Director Briefing - April 2, 2024

Original Catalog Records Requests from Kathryn

Beginning April 15, 2024, the OWWL Library System is switching to an all-electronic method of requesting original catalog records. The goal is to lower travel times for physical materials and to modernize the cataloging workflow at the System.

Staff can email

originalcataloging@owwl.org

with all the pertinent information or complete the Request Original Cataloging form (under Get Help in OWWL Docs). Full details about pertinent information can be found here:

https://docs.owwl.org/Evergreen/CatalogRequestOriginalRecordForm

Any items sent to OWWLHQ will be returned to your library so that holdings staff can submit requests electronically.

An in-depth session on the Original Catalog Record Request Form will be conducted during the Spring Holdings Staff Workshop (April 30, 2024). Be sure to register on the OWWL Events Calendar:

https://owwl.libcal.com/event/12198387

State Budget Delay

As in previous years, the State Budget has been delayed. The estimate is that it will be released next week. This is when we will find out State Aid for Libraries and NYS Construction Aid.

Staff and Payroll

There have been questions and audits on Staff and Payroll in libraries, so I thought it would be worth-while to post these items in one group.

Question of the Week: Staff Bonuses

Question: Can Public Libraries provide staff with an "after-the-fact" bonus at the end of the year?

Answer: No. The Constitution of New York prohibits Public Libraries from issuing any gift or loan to employees. See Article 8, "No county, city, town, village or school district shall give or loan any money or property to or in aid of any individual, or private corporation or association, or private undertaking..."

When the board approves annual salaries (in an open meeting), it acts as a "contract" for the employee. Anything above the "agreed-upon" salary is considered a gift of public funds, which would undoubtedly raise a red flag during an audit.

OSC audit reports discuss employee bonus programs. There are ways to handle these; however, any plan should be well-developed and based on legal advice.

This Week at the OSC

In the OSC briefing this week, two audit reports detailed payroll issues. One from the Clymer Central School District discussed payroll review and approvals and preventing payroll errors. The other from Green Tech High Charter School discussed payroll documentation, including timesheets, approvals, and support for payments.

Key Recommendations for Libraries

• Implement procedures for reviewing payroll to detect inaccurate pay rates, hours, or other potential issues.
• Perform a thorough inspection of payroll before processing for payment.
• Document all payroll actions.
• Hourly staff (anyone making less than $58,458.40 per year) must have a timesheet approved by a supervisor - in the Director's case, it should be approved by the Board.
• Check overtime request procedures. Any time worked over 40 hours in a week must be compensated as time and a half.

Director and Board Responsibilities Concerning Personnel

In any library, the Board focuses on governance, and the Director manages the day-to-day operations. This extends to the oversight of staff.

The Director hires staff, handles performance reviews, performs disciplinary actions, and oversees all staff activities.

The Board appoints staff to their positions at a set pay rate with a formal motion. This can occur as a stand-alone motion or as part of a Personnel Change Report (Sample Personnel Change Report.docx).

Trustees and Staff

The day-to-day management of the library, including the management of staff, is the Library Director's responsibility. The Library Director is the only employee directly overseen by the Board. The Library Director is responsible for the management and supervision of all other library employees. Trustees have a responsibility to know the staff at a friendly but professional distance, to be cordial and supportive, and to promote goodwill. But they must approach staff relationships with a degree of caution. Source: Trustee Handbook, pg. 65

For more on this, read the PERSONNEL chapter of the HANDBOOK FOR LIBRARY TRUSTEES OF NEW YORK STATE 2023 Edition.

You’re Always Carrying a Cannon

The article below was sent to me by a friend, and it is a reminder of how managers have an incredible amount of authority and should be conscious of how they wield it in the workplace. It reminded me of the proverb, "with great power comes great responsibility."

You’re always carrying a cannon

This post is a rough recreation of a post from someone else that I saw years ago and now can’t find. If this rings a bell and you know the original, email phildini at phildini dot net.

As a manager talking to your reports, you are always carrying a cannon and promising it won’t go off.

That’s the one thing I want you to take away from this article, and I encourage you to go read it in its entirety one more time. No matter how friendly you are with your team, no matter your relationships outside work, no matter if you were one of the team yesterday and just got promoted, the cannon is always there and your reports can’t know with absolute certainty it won’t go off because they can’t see inside your brain.

The cannon is the inherent power you have as their manager to tank, wreck, or bludgeon beyond recovery their career prospects on your team, at your company, and possibly beyond. The ultimate expression of the cannon is: you fire them. But short of firing them, there are dozens of big and small ways you could make their lives, inside and outside work, extremely difficult.

Whether or not you think about the cannon, the cannon is there. Good managers are aware of the cannon. Great managers are aware of the cannon and aware that their reports are aware of the cannon. Your reports, consciously or subconsciously, go into every meeting with you with some part of them knowing that this could be the meeting where you fire them, take away their projects, or in general make their lives miserable. They may not be able to voice this knowledge, you may have built trust such that they think the chances measure in the microscopic, but that doesn’t change the fact that the cannon is there and that how you behave as a manager influences the trust they have in the cannon not going off.

This is part of the reason why trust building is so important: you need your team to believe that they will get lots and lots of warning before the cannon goes off. How you talk about projects, how you talk about performance, how you respond to suggestions, how you take feedback — all of these change the unconscious mental calculus in your reports’ heads about whether the cannon is going to go off for them.

I’ve spent some time trying to think of a positive spin on this fact of management, but this is, for me, closer to a hard truth than a cloud with a silver lining. With great power comes great responsibility. If a silver lining exists, it’s that you have this power and can choose to wield it to make your team and your reports great, to use some of the cannon’s power to clear a path ahead of your team for the work they want to do, work that they will hopefully find fulfilling.

But the cannon is there, whether or not you acknowledge it, and great managers know it, see it, and interact with their team to build trust around this fact.

Source: https://phildini.dev/youre-always-carrying-a-cannon