ncompass live: “intended process” as director-facilitated trustee education: nonresident fees...

NCompass Live“Intended Process” as Director-Facilitated Trustee Education: Nonresident

Fees Case Study

Presented by Steve Fosselman,Director

Grand Island (NE) Public Library

George, now is NOT the time to bereminding me how less painful things were for you because you stuck tothe #%!*@$ “intended process”!

June 13, 2012

And how exactly do you propose to survive the

winter after your liposuction procedure?

A process you intentionally plan and follow with the result of an informed decision

without intense pain or too many "unintended consequences".

The problem, in a nutshell:

After 40+ years of interlocal agreement between the library and county, the county starts experiencing budget problems after we report a major bookmobile repair need. Despite good faith negotiations by our library board to reduce outreach (bookmobile) services while maintaining free library cards, the county board unilaterally breached this interlocal agreement for ALL library services (bookmobile and free cards) for Hall County residents outside of Grand Island.

Here are some approaches to making a complex decision at the board level:

1) Problem is presented, free-for-all at board meeting, lots of opinions, maybe some facts, make a decision, hope it works

2) Problem is presented, director provides professional judgment, then it is a free-for-all

3) Problem is presented, a process is mutually agreed upon, board holds several monthly sessions with no decisions made and board members freely commenting/questioning but reserving judgment, director facilitates through professional analysis at each meeting, and through the process real learning occurs and informed decisions are then made with fewer unintended consequences

Staying inside this box meets our community’s needsStaying inside this box meets our community’s needs

Straying outside this box doesn’t meet our community’s needs

Pretty Big Box

Learning Organization

Some other benefits to choosing approach # 3 in our case study:

1) Study sessions served as public hearings that were attended by several concerned citizens

2) Director met with more patrons about this than all other issues COMBINED in past 21+ years, and almost all patrons went away with a better understanding of the library’s situation and options for them to contact county board members to address their concerns

3) Public information was also disseminated in stages and through various means (including internet at www.grand-island.com/index.aspx?page=1018) so the public was well informed about the real problem and need for a library board solution

4) While emotions were part of the process, they were balanced by the educational parts

5) Undue influences kept to a minimum both inside the board room and out6) Other publics – staff, city admin, city council, county board – were well aware of

each step of the process and had sufficient input7) This was a very transparent process, one leading our newspaper to conclude

“County should not be surprised by library fee proposal” and “Up-front vote”

Local government should always be this open, deliberate and exacting … because of the library board’s processGeorge Ayoub, columnist, Grand Island Independent, March 17, 2010

Board Discussion Pertaining to Nonresident Services in City’s Program Prioritization Process

Board Discussion Pertaining to Nonresident Services in City’s Program Prioritization Process

Does it necessarily follow that cities with local sales tax should provide free cards to nonresidents? The facts do not bear this out.

• 20 libraries in cities over 2500 had county funding in 2007 (Grand Island excluded) – 75% of these libraries had out-of-county nonresident fees

• Overall, 77% of all libraries in cities over 2500 charged some form of nonresident fee in 2007

City Services (Budget) or County Services (Budget)Some Examples

City of Grand Island Budget County BudgetGrand Island Fire Rural Fire DistrictsGrand Island Police County SheriffGrand Island Public Works County RoadsGrand Island Parks County ParksGrand Island Public Library A county library is legally

possible but not budgeted by County - service was through Interlocal Agreement

Objectives in making our March 2010 decision (these had been covered in one way or another throughout the

process):

• First and foremost, our library cares for the library needs of every non resident, we have many non resident patrons who use the library regularly, and we have made every attempt possible to provide such service in accordance with an interlocal agreement

• Establishing a non resident fee is necessitated by the county’s breach of contract which has left us with no funding and no legal agreement to provide comprehensive library services to non residents

• In the absence of such a legal agreement, the mission of the Grand Island Public Library is fulfilled by state statute and city code in remaining forever free to the inhabitants of Grand Island, and extending service through fees

• Non resident user fees in the absence of such legal agreements are common in Nebraska and across the United States

• Non residents for our purposes are classified as those who do not inhabit the legal boundaries of Grand Island

• Grand Island Public Library wishes to remain a NebrasKard participant until further review, and so some non residents using our library will be covered by this statewide reciprocal borrowing agreement

• We have well-established the significant value of our library services

• The board desires to institute a household card fee as opposed to an individual card fee

• While the value of a household card fee can be reasonably computed at over $100, libraries in Nebraska as a business practice currently do not assess household fees at a higher rate than individual card fees

• After several possibilities were discussed, the board decide on a fee of $40 per household which is very reasonable fee for the service value and is only $5 more than the fee charged in 2000 to out of county non residents (prior to NebrasKard)

• If/how non residents’ local sales tax might affect this resulting fee will not be computed

• Some limited exemptions from a non resident fee are reasonable

• The library is not obligated to cap its non resident revenue budget

• In the future, fees may not be necessary given several legal service models in place in state law that may be open for discussion; however the library will only entertain good-faith negotiations that include mutually-agreeable terms.