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Library reports early‑year finances; small ZipBooks award and concerns about statewide ebook allocation
Summary
Trustees reviewed end‑of‑year and early fiscal‑year financial reports, noted a $2,441 variance under grant contract services, and discussed a roughly $1,200 ZipBooks award along with worries that the state reallocated some ZipBooks funds to centralized ebook content with no local feedback loop.
At the Sept. 9 meeting, staff presented two financial reports: the final close‑out for the last fiscal year, which showed bills paid, and the first two months of the new year, where spending is at about 16.6% of the budget year‑to‑date. Staff said one‑time payments — including PERS and software services — are driving a temporarily high percentage and that the figure should normalize as the year progresses.
Staff flagged a $2,441 expenditure in contract services under grants that was not budgeted and said they are waiting for Finance to verify its source. They also reported two small incoming awards: a ZipBooks grant ("like, $1,200 and some change") and an additional $1,200 from the NorthNet library system for staff training. Jennifer said she was unhappy that the state used part of ZipBooks funding to add content to the statewide Palace Project ebook platform and that local libraries currently have no way to see or track ebook requests made through the state portal: "When somebody goes on to the state site and requests an ebook, we have no record of that request," she said.
The board expects to present a small council budget amendment to reflect the two grants; staff said it will be placed on consent and they do not anticipate questions from the council. Trustees asked staff to follow up on the grant‑expenditure variance and the vacancy‑factor bookkeeping issue.
