the-compact
Board Of Trustees Thursday, February 19, 2026 · 32 min

Bloomfield Township Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting on February 17, 2026

Summary

The city council meeting covered various topics, including the consent agenda, elevator repairs, and upcoming events, as well as budget discussions, vendor contracts, and staffing assessments.

  • The library's state aid application was submitted and reviewed.
  • The city council discussed vendor contracts and gift fund disbursement with department heads.
  • A motion to approve monthly cash disbursements was proposed and reviewed.
  • The library's fees schedule was reviewed and proposed changes were discussed.
  • The city council planned to hire a third-party firm to assess staffing and optimize resource allocation.

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Topics

Transcript

Click any timestamp to jump the video to that moment. Auto-transcribed; expect occasional errors on proper nouns.

  1. well we're called meeting to order anybody have a item to remove from the consent agenda wonderful motion to approve the order of items for the regular agenda so moved my short presence report would be simply an acknowledgement of how fantastic I thought the exhibit we had from the I don't know if you guys had a chance to go in there but it was literally right in the middle of the strike zone for I think our kind of target audience here in Bloomfield Hills and patriotic and well done and people you know it's a lot of work put into it thanks to all the staff and everybody else for that because it was fantastic all right well my first bit of news is good news that the elevators fixed we had just set in motion plans to stop taking donations we had signs made up put out at the road and then the next morning TK showed up with the part that we needed and they fixed the elevator so by 11 a.m. this morning it was working and we amazing yeah good good good yeah I am very pleased to announce that we are going to be hosting author Patrick Ryan on April 22nd yeah oh no this is similar to the author visit with Shelby van help when we partnered with westland field township public library in march of 2024 um we're doing the same thing again but this time we're hosting it in our neighborhood so it's going to be hosted at temple bethel which is a huge venue and we'll be able to accommodate um hundreds of people that i'm sure will come um april 22nd at 6 30. uh if you haven't read buckeye i highly recommend it it's a really great novel have you read it just finished it a couple days ago yeah it's very beautiful is it set in ohio it is okay yeah okay uh it debuted on the new york times best solo list at number four and i hope you can all attend that special night um there is a chamber music concert this friday the 20th at 7 p.m i'm just putting that on your radar there's also a bloomfield historical society program happening on sunday uh there's a flyer in your password folder about it it's uh the speaker is tim die who's the executive director of the pontiac transportation museum

  2. we amazing yeah good good good yeah I am very pleased to announce that we are going to be hosting author Patrick Ryan on April 22nd yeah oh no this is similar to the author visit with Shelby van help when we partnered with westland field township public library in march of 2024 um we're doing the same thing again but this time we're hosting it in our neighborhood so it's going to be hosted at temple bethel which is a huge venue and we'll be able to accommodate um hundreds of people that i'm sure will come um april 22nd at 6 30. uh if you haven't read buckeye i highly recommend it it's a really great novel have you read it just finished it a couple days ago yeah it's very beautiful is it set in ohio it is okay yeah okay uh it debuted on the new york times best solo list at number four and i hope you can all attend that special night um there is a chamber music concert this friday the 20th at 7 p.m i'm just putting that on your radar there's also a bloomfield historical society program happening on sunday uh there's a flyer in your password folder about it it's uh the speaker is tim die who's the executive director of the pontiac transportation museum and he'll be talking about the pontiac brand and speaking of the historical society i'm not sure how many of you know john marshall he was kind of a founding nobody knows john he was like a founding father of the historical society and um wonderful researcher had a lot of did a lot of research on homes in bloomfield township and other topics he passed away last week Yeah. Um, so I see the one who created the book. Yeah. Okay. And a lot of those, I think I met him once. Cause he was saying that so many of them are no longer. Yeah. Okay. It's an interesting book. I didn't know there were that many homes. Yeah. He's a very lovely human being and meticulous researcher. We've already got a lot of his research. That book is one thing. And he's given us a lot of other, um, bits of his research and his daughters have already said that they're willing to, you know, give over whatever else they can find. John Marshall? Okay. Yeah. And then I just wanted to let you all know that the library's state aid application was

