Township Contract Discussed at Library Board Meeting

IRONWOOD, MI - Friday, April 18, 2008 - The Ironwood Carnegie Library Board met in regular session Tuesday afternoon. The agenda contained several items including Mrs. Erickson's update on the Library Renovation Plan. Mrs. Erickson advised the board members that she had hired a local teenager on a part-time temporary basis to cover those periods of heavy activity at the library and where regular employees are unavailable. The addition of this young lady will not result in any additional cost to the library as the regular staff would have been required to fill in if she had not been hired.

The majority of the board's time was spent discussing the Carnegie's contract negotiations with the Ironwood Township. Bruce Noren presented the board with data he compiled demonstrating the percentage of the Carnegie's income and expenses borne by all user groups at the Library. The presumption with this data is that the income will be between $135,000 and $150,000. The remainder of the income would come from grants. So far, this fiscal year, the Librarian has spent $160,021 against $95,581 in revenues. The revenue figures do not include the Penal Fines yet to be received, and the expenditures do not include any expenses for the three months still remaining in the current fiscal year which ends June 30th. In view of the continuing financial problems at the state level, Mrs. Rayner, the Board President, expressed concern over the future of Penal Fines as a source of revenue for the library.

Mrs. Rayner is expected to meet with Township Supervisor Rick Estola and present the new counter offer. In order to give these individuals proper time to review the latest offer, and to allow the negotiation process to continue unimpeded, we decided to withhold the details of that offer.

Lou Bonagura

IronwoodInfo.com