Commissioners Increase County's 2006 Budget
$2.5 Million Beyond County Manager's Recommendation
Posted January 19, 2006; updated January 24, 2006 and February 9, 2006
Excerpts from the
story reported in this morning's Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Five hours of budget talks ended with commissioners adding $2.5 million in
spending to the budget proposal from County Manager Tom Andrews.
* * *
Commissioners gave libraries an additional $300,000 for materials. An
effort to increase that more than 10 times fell just short [of being approved].
Next week, the board faces even more difficult choices.
The $100 million fund Fulton uses to pay for police, parks, planning and
fire services got nearly half its revenue from Sandy Springs - money that
now goes to the city. If the rest of Fulton incorporates next year as is
now being considered, the entire unincorporated operation - all $100
million and, 1,200-plus positions - would go away. Fulton would lose at
least $40 million in general fund revenues and see cuts to support
departments like personnel, finance and information technology.
As library employees weren't told how much of a proposed $1.7 million
reduction in the library's budget came from funds earmarked for purchasing
library materials, it's not clear from the AJC story whether the
$300,000 the commissioners added to the library's 2006 budget completely -
or only partially - restores that proposed cut in those funds.
What does seem clear from the commissioners' budget decisions - and from
the budget outlook if more new cities incorporate within the county
as expected later this year - is that more current county employees will
be laid off before this time next year and will be among the applicants
interviewed for any nonprofessional library positions that become vacant
this year.
January 24th Updates:
Excerpt from the
"tentative minutes" of the Commission's January 18th meeting:
A motion was made by Vice Chair Darnell and
seconded by Commission Chair Handel to increase the
General Services line by $300,000, which would be
restricted for the purchase of library materials,
including electronic materials, with a friendly
amendment by Commissioner Boxill that the Board would
receive at the midyear budget review a plan that would
reflect the system’s capacity to absorb an additional
increase in materials. The unanimous vote of 7-0-0.
A substitute motion was made by Commissioner Lowe
seconded (for discussion) by Commissioner Pitts to
increase the Library materials budget by $3,552,821.
(MOTIONS WITHDRAWN)
Library Services figures from the Commission's 2006
budget document
dated 1/19/06:
| 2004 | $27,390,864 |
| 2005 | $28,352,055 |
| 2005 Amended | $31,642,500 |
2006 | $30,300,000 |
February 9th Update: Missing their own
budget-approval deadline by over a week, the Commissioners officially
adopted the county's final 2006 budget on February 8th. Highlights of
that budget are summarized in a
story published in the February 10th edition of the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
County's Computer Maintenance Interfering
with Citizens Trying to Use County Libraries
Posted January 6, 2006; updated January 9, 2006
Once again, the administrators of the county's Information Technology
Department are scheduling maintenance of the county's computer infrastructure
during hours that some of the county's libraries are open.
In an email to county employees distributed earlier this week, I.T.
warned employees that the county's computers would probably be useless to
employees this coming Sunday until 4pm.
I.T.'s innocuous-sounding plan ignores the fact that seven county
libraries are open for business between 2pm and 6pm every Sunday.
No instructions were included in I.T.'s email about how library employees
are supposed to check out materials, check in materials, issue library
cards, answer citizen's questions about their library records, provide
computers to kids relying on library computers to do homework assignments
this weekend, or provide computers to the parents of those kids who have
pointlessly planned visits to a library this coming Sunday to create
resumes for jobs they want to apply for.
Information Technology's high-handed ignoring of the computer support on
Sundays to operate county libraries is infuriating not only because of the
disappointment and inconvenience it will bring into the lives of
notified staff and un-notified library users (or would-be users) this
Sunday, but because it's not the first time I.T. has scheduled computer
maintenance during hours that some libraries are scheduled to be open, and
because I.T. acknowledges that it's planning to do this kind of
beneficent-sounding but library-crippling "monthly maintenance" repeatedly.
We think it's way past time for the County Manager to instruct the
administrator of the county's I.T. department that he must schedule computer
maintenance during hours when no county facilities - including no libraries -
are open for business, or for the County Manager to simply close county
facilities - including the county's libraries - during any hours when the
county's I.T. department deliberately makes county computer equipment
inoperable or unreliable.
Another possible humane alternative: instruct I.T.'s chief administrator
Robert Taylor to join library employees at the service desk of one of the
libraries scheduled to open as usual this coming Sunday, so Taylor can
personally explain to at least a few of the hundreds of frustrated library
users why it makes sense for a library to be open for business when
its staff cannot do anything for that library's customers.
Gaining the trust and loyalty of citizens toward any branch of county
government isn't an easy job. It isn't fair to expect library employees to
strive to make patronizing the county's libraries a positive experience
while another county department is allowed to obliviously sabotage those
efforts.
