After weeks of public backlash over its handling of a $3.8 million budget deficit, the Timberland Regional Library (TRL) Board of Trustees is taking steps towards accountability and making some internal changes.
The biggest so far was accepting the resignation of TRL Executive Director Cheryl Heywood on Wednesday.
Heywood tendered her resignation ahead of the TRL Board of Trustees' regular business meeting on Wednesday, March 25. The board voted that night to accept her resignation.
Heywood is released of her duties effective immediately, but will be paid through June 30.
Heywood's contract requires the Board of Trustees to give her 90 days notice if she is terminated from her position, according to the board. However, because she submitted a letter of resignation effective immediately, that termination clause in her contract doesn't apply.
While not required by Heywood's contract, the board is opting to give Heywood the same 90 days she would have gotten if she was fired.
The outcome and the amount paid to Heywood for her resignation is the same as it would be if she was fired, according to Board of Trustees President Brian Mittge.
The TRL Board of Trustees will hold an executive session on Monday, March 30 to discuss interim leadership.
Heywood's departure comes as the regional library system faces a budget crisis that has led to a large wave of layoffs.
Earlier this month, the TRL sent layoff notices to about 20% of its total staff to address a $3.8 million budget deficit.
AFSCME Local 3758-B recently confirmed that all 61 employees set to be laid off in May are “frontline” library staff who work directly with patrons across the five-district library system. When the layoffs go into effect, TRL will lose 38% of its frontline staff, according to the union.
The news of the layoffs led to a letter from eight former TRL Board of Trustees members calling for an investigation into the system's finances and urging the board to reevaluate its priorities.
Many community members who gave public comments about TRL’s budget crisis in recent weeks have called for Heywood’s removal, as well as the removal of administrators Andrea Heisel and Brenda Lane, for their role in creating the budget crisis.
The Board of Trustees held an executive session on March 18 to evaluate the performance of a public employee, presumably Heywood. The details of that evaluation have not been made public.
Heywood started in her role as TRL's executive director in 2013.
"I do want to acknowledge that Cheryl worked for Timberland for a long time. And I just want to acknowledge that service, decades of service, to us," Mittge said Wednesday, adding, "We're going to be moving forward to address the challenges facing TRL."
As part of that work, the Board of Trustees is exploring ways to be more proactive in reviewing TRL’s finances.
The TRL Board of Trustees is considering a new financial transparency and planning policy, aimed at helping the board better fulfill its fiduciary oversight responsibilities and make more-informed financial decisions.
The policy would require TRL staff to provide the Board of Trustees with monthly financial reports, quarterly staffing reports and monthly updates on multi-year financial projections.
All reports would be accessible to the public.
“Some of these things are already provided in some format, but it makes it kind of more explicit, and it kind of defines how it's provided and and how often it's provided,” Mittge said.
The board hopes to adopt the policy at its May 27 business meeting.
The board is also in the process of reviewing its whistleblower protections and anti-retaliation policies after hearing reports that administrators were retaliating against staff who expressed concerns about TRL.
Other policies that the board’s policy committee will soon review — some at the request of community members — include the partnerships and sponsorships policy, interlibrary loan policy, Friend of the Library policy, incentive and prize policy, fund balance management policy, Equal Employment Opportunity policy, animals in the library policy, the meal breaks and personal device use policy, and the ethics for the Board of Trustees policy.
The latter determines who can serve on the Board of Trustees, and currently prohibits Friends of the Library members and former TRL employees from joining the board.
The policy committee meeting is scheduled for May 12 and is open to the public.
“If there's a policy you’re concerned about, send it to us,” said board member Dustin Loup. “We’ll review it. We may not change it, but we might, and we certainly want your input on why you think it might need some changes.”
The board is also exploring the idea of placing a levy lid lift on the ballot as early as November.
“We desperately need revenue fix. A levy lid lift is really the only way to get there,” Mittge said.
The board is eyeing November due to the high voter turnout associated with a midterm election. But with the filing deadline in August, TRL would need to get organized quickly.
TRL does have the benefit of high community engagement, but the board acknowledged that they have work ahead of them to re-earn the community’s support.
“We have to rebuild the trust (with) all those people who are showing up for us,” said Loup.
In a public statement Thursday afternoon, AFSCME Local 3758 thanked the TRL Board of Trustees for the steps it has taken to restore financial transparency and stability, but asked TRL to take more accountability for creating the situation that led to 61 employees being laid off.
“The current budget crisis did not happen overnight, and it did not arise because of these 61 employees' valuable work on the frontlines of our libraries,” the union stated, calling on TRL to pause the layoffs until a full decisionmaking and leadership audit into TRL’s administration is completed.
A union representative who gave public comment on Wednesday reiterated that AFSCME Local 3758 has fundamental disagreements with TRL over its interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement regarding the layoffs.
The union has previously indicated that it is exploring possible legal action against TRL for its implementation of the layoffs.
“We call for the TRL Board of Trustees to ensure that there are no long-lasting negative impacts and risks to taxpayers and communities due to a lack of contract compliance in how the layoffs were planned and implemented by leadership,” AFSCME Local 3758 said in a statement Thursday.
The union is additionally calling for a seat at the table within TRL’s future decisionmaking.
“We see how decisionmaking has become concentrated in a few people at the very top of our organization, and how it has weakened us as a library system. We care about our libraries and communities, and as the people who directly interact with library patrons every day, we are the ones with the valuable insights you need in this moment,” the union stated.
The layoffs are currently set to go into effect May 15.
The Board of Trustees’ next regular business meeting is April 22.
