WiLS Board Meeting Minutes—July 29, 2009

Members present: Ane Carriveau, Leslie Christensen, Phyllis Christensen, Ron Edwards, Patrick Wilkinson, Scott Silet, Ewa Barczyk, Kathy Boguszewski, Suzanne Zellmann, Lisa Viezbicke, Esther Frost (alternate).

In the absence of the chair, vice-chair Wilkinson called the meeting to order at 1:25. Following introductions Schneider noted that there is no elected Board secretary. She asked whether the Board would prefer to have a WiLS staff person serve a secretary for this year. This was approved on a motion by Christensen, seconded by Boguszewski

Minutes: Minutes from February 19, 2009 were approved on a motion by Christensen, seconded by Drew. Updates to the minutes included report that the Agreement with OCLC is signed with language we requested, Accounting Policies & Procedure Manual is nearly complete having already been reviewed by both the Auditor and the Finance Committee.

Conflict of Interest Statement: Upon recommendation of our Auditor as important to the new IRS Form 990 now required for not-for-profits Board members had been asked to sign a Conflict of Interest Statement. Edwards noted that the document distributed did not call for date with the signature. Schneider will make this change on the form and will make sure that forms already signed are dates

WiLS Budget & Plan for FY 2010: Discussion focused on the new services and membership structure particularly from the standpoint of sustainability. The Board will take this up as a major agenda item in the fall. For that discussion they requested current list of libraries with their previous membership level and the Service Level selected for FY10 including a list of libraries that opted to drop membership. In addition they asked that WiLS conduct a survey of members and provide a report of the results prior to the next Board meeting. The survey should include questions such as: How/Why did you decide the appropriate Service Level – because of the specific service menu or primarily to be supportive of WiLS and/or to keep WiLS viable for possible future needs; Has your library used any of the new services? What services do you plan to use? Have the new services met your expectations? If you had to renew now, would you remain at the same Service Level? There should also be some questions targeted at Service Level 2 that is likely to be modified for FY11. Modifications could include making it a variable, size-based fee or perhaps elimination of the level completely. It was also suggested that Level 3 might be under-priced. Questions regarding the Budget were mainly on clarification of the bottom line and the status of the Open Source project. The Budget and Plan were approved on a motion by Barczyk, seconded by Boguszweski.

WiLS Directors Report: The report included one action item — formal adoption of the Statement of Board Responsibilities, also developed because of the IRS Form 990. This was adopted on a motion by Carriveau, seconded by Christensen.

OTHER BUSINESS: Three items came up under other business.
• Recommendation for establishing a Late Payment penalty of 1.5% after 90 days with additional 1.5% assessed for each 30-day period thereafter. Board members thought this was acceptable although it was noted that some discretion should be used for school districts over the summer period.
• Recommendation for prepaying OCLC due to higher income earning compared with CD rates currently available. Board members had no objection; however, Schneider will seek approval from the Finance Committee before going ahead.
• Wilkinson updated Board members on the OCLC Council of the Americas — Kickoff meeting set for ALA in Boston Prior to adjournment Wilkinson asked that it be noted in the minutes that the library community is greatly appreciative of the expanded content in BadgerLink. This is a tremendous benefit to Wisconsin libraries, making all libraries look good to users and the WiLS Board wishes to go on record as extremely grateful to DPI. Passed by consensus

Meeting adjourned at 3:15 on motion by Christensen, seconded by Edwards.
Schneider was asked to send possible dates for the next meeting out to the Board asap.

Kathy Schneider Secretary Pro Tem

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