Library employees are already expected to (and exhausted by) trying to
explain to users of the county's libraries the unbelievably frequent
unplanned meltdowns of the county's computer network, as well
as cope with the still-unresolved daily temporary glitches
in the library system's circulation and computer-reservation software. Let
Taylor help us explain why he deems it acceptable to deliberately
frustrate computer-dependent library users.
January 9th Update: The library system's
computers were not available again at 4pm on Sunday, January 8th, as
predicted by the county's I.T. Department. Or at 5pm. Patrons who had waited
around in various libraries throughout the county shuffled out at 6pm (or
sooner) having received zero computer-assisted library services on Sunday.
None of the multitudes of county citizens who tried to access the
library system's website on Sunday were able to do so. When some of those
citizens telephoned an open-on-Sunday library to find out why, employees
working that day couldn't explain why.
They couldn't explain because nobody from I.T. bothered to phone anyone
in the library system after 4pm Sunday about what had gone wrong with the scheduled
4pm resumption of regular service, or when regular computer access (including
remote access of the library system's website) was likely to be resumed.
Memo to Library Director John Szabo: You might as well consider shutting
down the libraries that are open on Sundays whenever the county's I.T. Department
schedules routine maintenance of the county's computer network. Very
little library service can be provided during those periods, and we're
ending up making would-be library users angry instead of making
anyone glad that some libraries are open on those Sundays. Obviously, library
employees cannot rely on I.T.'s promises and we certainly can't rely on
I.T. to communicate with library employees working on those Sundays about
any further unexpected, protracted lapses in computer access, upon which so
much library service depends.
Employees at Some Branch Libraries
Handling 10, 11, 12 Times as Much Work
as Staff at Other Branches
Posted January 6, 2006
What kind of organization continues, year after year, to force one group
of its employees to handle twelve times the number of customer interactions
as another group of identically-paid employees?
For the umpteenth consecutive month, the
most recent circulation statistics for AFPL's 33 branches that
circulate library materials are about as lopsided as one could imagine.
Unfortunately, at no time during the past five years have library system
administrators significantly adjusted the number and/or types of staff at,
or the amounts of AFPL's materials-buying budgets invested in, AFPL's
numerous facilities. Nor have AFPL administrators adjusted library hours
of operation or re-allocated public use computer equipment to
reflect the enormous variations in recent years in the patronage of AFPL's
various branches.
The library system's administrators have collected plenty of data during
the past five years that could justify some strategic resource
reallocations and changes in hours of branch operation, so we don't
understand what AFPL's director and his administrators are waiting for.
The small group of branches that consistently handle the bulk of materials that
library system employees lend out and reshelve
does not significantly fluctuate from month to month. Employees at the
busiest library facilities deserve more support than AFPL administrators
are giving them, despite the fact that those administrators are presumably
paid their huge salaries to, among other things, rationally allocate the
library system's ever-scarcer personnel, budget, and equipment resources.
2005 Ends with Several Breaths of Fresh Air
Posted January 4, 2006; revised January 6, 2006
Library Director John Szabo's approachable, straightforward style of
communication - and particularly his honesty not only with
library staff but with the library's trustees - are marked and welcome
departures from the habits of his notorious predecessor.
For way too many years library's staff and its trustees endured a
library director who squandered her opportunities for modeling clear
communication by consistently exaggerating the library system's
accomplishments and by consistently denying that the library system had
any serious problems.
For too many years, shoulders drooped, spirits sagged, and problems went
unaddressed because all Mary Kaye Hooker could think of to say (and to say
repeatedly) was "Hold onto your hats!" or "We're moving at the speed of
light!"
Hooker routinely avoided, witheld, distorted, or ignored information that
could've led to improvements in services for the library's users, or that
could've led to improved working conditions of the library's staff, or
that could have raised the level of understanding among the library's
trustees. Consequently, the library director and its trustees became
locked in a counterproductive dance of shared delusions. While the
self-aggrandizing MKH and her spineless lackeys basked in the cozy,
self-protective glow of lies and evasions, the library system's other
employees were left to cope with an increasingly un-attended-to institution that
drifted deeper and deeper into mediocrity.
What a difference a different board (a board without the authority to fire
the library director) and a different library director (a director with
a brain, obvious administrative skills, and a genuine love of and
understanding of public libraries) have made.
We're not claiming that the library system's chronic problems have
evaporated. We're not saying that most of those problems have even
received recent administrative scrutiny. But if the transcripts of the
library trustees' meeting from, say, mid-1996 to mid-2005 are an excellent
index of the system's downward spiral into dysfunctionality, the
transcripts of recent board meetings - while still not free of occasional
nonsense - do offer evidence that sanity may eventually prevail in the
administration of the county's libraries.