  3. uh the speaker is tim die who's the executive director of the pontiac transportation museum and he'll be talking about the pontiac brand and speaking of the historical society i'm not sure how many of you know john marshall he was kind of a founding nobody knows john he was like a founding father of the historical society and um wonderful researcher had a lot of did a lot of research on homes in bloomfield township and other topics he passed away last week Yeah. Um, so I see the one who created the book. Yeah. Okay. And a lot of those, I think I met him once. Cause he was saying that so many of them are no longer. Yeah. Okay. It's an interesting book. I didn't know there were that many homes. Yeah. He's a very lovely human being and meticulous researcher. We've already got a lot of his research. That book is one thing. And he's given us a lot of other, um, bits of his research and his daughters have already said that they're willing to, you know, give over whatever else they can find. John Marshall? Okay. Yeah. And then I just wanted to let you all know that the library's state aid application was submitted to the Library of Michigan earlier this year. This is something that we have to fill out every year in order to receive state aid, which you see usually in our budget review. Oh, this is Catherine's job to do this application. It's quite extensive. It requires a lot of data and statistics that she has to collect from various places and put into this report. And then it goes to the Library of Michigan and it's kept on file there. In fact, you can look up statistics from every library for many, many, many years going back. And it's all based on that state aid application. So this isn't for the penal. No. This is something different. Okay. Does somebody get more than us? I好啦. sure i don't know how that's decided it's based per it's per capita so yeah を yeah and that's all i have to say wonderful thank you very much and turning to the budget review and a couple of questions about some of the spend starting on page four we talked you'll see here that we we paid c2ae 25 grand and tara and i have discussed kind of how we're going to watch the budget on this you want to take that one sure yeah um we i'll have kathy track each

  4. And then I just wanted to let you all know that the library's state aid application was submitted to the Library of Michigan earlier this year. This is something that we have to fill out every year in order to receive state aid, which you see usually in our budget review. Oh, this is Catherine's job to do this application. It's quite extensive. It requires a lot of data and statistics that she has to collect from various places and put into this report. And then it goes to the Library of Michigan and it's kept on file there. In fact, you can look up statistics from every library for many, many, many years going back. And it's all based on that state aid application. So this isn't for the penal. No. This is something different. Okay. Does somebody get more than us? I好啦. sure i don't know how that's decided it's based per it's per capita so yeah を yeah and that's all i have to say wonderful thank you very much and turning to the budget review and a couple of questions about some of the spend starting on page four we talked you'll see here that we we paid c2ae 25 grand and tara and i have discussed kind of how we're going to watch the budget on this you want to take that one sure yeah um we i'll have kathy track each invoice that we pay for c2ae and we'll keep tabs on that if you all want to see that each month i could put it in the board packet with maybe a summary of what activity we've done on the design project um yeah we'll just keep track of that and then as construction starts it'll be more complicated this part's pretty straightforward but well the managers who we hired are they going to bill us directly or will that is everything going to be funneled through c2 you well either that or mccarthy and smith and they're the managers yeah okay yeah and when do they start uh we are meeting with them on thursday our first meeting was actually signed a contract nope okay not yet they wanted to first finalize the budget to make sure that we've got the correct scope before we signed a contract okay so katherine and i are meeting with them on thursday okay I'll just go through online. On page five, there were two vendors I was curious about. One is Online Computer Library Center and the other was Playaway Products. Online Computer Library Center is better known as OCLC. That's its very old name, and that's how we have it in our vendor database, so we just keep saying that.

  5. to watch the budget on this you want to take that one sure yeah um we i'll have kathy track each invoice that we pay for c2ae and we'll keep tabs on that if you all want to see that each month i could put it in the board packet with maybe a summary of what activity we've done on the design project um yeah we'll just keep track of that and then as construction starts it'll be more complicated this part's pretty straightforward but well the managers who we hired are they going to bill us directly or will that is everything going to be funneled through c2 you well either that or mccarthy and smith and they're the managers yeah okay yeah and when do they start uh we are meeting with them on thursday our first meeting was actually signed a contract nope okay not yet they wanted to first finalize the budget to make sure that we've got the correct scope before we signed a contract okay so katherine and i are meeting with them on thursday okay I'll just go through online. On page five, there were two vendors I was curious about. One is Online Computer Library Center and the other was Playaway Products. Online Computer Library Center is better known as OCLC. That's its very old name, and that's how we have it in our vendor database, so we just keep saying that. But it's a vendor of a variety of library products, and we buy a product called Easy Proxy from them, which is what allows you as a Township resident to access our databases from outside of the library. It recognizes your library card and where you are and knows that it's okay for you to do that. Authentication. Yeah. And then Playaway is a vendor of these, it's like an audio book built into a picture book. Oh, the Wonder Book? Wonder Books, yeah. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. On page five, on the gift fund, I don't usually focus a lot on this because it's short dollars, but can you talk about how we decide how to disperse that money and who some of these vendors are, including in particular the staffing organization committee, why we wouldn't pay them, and Miss Edna Riley and the Lake House Bakery, all that stuff? Yeah, sure. Well, the gift fund is primarily money that we get from the friends, so usually there's an ask from the department head, it goes on the wish list, and then the friends grant us that money. We assign a number to it, and...

