Director Briefing - September 30, 2024

Individual Logins for Evergreen Accounts and Staff Acknowledgement

I mentioned at OWWLDAC that we had an incident with shared logins at a library; I wanted to send another reminder to everyone that Evergreen accounts may not be shared. Individual logins are required to maintain security for our patron data. They have been a requirement for several years. If a shared login situation is happening at your library, please correct it immediately by opening a ticket at evergreen@owwl.org. If we get it straightened out now, it won't be an issue in the future.

Shared Accounts

• Shared accounts should be kept to a minimum and avoided whenever possible. When not able to be avoided, passwords shared between multiple authorized individuals shall be changed upon the separation from service of an individual no longer authorized to access the System Information Systems. The responsibility to ensure that passwords are changed ultimately rests with the library director.
• Shared accounts include accounts that may be accessed by only one authorized individual at a time but which shall continue to be used after an individual’s separation from service.
  • Any such accounts should also have their passwords changed upon a handover.
• Examples of appropriate shared accounts include:
  • A library’s circulation email account.
  • An ad hoc email account created for a search committee.

Also, an acknowledgment form must be maintained locally at your library for every staff member.

To ensure the System as a whole is protected, Member Libraries will be held responsible and liable for any local infraction of this policy. Member Libraries must collect local agreements from their Authorized Users using any form they deem appropriate, providing the agreement upholds this policy and any local patron privacy or confidentiality policies. Libraries are welcome to use this policy’s System Staff Agreement Form below as a sample form.

For your local acknowledgment, you are welcome to use the form located in the policy or an appendix in your Employee Handbook.

Resources:

• Sample Staff Acknowledgement Form
• Sample Systems Access Acknowledgment for Employee Handbook
• Sample Confidentiality of Library Records Policy
• Systems Access and Confidentiality of Library Records Policy

EAP renewal 2024-2025

Our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) contract with ESI is expiring on November 30, and there are a few things your library should consider. Kelly's full email is below.

Summary

• The final cost for member libraries will be $13.43/employee/year, as the System will subsidize 50% of the cost for library staff.
• The resources through EAP are free and available for employees and their family members.
• EAP provides sexual harassment prevention training that complies with NYS requirements. All staff and trustees must take annual sexual harassment prevention training.
• If you choose to enroll trustees and volunteers, the cost will be $26.87/person/year.
• To join or renew, return your employee list to Kelly by Friday, October 4, 2024.
• Spreadsheet for Libraries to complete to register.xlsx

More Information from Kelly

Hello Everyone,

Our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) contract with ESI will be expiring 11/30/2024. For this years renewal, ESI did make a small adjustment to the cost per employee, which is now $26.87/employee/year. OWWL Library System will subsidize 50% of the cost ($13.44/employee) of this benefit if you choose to offer this to your staff. The System will subsidize 50% this one time only for this renewal,12/1/24-11/30/25.The final cost would be $13.43/employee/year for our member libraries.

EAP is a confidential counseling assessment, coaching and referral program designed to help deal with issues we face in our personal and work life.

The following benefits are free and available for employees and family members:

• Counseling benefits - help from Masters or Ph.D. level counselors for personal issues such as relationships/family, depression/anxiety, grief and more.
• Peak Performance Coaching - personal and professional coaching available from senior-level ESI coaches.
• Training and Personal Development Benefits - over 10,000 free online personal and professional development trainings.
• Self-Help Resources - access to a collection of tools, videos, financial calculators and informative articles including adoption, relationships, legal, financial, cancer and more.
• Work/Life Benefits - assistance for financial, legal, and child & elder care.
• Personal Assistant - help with everyday issues including finding a local medical or dental provider, summer camp options and more.
• Wellness Benefits - videos and resources available to improve overall health, including fitness, diet, and tobacco cessation.
• Lifestyle Savings Benefit - includes thousands of discounts, rewards and perks.

As a reminder, every employer in New York State is required to provide employees with an annual sexual harassment prevention training. EAP offers this training which was designed to comply with the strict requirements mandated by the state. All employers are responsible to be in compliance. Once the training is completed in EAP, the employee receives a completion certificate that should be kept in their personnel file. All new hires should be required to take this training within 30 days of hire. We recommend that you enroll your volunteers and trustees as well. If you are interested in enrolling your volunteers and/or trustees, please specify on the attached spreadsheet if they are a volunteer or a trustee. The member library will be responsible for the cost of their volunteers and trustees at $26.87/person/year.

The EAP website also offers an Employer HR Resource Center with many great benefits for the employer as well.