- From the board's September 28th meeting:
Library Director John Szabo: "…There are 892 good ideas [that could be
implemented] throughout the library system, and it’s a matter of
prioritizing them. And there are also 892 things throughout the library
system that are broken and wrong. And my day each day in working with our
staff is to address the bad things and to make as many of the good ideas
happen [as we can]….And as time goes forward, there’ll be many good ideas
that I’ll bring forward [for the Board’s information or approval]."
This frank acknowledgement of the seriousness of AFPL's brokenness is
a cause for jubilation, since admitting one's predicament is the first
sane step in making one's way out of it.
- Also from the board's September 28th meeting:
Library Director John Szabo: "…If I had my druthers, I would have a
bulldozer [come in] and knock all of [the barriers to service at the
entrance to the Central Library] out and completely redesign it…. It’s a
horrible design fundamentally and is not very user friendly, it’s not very
welcoming…. One of the things that makes [changing the entrance to Central]
challenging is the fact that this building not too long ago had a $3.1
million renovation and those things were not addressed in the presentation….
What our first floor…does not say now…[is] ‘This is a friendly place,’ it
doesn’t say ‘It’s a welcoming space,’ it doesn’t draw you in, it
doesn’t…say ‘How may I help you?’ and ‘Where can I show you to the place
you want to go in this fantastic building?’”
- From the board's October 26th meeting:
Library Director John Szabo: "We do have a problem with theft, and a
notable problem with theft, particularly at the Central Library. That is
where it is greatest. We’ve lost a significant amount of material…. The
theft of audiovisual material, DVDs in particular, is a problem here…. We
have…18,880 DVDs throughout our library system [listed in our catalog]…and
this big security issue…continues to be here at Central. But it is
something we’re working on and need to deal with."
Again, the mere acknowledgement of this problem is a departure from past
practice, where AFPL's library director mentioned zero problems, no matter
how serious or chronic, and focused instead on her own alleged
accomplishments (no matter how minor, fabricated, or destructive to good
library service).
- From the board's November 17th meeting:
Library Director John Szabo: "…There is a [vacant] Deputy Director
position which can be filled and the other alternative would be to have
two Assistant Directors…. We…are just about to announce [recruitment for]
four major administrative positions within the organization: Central
Library Administrator, Technical Services Manager, a Branch Group Manager,
and a Public Relations/Marketing position. And we’ll see how the 2006
budget…might affect that [intention], but the announcements have been
prepared and we need to get those positions filled."
But by far the most refreshing - and potentially most positively
far-reaching - exchange was this one that occured at the trustees' October
meeting:
Library Director John Szabo: "…It makes sense to me that we ought
to be able to…purchase materials throughout the year. …We were going
for lengthy periods of time without acquiring books that were being
published that people were seeing on bestseller lists and that people
were seeing in the bookstores and, well, why aren’t they at our
libraries? Which is a very reasonable question…."
Fulton County Commission Chair Karen Handel: "Is there a way
to…simply...prepay them?"
Szabo: "Yes. And I think we’ve done that in the past. And there’s
a level of uncomfortability with that with Finance."
Handel: "Why? On whose part?"
Szabo: "I think it’s Finance."
Handel: "Well, just pretend we get through that, is there-would
that help you?"
Szabo: "Yes. It would…."
Handel: "Let’s just pretend that’s not an issue. That’s something
I think that should be able to be worked out…."
Szabo: "Absolutely….That would be wonderful."
Handel: "…Well, perhaps you’d like to make that inquiry of the-"
Szabo: "We’ll do that."
Handel: "-Finance Department and let me know…what their response
to us [is]. And we’ll see…what needs to be done there."
Board Chair Jay Suber: "That solves a big issue that has been
with this Board for the last three years that I know about."
Handel: "OK."
This exchange shows not only that Szabo and Handel are fully
aware that any library system that's not permitted to order year-round is
a dysfunctional library system, but that this glaring obstacle to decent
library service is a problem that must - and can - be fixed.
If John Szabo and Karen Handel manage to find a way to reinstate year-round
ordering at the library, they will not only have accomplished a quantum
leap in the morale of librarians responsible for maintaining and developing
the library system's collections, but they will have revolutionized library
service to Fulton County citizens at no extra cost to taxpayers.
We fervently hope that Szabo follows up on this offer of Handel's before
the next ordering season begins, and will instruct the library systemn's
Collection Development Unit to incorporate the Good News into the 2006
specifications for the library system's materials vendors and into the
ordering schedule and selection procedures for the library system's
hundred-or-so selectors. We can think of nothing more fundamental
to the library's mission than to make sure that the library provide a
steady stream of new materials to its users throughout the year instead of
only during a portion of it.
Such a nice thing, to begin a new year at AFPL with cause for optimism
instead of starting off the year with well-justified dread and hopelessness.
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