  6. Online Computer Library Center is better known as OCLC. That's its very old name, and that's how we have it in our vendor database, so we just keep saying that. But it's a vendor of a variety of library products, and we buy a product called Easy Proxy from them, which is what allows you as a Township resident to access our databases from outside of the library. It recognizes your library card and where you are and knows that it's okay for you to do that. Authentication. Yeah. And then Playaway is a vendor of these, it's like an audio book built into a picture book. Oh, the Wonder Book? Wonder Books, yeah. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. On page five, on the gift fund, I don't usually focus a lot on this because it's short dollars, but can you talk about how we decide how to disperse that money and who some of these vendors are, including in particular the staffing organization committee, why we wouldn't pay them, and Miss Edna Riley and the Lake House Bakery, all that stuff? Yeah, sure. Well, the gift fund is primarily money that we get from the friends, so usually there's an ask from the department head, it goes on the wish list, and then the friends grant us that money. We assign a number to it, and... And then as that money is spent by the department head, they make a note of that number, and then it's trapped by Kathy. Some of the items here, this is mostly for programs, collections. The staff organization committee is the $1,000 that I gifted to the staff organization committee for the party that we had. Because we have some gift funding on our books from endowment funds that were gifted to us that were specifically for. Um, staff morale purposes, so I offset the cost of that party a little bit, um, what else do we have on here? Recollect is our online database for local history archives, which you will see a preview of in the coming months. I am going to have Laura Craley come and give you guys a demonstration of that. Edna Riley is a program presenter for something, I can't remember what. I think so too. That one? Uh, Lakehouse Bakery, same thing. They're doing a program for us coming up. So mostly that's program presenters. Thank you. Anybody else have questions? I think I have a couple. Um, also on page five, uh, the,

  7. And then as that money is spent by the department head, they make a note of that number, and then it's trapped by Kathy. Some of the items here, this is mostly for programs, collections. The staff organization committee is the $1,000 that I gifted to the staff organization committee for the party that we had. Because we have some gift funding on our books from endowment funds that were gifted to us that were specifically for. Um, staff morale purposes, so I offset the cost of that party a little bit, um, what else do we have on here? Recollect is our online database for local history archives, which you will see a preview of in the coming months. I am going to have Laura Craley come and give you guys a demonstration of that. Edna Riley is a program presenter for something, I can't remember what. I think so too. That one? Uh, Lakehouse Bakery, same thing. They're doing a program for us coming up. So mostly that's program presenters. Thank you. Anybody else have questions? I think I have a couple. Um, also on page five, uh, the, Onalytics? Onalytics is an IT consultant and we also get a lot of licensing for various IT products for them. Okay. Um... Have a good one. Um... And just a couple down from that, City of Warren? That was to pay for a lost library item that we barbed through milk at. Thank you. How does it happen that there are three payroll periods? It's just the way the calendar goes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Anybody else? If you go to page seven, you look at our budget. On the revenue side, our investment earnings are down. But again, that's not because we forecasted poorly. We have to follow the guidance, and it just takes the historical amount, interest rates have dropped. So nothing surprising there. On the project side, it's a good thing that we're down, much below our budget for the year. And Tara and I were talking about how to get, what is that going to look like when we see it in the next budget package? You mean the big project, the design project?

  8. Onalytics? Onalytics is an IT consultant and we also get a lot of licensing for various IT products for them. Okay. Um... Have a good one. Um... And just a couple down from that, City of Warren? That was to pay for a lost library item that we barbed through milk at. Thank you. How does it happen that there are three payroll periods? It's just the way the calendar goes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Anybody else? If you go to page seven, you look at our budget. On the revenue side, our investment earnings are down. But again, that's not because we forecasted poorly. We have to follow the guidance, and it just takes the historical amount, interest rates have dropped. So nothing surprising there. On the project side, it's a good thing that we're down, much below our budget for the year. And Tara and I were talking about how to get, what is that going to look like when we see it in the next budget package? You mean the big project, the design project? Yeah, where does that go? It's going to be in the CIP. And so it'll come out of that, the line on here that's called projects. Yeah. So it'll go in there. So that'll be a big number next year. It'll be a big number, yeah. OK. Wonderful. And then on page nine. And the rest of those taxes are coming, going to come in. They're going to come in. Yeah. The headline, I think, already passed. I think it was yesterday. It was yesterday. Yeah. Late for you to start now. Yeah. It's just so strange to think. But, you know, it's all going to be there. It's going to be there. Well, I had to wonder because I went by on Telegraph and I saw that people were going in. I was wondering what was going on. They wanted to just drop it off there. And do you want to address page 10? Or, sorry, page 9. Yeah. So, Shane asked a question about on the asset allocation page, the RBC capital investments annual yield, which is listed as, what is it, 3 point something? I already have it. And Shane questioned that. That was a big drop between last month and this month. It turns out that that rate had been calculated for the month, not the year. Oh, gosh. So, the real rate is 4.09%. And we updated that in the packet on the website.

