River Forest Public Library
Committee of the Whole Meeting
Personnel, Finance and Capital Improvements
September 27, 2006

Call to Order
President Mark Coe called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m.

Roll Call
Present at the meeting were Director Dawn Bussey, Trustees Mark Coe, Molly Ryan, Elizabeth Fischer, Lenny Soffer and Diane Daly, Children’s Department Head Nancy Kerr and Head of Adult Services Rebecca Vnuk.  Trustee Margaret Horstman participated electronically.

Audience to Visitors, Trustee and Staff Comments
There were no comments.

Approval of Minutes of September 12, 2006 Meeting
Ms. Ryan moved that the minutes of the September 12, 2006 meeting be approved. Mr. Coe seconded. There were all ayes and no nays: the motion carried unanimously.

Old Business
~ Architect/Engineer Services Contract
	The amendments to the draft contract have now been addressed by Holabird & Root and returned to the library for review.  Ms. Ryan led committee members through the revised draft contract, suggesting items to be fixed.  Mrs. Bussey will contact Maria Segal on Thursday, September 28, 2006 to work out the final draft of the contract.  A special meeting may be held on Tuesday, October 2 for the Board to vote to approve and sign the contract. 

New Business
A. Personnel Issues:
	Mrs. Bussey proposed a revision in full time staff salaries and benefits for the next fiscal year.  Mr. Coe requested more data in order to put this proposal in context. His and other members’ questions included: 1) Is the percentage of the budget being spent on salaries appropriate? 2) Is the staff being appropriately compensated? 3) Would a salary scale be helpful? Mrs. Bussey’s intention is to concentrate on more compensation for personnel as part of the budget process for the next fiscal year. A big part of this year’s budget was spent on materials, but Mrs. Bussey is hoping to ease off on materials spending as the collection is in good shape and will now only need to be maintained. Mrs. Bussey will bring more data to the budget meetings. 







B. Finance Issues: Budget Preparation Timeline
	Board Treasurer Lenny Soffer requested that Mrs. Bussey prepare her proposals for the ’07-’08 budget.  The Committee of the Whole will meet October 24th to discuss the preliminary ideas for the budget.  The first draft of the budget with the numbers should be ready for the December regular board meeting and the final budget will be ready for the regular February board meeting. 

Adjournment
At 8:05 Ms. Ryan moved to adjourn. Mr. Coe seconded.

Respectfully submitted,
Diane Daly, Secretary