the Mead fund now, but just so that you know the terminology. Um, however, then in 1989, the library formed a foundation in order to provide financial support and various investment vehicles that were not available to the trustees or to the city at that point. Um, so at the, after 1989, most of the large bequests were directed to the foundation rather than the library. Um, the 850 continued to collect interest and grow that way, but it wasn't gaining, uh, a lot in the principle from large bequests at that point. And so it was sort of like, I think of it as an orphaned account. It was still, uh, robust and stuff due to the markets, but we weren't actively, um, uh, putting money into it. Um, in 2014, a little after I had started, there were several trustee members that were interested in, uh, looking at that particular account, um, because it wasn't making very much interest. We had over a million dollars in the SWIB account, but it was invested very conservatively. At that point, we were making 0.05% of interest. And so on a million dollars, we were getting virtually nothing. And so we started, uh, discussing whether we should, um, move the money, create an agreement with the library's foundation that they could invest the money and that the trustees would still control it. That was sort of, uh, there was a lot of discussion at that time with the trustees about, um, whether to just donate it to the foundation or whether to just have them manage the money in one of their investment vehicles. And it was decided at that time, um, there was some strong, uh, some trustees with very strong financial backgrounds and interests in following that money. And so it was decided to compromise at that point. They would, um, just send the money over to the foundation for investment purposes. Um, so they did move it and it was a great move. It's, the interest has grown significantly. We've usually spend out the interest, um, and it's, it's, it's done a lot better financially than what we were doing before. Um, uh, the disbursements are still controlled by the trustees. And now as we look at this in 2020, uh, you know, there's, there's turnovers in all levels of our boards and so on. And we continually have to describe this process to new board members as well as to the council members and we'll have a new city administrator soon and so on. So, um, I just brought this up to Maeve that perhaps this is a time we should be talking about, uh, do we want to make that final, um, movement to just, uh, take what, what is in actually the, um, currently the state statutes. If you notice on this particular agenda item, I did attach the, um, the statute that shows the, not only the powers of the library board, but also that, um, if a bequest, or I'm going to read part of it, if the bequest or endowment is made to a public library, the board may choose to transfer the GIF bequest or endowment or its proceeds and then there's several options within this. This is on the back page. Um, they could transfer this to, um, um, an organization 501C3 whose purpose is to provide financial and material support to the public library or to a community foundation. So you guys have the right to move this money if you so choose, and it's just, I thought I would open it up for discussion on whether that's something we would want to do at this point. So, uh, this is Maeve, and, uh, I had also asked, uh, Gary to put this onto the finance agenda for you, Kyle. So, uh, thank you for letting me, uh, have this on the agenda. Um, I think the, the biggest challenge is that, um, this is money that has been privately donated to the library. Uh, it does not involve any tax dollars, and what becomes a challenge over time is when these monies are seen on the spreadsheet of the library, there is, uh, an, uh, an unfortunate, uh, confusion that seems to occur with, uh, new people that either join the Common Counsel or perhaps new people that join the city administration where they don't quite understand that that is not, um, city money, and it's not, uh, and, and it's private money that was donated for the library. So, in talking with Garrett, we were thinking that since already the foundation has the authority to invest and really wisely, you know, monitor our funds, that it might be the appropriate time to take the next step and have a lawyer draw up, uh, a simple one-page, uh, document, uh, doing a final transference of these, um, of this fund to the foundation, uh, that would allow for the trustees to still have, uh, some authority into directing, um, how those funds could be expended, and, uh, that is something that I have broached already with the foundation, uh, and, uh, they are, uh, most interested and they are willing to assist us in any ways to, you know, support the library. But, uh, as all of you are well aware that with the difficult financial times that municipalities have had over the years, uh, everyone is carefully looking at the spreadsheets as they should, everyone is carefully analyzing how tax dollars are being spent, and that's all appropriate. It just makes it challenging when the library has, uh, been given this wonderful gift, uh, many, many years ago, uh, to, to enhance, uh, library programming, and, uh, we want to be able to ensure that those wishes of those, uh, initial, uh, wonderful gifts are being followed through, and we think by, uh, uh, having the foundation take, uh, further, uh, take a further step of, uh, responsibility for it is in the best interest of our library and truly in the best interest of our city, so they have a greater understanding of the budget that the library has to work with every year. I would add one thing to that as well, and so Debbie spends, obviously, as our accountant a lot of time, uh, dealing with these issues, and so right now she has to