  9. You mean the big project, the design project? Yeah, where does that go? It's going to be in the CIP. And so it'll come out of that, the line on here that's called projects. Yeah. So it'll go in there. So that'll be a big number next year. It'll be a big number, yeah. OK. Wonderful. And then on page nine. And the rest of those taxes are coming, going to come in. They're going to come in. Yeah. The headline, I think, already passed. I think it was yesterday. It was yesterday. Yeah. Late for you to start now. Yeah. It's just so strange to think. But, you know, it's all going to be there. It's going to be there. Well, I had to wonder because I went by on Telegraph and I saw that people were going in. I was wondering what was going on. They wanted to just drop it off there. And do you want to address page 10? Or, sorry, page 9. Yeah. So, Shane asked a question about on the asset allocation page, the RBC capital investments annual yield, which is listed as, what is it, 3 point something? I already have it. And Shane questioned that. That was a big drop between last month and this month. It turns out that that rate had been calculated for the month, not the year. Oh, gosh. So, the real rate is 4.09%. And we updated that in the packet on the website. Okay. Just letting you know. Good catch, Shane. Anything else on the budget? I just wanted to ask about that Charnoff gift. Mm-hmm. What happens when it matures? We have to decide what we're going to do with it. And I just keep rolling it over because we don't have a good... We've done that before. Yeah. Okay. A couple times here. There might be something we could use it for in the design project. Yeah, because she was quite the art... She was quite an artist. Did you know her? I didn't. But, you know, I will say that people give a gift and want it used. You're using the real estate event. It's a good idea. right so it's great to be able to build right you know but um people want she also has a great um if you go by her house she brought from california i think they're redwoods but it's very surprising um enormous trees and they unfortunately people bought the house did not cut them down these things are massive um there's someone who was very close yeah i was on the personnel committee yeah on the other side but um she also loved landscaping so yeah and i the last time it

  10. And we updated that in the packet on the website. Okay. Just letting you know. Good catch, Shane. Anything else on the budget? I just wanted to ask about that Charnoff gift. Mm-hmm. What happens when it matures? We have to decide what we're going to do with it. And I just keep rolling it over because we don't have a good... We've done that before. Yeah. Okay. A couple times here. There might be something we could use it for in the design project. Yeah, because she was quite the art... She was quite an artist. Did you know her? I didn't. But, you know, I will say that people give a gift and want it used. You're using the real estate event. It's a good idea. right so it's great to be able to build right you know but um people want she also has a great um if you go by her house she brought from california i think they're redwoods but it's very surprising um enormous trees and they unfortunately people bought the house did not cut them down these things are massive um there's someone who was very close yeah i was on the personnel committee yeah on the other side but um she also loved landscaping so yeah and i the last time it matured it could be really nice to be able to use some of that gift yeah in a way that would be meaningful right for her and her family well we'll talk about it in november yeah wonderful uh then i will read the motion on page 10. i move to approve monthly cash disbursements in the form of checks numbers noted for a grand total of seven hundred and thirty thousand two hundred and thirty five dollars and eighty two cents and the category is noted as well second all in favor hi which takes us to call to the public and nicole our starring public member hello i'm just here from soc thank you for having me and that's all i have thank you for being do we have any unfinished business yeah so we are talking about our fees schedules their annual review of the fees so each year we review this it's

  11. committee yeah on the other side but um she also loved landscaping so yeah and i the last time it matured it could be really nice to be able to use some of that gift yeah in a way that would be meaningful right for her and her family well we'll talk about it in november yeah wonderful uh then i will read the motion on page 10. i move to approve monthly cash disbursements in the form of checks numbers noted for a grand total of seven hundred and thirty thousand two hundred and thirty five dollars and eighty two cents and the category is noted as well second all in favor hi which takes us to call to the public and nicole our starring public member hello i'm just here from soc thank you for having me and that's all i have thank you for being do we have any unfinished business yeah so we are talking about our fees schedules their annual review of the fees so each year we review this it's just a good library practice to review these fees as you know it used to be a more complicated schedule when we were collecting fines but those are now gone so it simplified things quite a bit but we still do charge some money for some services and one of those is if you take out a book and you never return it we do eventually bill people for that and so the only change every year the department heads pour over the schedule and they make their recommendations we talked about it at one of our department meetings and then I bring it to you all so the only change that we are proposing this year is when somebody there's one on the on the check register this month somebody checked out a book they never returned it they got billed for it and then they found it and they brought it back and they get a refund previously we said that we would not refund the $5 service charge that we also include in that fee but we've decided that we should refund it to them anyway so that's one change we're proposing and then the other change is just to add the term I ll to where it talks about if you check out

