WEST SPRINGFIELD — The library trustees, reduced by resignations to four members and struggling to make quorum, are slated to increase in strength to nine.
Board Chair Justin Latham said he isn’t worried about filling five seats all at once. On the contrary, his board suggested the increase because it will make the trustees more efficient in the long run, he said.
“When you’re a six-member board, you need four people voting one way to hit quorum,” he said. “Now, with nine instead of six, the quorum only goes up by one. You get a more effective board.”
Instead of being able to tolerate a maximum of two absences, the nine-member board can still conduct business with four of its members absent at any given meeting, Latham said. With two seats vacant in recent months, the trustees have not been able to meet unless every remaining member was available.
That can be a tough standard to meet on a board of volunteers with other business and family commitments. Two vacancies on a nine-member board would still leave room to meet quorum if two out of the remaining seven members were temporarily absent.
Although a professional director and her staff of librarians run the library on a day-to-day basis, the trustees play a vital role in budgeting and setting policies, Latham said. Trustees handle the income from several gift and bequest funds that augment the state aid and local taxpayer contributions to the library. The gifts and bequests are usually designated for certain purposes, and the trustees have to make sure those funds are spent on the intended purpose.
Trustees also debate and vote on library policies, such as the decision a few years ago to stop charging fines for overdue items. Latham said the trustees studied research that showed libraries don’t make as much money from fines as most people think, and owing massive fines on long overdue books often has the effect of discouraging borrowers from checking out new books.
Another consideration in expanding the board is that each additional member is another person building institutional knowledge of how the trustees operate. Six members, he said, “is just not enough to have good continuity on the board.”
Latham said he believes Mayor William Reichelt already has enough applicants to fill all five seats. He said the mayor had put out a call for volunteers to serve in the two vacant seats on the six-person board, and received more applications than there were seats available.
Reichelt proposed increasing the membership to nine, and the Town Council voted unanimously to adopt the change at its July 15 meeting.
