OLC Government Relations Webcast notes

The Ohio Library Council (OLC) presented its latest Government Relations webcast today at 10:30 a.m. The description, from their web site, is as follows : “Lynda Murray, OLC Director of Government and Legal Services, will provide an overview of the state budget as it relates to public libraries and an update on other issues pending before the state legislature.” You can watch a recording of the entire original presentation here.

The following are notes that I made while watching the presentation, organized according to the piece of legislation that was being discussed. (This blog post is by no means an in-depth discussion or analysis of these pieces of legislation, nor will it include any remotely full explanations of what they actually are or contain; just notes on what Ms. Murray said about them in regards to libraries.) All bill designations/numbers refer to the Ohio state legislature.

HB 153 – Biennial Budget

• must pass by June 30th
• contains no new information regarding library funding in this bill since it was introduced by Governor Kasich in March

SB 5 – Collective Bargaining

• The collective bargaining portion applies to all public employees in Ohio including unionized public libraries, except for association libraries.
• The rest of SB 5 does not necessarily apply to library employees.
• Public library employees are not “civil servants,” so the parts pertaining only to “civil servants” do not apply to public library employees.
• The parts about vacation and sick leave minimums do not apply to public library employees.
• The part that prohibits employers from paying the employee’s share of OPERS contributions does apply to public library employees.
• The part about performance-based pay (rather than automatic step increases) does apply to public library employees.
• Apparently there is an effort to move language about performance-based pay into the budget bill, so it will not be subject to voter referendum in November. However, as far as OLC is aware, that effort only pertains to school employees, not all public employees.
• June 30th is the deadline for submission of signatures needed to get SB 5 on the ballot in November (voter referendum). So far, over 700,000 signatures have been collected, which is quite a few more than the 231,000 needed. If the signatures are certified, SB 5 goes on the ballot and cannot go into effect until after that election (and only then, if it is upheld by the voters). The campaign regarding SB 5 is expected to be a very big deal.
• OLC has no formal position on SB 5 except to raise concerns about the potential loss of local control for public libraries.

HB 69 / SB 3 – Retirement

• There has been little controversy regarding the recommendations made by the various public employee retirement systems, such as those changes recommended by OPERS.
• There has been controversy over a proposal in the budget bill to shift the contribution percentages of employee/employer from the current 10/14 to 12/12. It has been argued that doing this could result in insolvency : e.g., if an employee leaves a system prior to retirement and takes their contributions with them (such as cashing out), that share is now larger, whereas the employer’s contributions stay put.
• As of right now, the language for moving to a 12/12 split has been removed from the budget. New research is wanted in this area, so the idea is “on hold” for the time being.

HB 202 – Retire/Rehire

• This is to nix the practice of people “retiring” from a high-salaried public service job and then getting rehired in another public service job (or “double-dipping” basically), by making the practice undesirable for all involved.
• This could have possible impact on libraries that might wish to hire already-retired individuals for whatever reason.

HB 194 / SB 148 – Elections Reform

• Proposes to change primary from March to May in 2012
• was going to require photo ID for voters, but that has been removed from the bill

SB 120 – County Prosecutor Bill

• Makes the county prosecutor the legal adviser of the public library.
• It has passed, waiting for Governor Kasich’s signature, to go into effect.

Final Thoughts from Ms. Murray :

• She called the volume of significant policy changes in the Ohio General Assembly over the past 6 months “historic”. (There has been a lot going on, clearly!)
• Need to keep watching things closely. She expects budget correction bills that will adjust things later on, as needed.
• Remember : More and more library users all the time. Also, good staff is crucial. Library users do support a good staff.

As I said before, these are just my notes from watching the presentation. If you are interested in library-related legislation in Ohio right now, I highly recommend you view the original webcast.