  12. schedules their annual review of the fees so each year we review this it's just a good library practice to review these fees as you know it used to be a more complicated schedule when we were collecting fines but those are now gone so it simplified things quite a bit but we still do charge some money for some services and one of those is if you take out a book and you never return it we do eventually bill people for that and so the only change every year the department heads pour over the schedule and they make their recommendations we talked about it at one of our department meetings and then I bring it to you all so the only change that we are proposing this year is when somebody there's one on the on the check register this month somebody checked out a book they never returned it they got billed for it and then they found it and they brought it back and they get a refund previously we said that we would not refund the $5 service charge that we also include in that fee but we've decided that we should refund it to them anyway so that's one change we're proposing and then the other change is just to add the term I ll to where it talks about if you check out malcat item we don't set that fee that's set by the lending library and we wanted to add ill to that so it was clear that those both kinds of items we also review the circulation and use policy which sets up who is eligible to get a card from this library and check out items and how many and all that the point of that policy is to make sure that bluefield township residents are getting priority service for checkout and we are still at 92 percent of all library material materials being checked out by boomfield township residents so that seems to be okay our meeting room rental fees we review those every year we're pleased to be a place in the community where people can gather and meet and we think that our meeting room rates are fair they're really affordable and a nice alternative to like a hotel or a conference center and it's 383 times up or down or about it's up it's been going steadily up since the pandemic good and then um just the annual review of our collection agency use we use a firm called unique management services to retrieve long overdue items and long unpaid bills and they're pretty effective as you

  13. malcat item we don't set that fee that's set by the lending library and we wanted to add ill to that so it was clear that those both kinds of items we also review the circulation and use policy which sets up who is eligible to get a card from this library and check out items and how many and all that the point of that policy is to make sure that bluefield township residents are getting priority service for checkout and we are still at 92 percent of all library material materials being checked out by boomfield township residents so that seems to be okay our meeting room rental fees we review those every year we're pleased to be a place in the community where people can gather and meet and we think that our meeting room rates are fair they're really affordable and a nice alternative to like a hotel or a conference center and it's 383 times up or down or about it's up it's been going steadily up since the pandemic good and then um just the annual review of our collection agency use we use a firm called unique management services to retrieve long overdue items and long unpaid bills and they're pretty effective as you can see they've recovered over four thousand dollars for us and 23 along over two items they work exclusively for libraries and they have a very gentle Yeah, so that's that's all any questions About that there's a motion on page 27 If you like I move to approve the fiscal year 2026 2027 the schedule as presented with implementation to begin on April 1st 2026 Thank you Scroll scroll scroll scroll Yeah, that was a lot of pages It was on uh 45, 46 How many pages were there when we were having the fees?

  14. services to retrieve long overdue items and long unpaid bills and they're pretty effective as you can see they've recovered over four thousand dollars for us and 23 along over two items they work exclusively for libraries and they have a very gentle Yeah, so that's that's all any questions About that there's a motion on page 27 If you like I move to approve the fiscal year 2026 2027 the schedule as presented with implementation to begin on April 1st 2026 Thank you Scroll scroll scroll scroll Yeah, that was a lot of pages It was on uh 45, 46 How many pages were there when we were having the fees? It was about the same It was just there was more to each of those pages All right back to me Okay, I am requesting to hire MGT Which is the same firm that did our comp and class study a few years ago to conduct a staffing assessment and the reason I'm asking you all for this permission is Typically when we hire a third-party vendor like this for a consulting service, we do an RFP process So process. But I'm asking if we can bypass that process and hire MGT directly for a couple of reasons. First of all, the quote that I was given, and I'll talk more about what the assessment survey is and my goals for that. The quote is $11,250, so it's well under the $25,000 limit that we usually go out for RFP for. Also, we know MGT. They did our common class study. They know us. We like their work on that study. They're really easy to work with. They already know our organization, and we thought this would just be a natural progression to hire them to do this assessment. The goal for this assessment is not to eliminate any jobs.

  15. How many pages were there when we were having the fees? It was about the same It was just there was more to each of those pages All right back to me Okay, I am requesting to hire MGT Which is the same firm that did our comp and class study a few years ago to conduct a staffing assessment and the reason I'm asking you all for this permission is Typically when we hire a third-party vendor like this for a consulting service, we do an RFP process So process. But I'm asking if we can bypass that process and hire MGT directly for a couple of reasons. First of all, the quote that I was given, and I'll talk more about what the assessment survey is and my goals for that. The quote is $11,250, so it's well under the $25,000 limit that we usually go out for RFP for. Also, we know MGT. They did our common class study. They know us. We like their work on that study. They're really easy to work with. They already know our organization, and we thought this would just be a natural progression to hire them to do this assessment. The goal for this assessment is not to eliminate any jobs. Or fire anybody or anything like that. I just want to take a look at our staffing and our org chart and make sure we're staffing the right places and with the right people. Our budget, as you see each month, we spend 70% of that money on staffing, and so we want to make sure we're using that resource properly, correctly, in the best way to support library operations. Also, we have some positions such as our 30-hour positions. We have four of those positions still left on our books, and our promise to the library board was that we would eliminate those positions. through attrition. So when somebody leaves a 30-hour position, that's 10 hours that we lose. So with four of those positions still on our books, that's 40 hours of staff time and money that we could maybe transition into some other position. And then there are other positions that as they become vacant, we might want to rethink and reconsider and maybe assign differently. Also, the library design project is going to require that we move some service desks around