make decisions on some of these, you know, we have to, I guess we have to, there's a lot more work to be done than what there needs to be right now. I think just having, uh, the monies in different places and so on, having it all in one place means it would just be easier to do her job, quite honestly. Um, Debbie or, or, or maybe Garrett, um, what is in the 850 line just dollar wise? Currently there's about, there's going to be about a million four after I pay for the the bed, or the material handling room and then the, uh, LED project, there'll be about a million four in there. Uh, Nate, do you have a sense of what the foundation, um, financial, uh, what the foundation actually has in its accounts now? Um, I can answer that as well. Okay. There's about three million six, and on those we can only spend the interest. Um, with the 850 or the library investment funds, those are used on request of what we want to use it for, either programming or if we want to enhance, like um, we're doing the office furniture right now through those funds. Um, that's the difference between the 850 funds and then the MOS and the endowment account. Got it. And if we transferred the 850 to the endowment account, would it limit the 850 use? No, we would still give a request and that account number is not going to change. Um, we just got uh, checkbook started over there and I just got the check. So we actually are going to spend, that checkbook will be just for 850, so we are not going to be transferring any 850 money back down into the foundation checkbook and then to write the check. So those would still be completely separate. The ownership would still best in the foundation. It would be in the foundation right. And they would give the okay if we could spend the funds or not versus the board of trustees. So Mary Lynn, one of the things we could Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Mary Lynn. I just need that to no brainer. We should just do it. Okay. It's crazy to have this separation. I was going to say, I mean, we can uh, however we decide to let the attorney know we can have it. Like Debbie said right now, the foundation you only uses the interest generally. Um, we could write up this agreement that if a library administration deemed it necessary, like something happened to the building or something that we could use, you know, the entire amount. They're sort of set up a little bit differently. Like when interest accumulates, there's actually a separate fund that that interest is put into. And then we know exactly how much we have to spend. Um, and we could keep it all in one pot. I think we're getting into the accounting piece, but we can certainly see that the principal is there if necessary. But, you know, we've had it since 1969. We've never dipped into the principal. So, I mean, I think we've been pretty good stewards of that money. Once the ownership is transferred to the foundation, as it should be, I think the foundation well, it would have to be an agreement I expect of some sort. Um, but the foundation would typically control the use and disbursement of funds and investment. Um, so if we want to keep these separate in terms of allowing the 850 money to have more flexibility, typically, in my experience, foundation boards never they never want to spend any money, you know, that they they'll dole out the interest, you know, typically on a rolling average, but that's about it. And so as long as that's clearly set out and the foundation is okay with those dual accounts, I think it's great. Well, the wonderful, this is Maeve and the wonderful uh, uh, foundation that we have really does want to work well with various groups who really want to support the library. So, the foundation is actually investing in helping the friends of Meade Public Library with their finances. So, they just did that maybe one or two years ago and they've been so pleased that they're getting more than what they used to get from their little checking account interest. So, I think we can certainly come up with a similar agreement that allows this money to be part of the whole, but yet separate depending on what the Board of Trustees of the library feel is necessary for our library during any given year. But you're right, that should all be part of that agreement, which is why we think it's in the best interest that we have a lawyer draw up this agreement for us so that it really stipulates what our wishes are. And one other comment is this will also be easier on the city finance department. They will not have to do any accounting into the financials to recognize those funds. So, that would be one less thing that the finance department would have to deal with. Well, I was just going to say this is Maeve, how wonderful that a committee actually creates less work for everybody. I've never been part of a committee that can proudly say that. So, I would move that we recommend to the Board as a whole that we engage a lawyer to draw paperwork to make this transfer funds to the foundations. Second? Maeve, seconds? Or Sherry? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign? Motion carries. We now have item 25, discussion and possible action around revisions to meet public library gift policy. And I will turn this over to Jared. Yeah, and this is sort of works in tandem with the last item on the agenda. Our gift policy was passed in 2014 as well, and we sort of made a compromise, I think, at that point. I'm trying to remember the whole thread of ideas that we had, but if you notice, as some of the lines that we struck out, letter C in that second group, we had decided at that point that any of the larger amounts, over $100 would go to the foundation and anything less than that would stay at the library. What we're thinking is would again make things simpler would be just to strike that language out and to say from this point on, all the donations that would go to the foundation and then we can deal with it all as one, so to speak, rather than having separate accounting for everything. So that's sort of what this policy update gets at. It actually simplifies our document quite a bit. Very good. Considering the previous conversation we had, we most will approve the recommendation. I didn't catch that Kyle. Sorry you were choppy there. It's okay. Does this still have to be approved by the full board? Correct. This would need to be a recommendation of the full board. I'm seeking a motion to recommend the board adapt the changes to the gift policy that we have. So move. With Maeve or seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Item number three, three one is future items for discussion. This is a little broad. I'll hand this over to Tejera. I'll put this on here each time. If board members have some other items they'd like to address at the next meeting just speak now. I'm making my way through and I'll be in very slowly and I even bought my own copy of policies for the people and I know we have a lot of other business going on but maybe we'd want to spend 10 minutes or something just accepting a chapter or something like that. That sounds great. That works for me. I like that. Yeah, palaces for the people I think you're referring to, right? Yeah. Yep. I think it's so seemingly appropriate now as we try to figure out what life after the pandemic is going to be like should we get after the pandemic which eventually we will. Yeah, it's interesting stuff. I'm sure that's actually on the full board agenda then for July I think we meet in July and not August, correct? Yes. So I'll make sure that's on the July agenda. I think and I forget what staff person I forget who it was who had assigned chapters. Yeah, that was Melissa. It was Melissa. Okay, maybe Melissa can go back and we can go back to chapter one. Okay, sure. No. She'll be happy. She has led a lot of discussions in that book as well. Mary Lynn, did you want that on the finance agenda or is that going on the full board agenda? Oh, that would be the full board. I think and it doesn't have to be, I mean whenever it certainly doesn't have to be this month's obvious place. Sure, whenever. Okay. Any other topics for future meetings? Hearing none. Item three two is one budget discussion and possible action. Is this Debbie? Yes. We're just waiting for their final I guess marching orders with there being a new city administrator. The parameters have not been discussed with the department heads yet. So worse is me doing two budgets and then having to change it. We're just waiting for us to see how the new administrators going to address the 2021 budget and then it won't take me long to figure out ours because it's pretty much done anyhow. Thank you, Debbie. Any questions? Hearing none. We'll move on to item number four up to the meeting. We do have a quick question. We were going to move to a quarterly meeting, I believe in July 23rd. Do we want to continue with that in light that we had this one or we want to push that out a little bit further? Well, if you want to wait until we have the budget when we know we have to have it approved for the city, we could push it out and we could always call the meeting if we have to, the budget has to be done before all this. Okay. What is the field of committee? I am okay with either but I want to make sure that the committee is all on the same page. This is Maeve and I think in light of us coming up with the budget season it might be beneficial for the finance committee to meet not on the same day as the board meeting just so discussions, questions and things can be fully explored prior to the actual board meeting in July. I would suggest August because July 23rd is pretty quick or do you want to just wait until we see a budget? I was going to say the one problem with that Debbie is I think the full board doesn't normally meet in August right now so we'll have to kind of figure that out once we do get our marching orders how to make this work better as far as days in the past the budgets are being submitted so much earlier than now maybe August isn't the right month to take off for the board I don't know we'll have to readjust that because normally our budget was passed in like June I think the last few years so Let's continue on right now planning for a 3rd meeting but it's like through communications from Deb or Sydney to see if given the budget this is Maeve again you know prior to the pandemic we had attempted to do a joint finance committee meeting and with the city and with the intent of that over the years was to kind of have a conversation about the budget what were the needs of the library in order to fulfill its mission so I think whenever we do put something together it might be an opportunity for us to have a joint meeting with the common council finance committee you know prior to them actually voting on the budget in the fall I agree I'm with you Maeve is that are you the one that coordinates that with the city council or is that something that we work through with ML or I think you have usually this is Maeve this is Maeve and usually what happens is Garrett and I try to coordinate with the head of finance and the city administrator for a date and time that seems to work well with both committees so that's how we've attempted it's certainly more challenged with this pandemic that we're in but it might be something that we can do a little bit later this summer with that we move on to item 5 5-1, a motion to adjourn I'm seeking a motion to adjourn the finance committee so move second all those in favor say aye aye aye both same sign motion carries we are adjourned thank you everybody thank you