For more information click on the link: https://www.theeap.com/

If your library is interested in joining, please complete the attached spreadsheet providing a list of your employees (last name, first name, email address, and employee's home zip code). Please list the Director first on this list as they will be the main contact and will receive emails and updates from ESI/EAP to share with staff. Please return your employee list to me by email by Friday, October 4th if you are interested in joining.

If you have any questions or would be interested to learn more about the variety of benefits EAP has to offer, please let me know and I can arrange a webinar with our service representative.

Thank you,

Kelly

External Audit Survey

The survey below is intended to collect information on external audits in our member libraries.

If the survey does not appear for you in the briefing, access it at https://forms.gle/2UF8s9yACJUo5CWE6 . Thank you!

Reruns

Fall Support Staff Workshop

Register now for the Fall Support Staff Workshop on Thursday, October 10! We are excited to host member library staff (both virtually and in-person) for a full day of learning and sharing.

Click here to register. Registration closes Thursday, October 3.

Evergreen Upgrade in October

The next Evergreen upgrade will take place overnight on Wednesday, October 30. Evergreen 3.13 will be available for you to use on Thursday, October 31.

This upgrade will not include any significant changes that affect day-to-day library usage, so we will not have dedicated upgrade webinars this year. A few small changes to be aware of will be discussed at October's OWWLUG meeting.

Keep an eye on your inbox in October for more information on what you should do to prepare.

RRLC Grant Opportunities

Rochester Regional Library Council will be offering several grant opportunities this fall. Funding is available for:

• Action & Innovation
• Collections & Access
• Capacity Building
• Internships
• Special Projects

Some applications are open now, and some open mid-October. If you send a request and your application to Ron or Piety two weeks before the application deadline(s), we would be happy to review it and offer suggestions.

Visit the RRLC Grant Opportunities page for more info including application due dates.

This Week in OSC Audits

Audit	Key Findings	Takeaways for Libraries
Richford Fire District - Long-Term Planning and Board Oversight	The Board did not establish adequate long-term capital and financial plans and did not provide adequate oversight over financial operations. When oversight of financial operations and long-term planning is not adequately performed, the Board and District officials run the risk that necessary fire protection and emergency services resources will not be available. The Board did not: Adequately plan for long-term capital and financial needs totaling $5.6 million which may impair the District’s ability to continue to provide fire protection and emergency services. Ensure the financial information it received was accurate, complete or timely. For example, the final monthly budget-to-actual reports on record for each fiscal year from 2019 through 2022 did not consistently compare expenditures with the correct fiscal year’s budgeted appropriations. Receive accurate monthly cash balances for the audit period and did not identify the discrepancies. Ensure the annual financial reports (AFR) were filed in accordance with New York State General Municipal Law (GML) Section 30. Perform adequate annual audits; therefore, the Board was not aware that the reports and information it used to make financial decisions were inaccurate. In addition, three of the five Commissioners did not comply with NYS Town Law (Town Law) Section 176-e which required them to complete fiscal training in a timely manner, and while not required, the Treasurer had also not completed any formal training related to her position.	Boards should consider future expenses at the library by establishing appropriate reserve funds.
Village of Skaneateles - Claims Auditing	While the claims we reviewed were for appropriate Village expenditures, the Village Board (Board) did not audit all claims before payment. Additionally, some claims were not adequately supported or were paid without approval. Of the 348 claims we reviewed totaling approximately $2 million, 206 claims totaling about $1.3 million had one or more exceptions. The Board did not audit 93 claims totaling approximately $618,000. Seven claims totaling approximately $356,000 were not competitively procured, as required by New York State General Municipal Law (GML) Section 103 and the Village’s procurement policy. 36 claims totaling approximately $171,000 were approved by department heads after the claims were paid and five paid claims ($6,800) were not approved by department heads. 23 claims totaling approximately $112,000 lacked adequate supporting documentation (i.e., original, itemized invoices and/or receipts). When claims are not properly audited, paid without approval, or not properly supported to meet the competitive procurement requirements, it increases the risk that improper or inaccurate payments could be made and goods or services may not be procured in the taxpayers’ best interest.	Boards need to approve every dollar spent by the library. These are approved through claims with supporting documentation.
Town of Shelby - Supervisor's Financial Responsibilities Audit Follow-Up	See the 2021 Audit - Supervisor's Financial Responsibilities here. The purpose of our review was to assess the Town of Shelby’s (Town’s) progress, as of May 2024, in implementing our recommendations in the audit report released in December 2021. Town officials did not take meaningful actions to implement corrective action. Of the seven audit recommendations, six were not implemented and one was partially implemented.	If your library was audited, it can certainly be audited again to make sure the board is making progress on recommendations.