  16. hire them to do this assessment. The goal for this assessment is not to eliminate any jobs. Or fire anybody or anything like that. I just want to take a look at our staffing and our org chart and make sure we're staffing the right places and with the right people. Our budget, as you see each month, we spend 70% of that money on staffing, and so we want to make sure we're using that resource properly, correctly, in the best way to support library operations. Also, we have some positions such as our 30-hour positions. We have four of those positions still left on our books, and our promise to the library board was that we would eliminate those positions. through attrition. So when somebody leaves a 30-hour position, that's 10 hours that we lose. So with four of those positions still on our books, that's 40 hours of staff time and money that we could maybe transition into some other position. And then there are other positions that as they become vacant, we might want to rethink and reconsider and maybe assign differently. Also, the library design project is going to require that we move some service desks around and staff them a little bit differently. So we thought this would be a good time to think through those tasks and those assignments. I think hiring a third party to help us do this work is good for a couple of reasons. This firm has a lot of experience, especially with public libraries, but also government entities, and can help us identify best practices that we might not be aware of. They provide a neutral third party bias, unbiased view of our library and org chart. And I think it will provide us a lot of data to help us make decisions and support the rationale behind those decisions and help us come up with a plan for implementing these decisions. We've talked about doing this study, Catherine and I have talked about it several times, we've talked about it with the management group, our HR committee that was developed during this after the strategic plan. They also recommended doing a study like this. since the design project is in the construction documents phase we don't have a lot of involvement with that at this point we've got a lull in our our frantic schedule so we thought why not throw another project in it will take

  17. Also, the library design project is going to require that we move some service desks around and staff them a little bit differently. So we thought this would be a good time to think through those tasks and those assignments. I think hiring a third party to help us do this work is good for a couple of reasons. This firm has a lot of experience, especially with public libraries, but also government entities, and can help us identify best practices that we might not be aware of. They provide a neutral third party bias, unbiased view of our library and org chart. And I think it will provide us a lot of data to help us make decisions and support the rationale behind those decisions and help us come up with a plan for implementing these decisions. We've talked about doing this study, Catherine and I have talked about it several times, we've talked about it with the management group, our HR committee that was developed during this after the strategic plan. They also recommended doing a study like this. since the design project is in the construction documents phase we don't have a lot of involvement with that at this point we've got a lull in our our frantic schedule so we thought why not throw another project in it will take about seven to eight weeks to complete this project and the department heads are all supportive so I'm asking you for your support I know that they're in Florida so do they I'm assuming that they conduct mostly interviews by a zoom and that you'll steer them to the people that they should talk to okay yeah Katie the Katie is the person we work with previously and I think she would be the person we work with on this she's in Illinois that's what I thought I saw too but then I saw the Florida yeah I was a little confused yeah that's their corporate office oh gotcha so Rachel Skaggs is the person you're referring to it's in Illinois no it's Katie she's not okay she's started in this okay but either way it was through the magic of teams and zoom yeah she's much closer obviously well it depends on Illinois I guess we're in it Tara when we had our personnel committee meeting and I wrote a note but I don't have it with me you refer to something in terms of having this study you said something about tight areas like staffing wise scheduling wise you mean yeah what

  18. frantic schedule so we thought why not throw another project in it will take about seven to eight weeks to complete this project and the department heads are all supportive so I'm asking you for your support I know that they're in Florida so do they I'm assuming that they conduct mostly interviews by a zoom and that you'll steer them to the people that they should talk to okay yeah Katie the Katie is the person we work with previously and I think she would be the person we work with on this she's in Illinois that's what I thought I saw too but then I saw the Florida yeah I was a little confused yeah that's their corporate office oh gotcha so Rachel Skaggs is the person you're referring to it's in Illinois no it's Katie she's not okay she's started in this okay but either way it was through the magic of teams and zoom yeah she's much closer obviously well it depends on Illinois I guess we're in it Tara when we had our personnel committee meeting and I wrote a note but I don't have it with me you refer to something in terms of having this study you said something about tight areas like staffing wise scheduling wise you mean yeah what yeah you know we've got a hundred staff and we're open seven days a week 68 and a half hours a week we have five service desks to staff you think a hundred people would be enough but there are times when it's really tight so if there's a vacation or someone's out on medical leave it just takes a little bit to upset that apple cart and we're always like why why is it so hard we have so much why are we trying you know so hard to find people so it just feels like there's some kind of imbalance somewhere okay is that staffing it under the auspices of the department heads okay and then they reach out to you if there's some critical issue okay any questions we're just lucky enough to attend the personnel committee so I got the preview on all of this and it seems like a good idea yes it's very reasonable I think it is I'm guessing maybe that he might have been lower because they already have a base of relationship with our organization trying prices maybe maybe sure let's go with that I think it I agree I think it sounds like a wise