Ohio libraries, past, present, and potential merge scenarios

Today, on the Ohio Library Council (OLC)‘s web site, I read a press release entitled “Task Force Releases Report on Local Government Reform and Collaboration”. It focuses on the results of a recent Task Force assigned to research the potential pros and cons of “collaboration, merger, and consolidation” of Ohio public library systems.

The Task Force’s report is particularly interesting. The press release sums it up best by describing the contents of the report as follows:

The report takes a look at the history and unique nature of Ohio’s public libraries as compared to those around the country, existing research, and new data, and applies the information to two case studies to hypothesize what would happen if the sample libraries were merged.

I learned a lot of interesting things about Ohio’s public libraries, in general, including library-related legislation, previous budget crises and funding-related actions, and basically a lot of statistics demonstrating just how awesome Ohio libraries are.

But more than that, I was particularly interested in the two case study scenarios, because both centered around the library system where I work, the Dayton Metro Library. One scenario explored the potential financial impact of absorbing the Germantown Library as a branch; the other scenario explored the same thing but in reference to Wright Memorial Library in Oakwood.

I was surprised by the results of the analysis! Go check it out and see for yourself!

Funding cuts not so scary, yet

Governor Kasich released his recommendations for the Ohio state biennial budget last week. Here’s a summary article from the Columbus Dispatch. Kasich is recommending a 5% funding cut for public libraries, and apparently that is a much better deal than libraries were expecting from Kasich. Lynda Murray of the Ohio Library Council gave another webcast about the budget last week, which had lots of useful info for anyone interested in the current state of public library funding in Ohio. Apparently, some were expecting cuts of 15-50%, forced consolidations, and a new formula for the Public Library Fund distributions – and evidently, Kasich has not called for any of that. Of course, the show’s not over yet. These are just the governor’s “recommendations.” The Ohio House and Senate still have until the end of June to duke it out over the details, so we’re not out of the woods yet.

Murray reminded everyone to be as non-partisan as possible, since public libraries are traditionally supported by both Republicans and Democrats in various ways. “We’re Switzerland,” she said.

Kasich did propose some changes to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) that could be problematic, according to this OPERS blog post. Kasich proposes that instead of the 10/14 split currently in effect (employee contributes 10%, employer contributes 14%), to change it to an even 12/12. This is a problem because it causes two bits of Ohio law work against each other: state pension funds must be able to pay their “unfunded liabilities” within 30 years; but employee contributions can only be put towards that employee’s pension, while this “unfunded liabilities” bit is one of the things covered by the employers’ contributions. So if the employee’s part is increased and the employer part is decreased, that extends the timeline necessary to cover the “unfunded liabilities.” (If I’m understanding this correctly, I guess you could think of it like a car loan – if you start making smaller payments, it’s going to take longer to pay off.) So anyway – don’t know how they’re going to handle that, but it sounds like something’s got to give (either the proposal or the law) in order for it to legally work out.

I haven’t heard much about SB 5 (the collective bargaining bill) lately. I suppose all this business with Japanese earthquake and Libyan civil war is making the collective bargaining disputes look like small potatoes to the media outlets – as it probably should! but nonetheless the media hysteria has died down a bit. I think the hearings are still going on in Ohio; I’m sure we’ll hear more when the thing either passes or fails. I know we haven’t heard the last of SB 5.

Long and winding road

It’s shaping up to be a very interesting week, involving many a long and winding road…

Yesterday, the Ohio Senate passed SB 5 (with some amendments to its original version) by a margin of just 1 vote (17-16). (If you want to see exactly how it all went down yesterday in the Ohio Senate – including who voted for what - check out the Ohio Senate Journal for Mar. 2, 2011.).

So now SB 5 is on its way to discussions in the Ohio House. According to the Columbus Dispatch: “If the bill passes the House, Gov. John Kasich said he will sign it. After that, Democrats and union leaders anticipate going to the ballot to ask Ohioans to overturn it.” So it should be a long and winding road before we know what the real end result of all of this will be.