  19. yeah you know we've got a hundred staff and we're open seven days a week 68 and a half hours a week we have five service desks to staff you think a hundred people would be enough but there are times when it's really tight so if there's a vacation or someone's out on medical leave it just takes a little bit to upset that apple cart and we're always like why why is it so hard we have so much why are we trying you know so hard to find people so it just feels like there's some kind of imbalance somewhere okay is that staffing it under the auspices of the department heads okay and then they reach out to you if there's some critical issue okay any questions we're just lucky enough to attend the personnel committee so I got the preview on all of this and it seems like a good idea yes it's very reasonable I think it is I'm guessing maybe that he might have been lower because they already have a base of relationship with our organization trying prices maybe maybe sure let's go with that I think it I agree I think it sounds like a wise decision great there's a motion on page 47 should anyone carry it I move to hire MG MGT impact solutions LLC 4320 West Kennedy Boulevard Tampa Florida to conduct a staffing assessment for bloomfield township public library thank you so much when will this start again i know did you say that um we thought we'd start at april 1st okay so that that's the timeline that i gave katie and she said that worked for her good okay yeah in seven weeks or so yeah great okay i'm sorry how will they anticipate the rejiggering of all of our floor plans and if they start april 1st when katherine and i meet with them for a kickoff we'll mention that as one of the goals of the assessment and then we'll work with them to figure out how to move forward with that i mean maybe it's something where they just give us the data that we need to make those decisions okay i don't know exactly how it will work okay i think it seems like a natural um flow to be making that change because we kind of knew

  20. decision great there's a motion on page 47 should anyone carry it I move to hire MG MGT impact solutions LLC 4320 West Kennedy Boulevard Tampa Florida to conduct a staffing assessment for bloomfield township public library thank you so much when will this start again i know did you say that um we thought we'd start at april 1st okay so that that's the timeline that i gave katie and she said that worked for her good okay yeah in seven weeks or so yeah great okay i'm sorry how will they anticipate the rejiggering of all of our floor plans and if they start april 1st when katherine and i meet with them for a kickoff we'll mention that as one of the goals of the assessment and then we'll work with them to figure out how to move forward with that i mean maybe it's something where they just give us the data that we need to make those decisions okay i don't know exactly how it will work okay i think it seems like a natural um flow to be making that change because we kind of knew some of those physical changes were potentially going to necessitate personnel realignment in some ways good and i think all for the good but it's still change it's changed so i think to be having this firm come in and consult about those things i think gives it even more credibility you you you you you you you you you you I think so, yeah. It seems like the timing is good. I'm hoping it'll just, you know, give us some things to think about, questions that we can consider and then make good decisions going forward. Great, thank you so much. So other? Is there any time frame of when they're going to remove, I know it's been so frozen, but now that everything's unearthed and those four urns, especially the greenery, they could just be cut back so it doesn't look like dead. I can tell Tom to have. Because I tried pulling them out when I, and they're still frozen. Yeah. But give them a couple more, but they're supposed to go back down to 20. So if you could just trim out the brown, they would be fine. They're just not, they're unsightly. I'll tell Tom.

  21. work okay i think it seems like a natural um flow to be making that change because we kind of knew some of those physical changes were potentially going to necessitate personnel realignment in some ways good and i think all for the good but it's still change it's changed so i think to be having this firm come in and consult about those things i think gives it even more credibility you you you you you you you you you you I think so, yeah. It seems like the timing is good. I'm hoping it'll just, you know, give us some things to think about, questions that we can consider and then make good decisions going forward. Great, thank you so much. So other? Is there any time frame of when they're going to remove, I know it's been so frozen, but now that everything's unearthed and those four urns, especially the greenery, they could just be cut back so it doesn't look like dead. I can tell Tom to have. Because I tried pulling them out when I, and they're still frozen. Yeah. But give them a couple more, but they're supposed to go back down to 20. So if you could just trim out the brown, they would be fine. They're just not, they're unsightly. I'll tell Tom. Okay. Any other? Oh. Do you want to bring it up here? Yeah, sure. Okay. So we had the pleasure last week of bringing the design committee folks together along with Judy and Tara had put together a meeting at Cranbrook to talk more fully about the, and I think we talked about this last month, the project for the fireplace surround. And just as a reminder, we're looking to in the design project to reconfigure the fireplace. Thank you very much, thank you slightly to make it um more functioning uh workability for it um but also to open up on both sides so that folks can feel a sense of warmth and um i think reading pleasure from both sides so um Judy had worked with Cranbrook and um also Proabbic tiles was something that we had been planning

  22. I'll tell Tom. Okay. Any other? Oh. Do you want to bring it up here? Yeah, sure. Okay. So we had the pleasure last week of bringing the design committee folks together along with Judy and Tara had put together a meeting at Cranbrook to talk more fully about the, and I think we talked about this last month, the project for the fireplace surround. And just as a reminder, we're looking to in the design project to reconfigure the fireplace. Thank you very much, thank you slightly to make it um more functioning uh workability for it um but also to open up on both sides so that folks can feel a sense of warmth and um i think reading pleasure from both sides so um Judy had worked with Cranbrook and um also Proabbic tiles was something that we had been planning and talking about the possibility of working with them for a number of months and um Judy put a couple things together here so there was a a very prolific artist Ruth Adler Schnee who was a part of Cranbrook and a part of Detroit's history for many many years and um she's more of a design fiber textile textile um and so the rich history with Cranbrook mid-century modern design um Judy got the archives and collection to open up their papers and drawings from Ruth so that we could get some inspiration so we met with libraries so it's Tara and Judy some of the folks from the design community committee, met with the archivists at the Cranbrook Collections and Archives to show us some of these designs. C2AE Chloe came to join us as well. And it was incredibly inspirational

  23. Judy had worked with Cranbrook and um also Proabbic tiles was something that we had been planning and talking about the possibility of working with them for a number of months and um Judy put a couple things together here so there was a a very prolific artist Ruth Adler Schnee who was a part of Cranbrook and a part of Detroit's history for many many years and um she's more of a design fiber textile textile um and so the rich history with Cranbrook mid-century modern design um Judy got the archives and collection to open up their papers and drawings from Ruth so that we could get some inspiration so we met with libraries so it's Tara and Judy some of the folks from the design community committee, met with the archivists at the Cranbrook Collections and Archives to show us some of these designs. C2AE Chloe came to join us as well. And it was incredibly inspirational from a color standpoint to a design standpoint. And then thinking back to the visit you had with Powabic, how those things could be put together to provide something that's pleasing and reminiscent of our relationship with Cranbrook, mid-century modern design, and the history that Ruth brings to the community. And I was also told, I think, Katherine, you might have been standing there when she said, didn't she say that we have a textile from Ruth in the library? Well, Chloe said that there's patterns on our furniture that's been selected. That's a Ruth design. But, didn't she say something that's existing? Yes, that we have something here that's a textile. And I didn't, it wasn't from Chloe, it was from the archivist. Deb? I think what she was saying was that, I thought what she said was that Ruth had some drawings of the library in her papers. Oh, she did, yes. She did say that. But maybe I'm

  24. us some of these designs. C2AE Chloe came to join us as well. And it was incredibly inspirational from a color standpoint to a design standpoint. And then thinking back to the visit you had with Powabic, how those things could be put together to provide something that's pleasing and reminiscent of our relationship with Cranbrook, mid-century modern design, and the history that Ruth brings to the community. And I was also told, I think, Katherine, you might have been standing there when she said, didn't she say that we have a textile from Ruth in the library? Well, Chloe said that there's patterns on our furniture that's been selected. That's a Ruth design. But, didn't she say something that's existing? Yes, that we have something here that's a textile. And I didn't, it wasn't from Chloe, it was from the archivist. Deb? I think what she was saying was that, I thought what she said was that Ruth had some drawings of the library in her papers. Oh, she did, yes. She did say that. But maybe I'm misunderstood but anyway there's some there's some history and collaboration connection with Ruth and it just seems like this is a really good way for us to pull it all together so that is moving forward and I just felt pleased thank you so much for arranging it because I thought it was certainly an inside view of Cranbrook's collection and you know it's good good project I think for the library to be collaborating upon with our neighbors well we do have a good collect our good connection with them right now with their home yeah library and Deb promised to become a library cardholder good so it actually their employees could be yes some of these cardholders here and I think she didn't know that she didn't yeah that's great yeah we probably should get that out there a little bit more yeah we could do it internal again good job any more other the only one I had is I know that our next meeting is st. Patrick's Day oh we'll have to open something something except you all in green okay well I think somebody

  25. misunderstood but anyway there's some there's some history and collaboration connection with Ruth and it just seems like this is a really good way for us to pull it all together so that is moving forward and I just felt pleased thank you so much for arranging it because I thought it was certainly an inside view of Cranbrook's collection and you know it's good good project I think for the library to be collaborating upon with our neighbors well we do have a good collect our good connection with them right now with their home yeah library and Deb promised to become a library cardholder good so it actually their employees could be yes some of these cardholders here and I think she didn't know that she didn't yeah that's great yeah we probably should get that out there a little bit more yeah we could do it internal again good job any more other the only one I had is I know that our next meeting is st. Patrick's Day oh we'll have to open something something except you all in green okay well I think somebody can't make it is that right I I won't be yeah I'll see people so you have to have the four of us to show up and it's our budget so it'll be good that we'll wear green for our budget meeting true i can only remember like one eighth because i'm just one eighth irish okay well this is the um meeting that we review the director's performance so um executive section noting the time is seven of two so moved second there all right welcome back everyone it's great you're here and um we're pleased to be able to have uh our director's tenure for another year which is wonderful news for all of us and unless anyone else has any comments or questions take a motion to close the meeting so moved second all in favor aye thank you