I suppose that could explain the last line of today’s Ohio Library Council email regarding the legislation: “When the final version of the legislation is passed, we will provide a complete and thorough legal review of the Bill and how it impacts public libraries.” I guess I can’t really blame them for not wanting to do too much in-depth analysis until the thing is actually in its final form, since any or all of it could always be revised (or fail entirely). Then again, on the other hand, through all of this, I would have really appreciated some more in-depth analysis about all of it – what exactly does all of this mean, for me, in plain English? I’m sorry, but I don’t subscribe to the idea that all public employee union members should automatically think every word of this bill is evil. I’m going to need a little more in the “how does this affect me, really?” category. Anyway, moving on… Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Also yesterday: My federally-employed husband and I were glad to learn that another continuing resolution was passed for the federal budget, and Obama signed it. So government shut-down has been averted for another two weeks. Now if those guys in Washington could only agree on enough stuff to pass a real one for the rest of the year and then maybe, I don’t know, get started on the budget they need to pass before October, so we don’t have a repeat of this past fiscal year…that would be great.

(There’s an interesting poll going on at FedSmith.com right now as to whether a government shutdown is expected and whether the employees will get paid anyway. The results are showing that readers expect a shutdown but think that employees will get paid anyway; however, I would be hesitant to make my bets on anything right now!)

I never meant for this blog to have so many entries about legislation, but there’s just so much crazy stuff going on right now in that area, that affects my profession, that it’s hard not to get sucked into camping the news sites for the latest updates…and then wanting to talk about them here.

But enough on that for now. The other “long and winding road” in my life this week is a road trip to Bloomington, Indiana, for a conference. (Okay – I don’t know that the road will be “winding” – I’ve never been there – or even that you could really call it all that “long” – it’s about 160 miles, mostly interstate, and should take about 3 hours. But…anyway.)

I’m attending Indiana University’s Society of American Archivists student chapter conference “Preserving Our Cultural Heritage: A Conference for Students and Beginning Professionals on Archives, Rare Books, and Special Collections.” I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve never been to IU before, although the IU School of Library & Information Science was definitely on my “short list” in 2006 when I was considering whether/where to go for grad school to become an archivist. (They even have a dual degree in MLIS/History, which was pretty tempting. But in the end, I went back to Wright State; what can I say? it felt like I was going home, and it’s pretty hard to put a price on that. But wait, where was I…? Oh right…IU.)

IU Libraries’ Preservation Lab has a pretty awesome online repair/enclosure preservation manual that I reference a lot in my work, also. As a matter of fact, part of the conference includes a 2-hour workshop on paper conservation, and I’m really looking forward to that. (Actually, the conservation workshop and the $30 registration fee were pretty much what sold me on this conference. I’m sure I’ll enjoy the sessions and tours, too, though!)

So, stay tuned for updates… I’m sure I’ll be blogging about the conference – probably from my hotel room. (Actually the conference itself has a blog, too.) And you know I’ll have more to say as the details of the whole SB 5 thing are further hammered out… Oh, and let’s not forget the upcoming state budget release (which will probably be scary) and this summer’s upcoming union contract negotiation at my library (the last one – in ’08 – dragged on for months, and that was before things even got bad!).

The long and winding road, indeed.

Hot topics: public employee unions, state budgets, and libraries

When John R. Kasich (R) was elected governor of Ohio, last fall, over incumbent Ted Strickland (D), almost immediately, I started hearing little whispers about what it could mean to libraries. (I only heard bad things.) As we get closer to the release of a new state budget, more information is starting to become available in a number of areas, including budgets and legislation.

For instance, this webcast was given by Lynda Murray, Director of Government and Legal Services, Ohio Library Council, on January 24th. Like many other Ohio librarians anxious for news of what’s going to happen to our libraries, I tuned in. It was a sort of “this is what we know so far” kind of talk. I hope she gives more of these, especially as more concrete information becomes available. I found it very useful to have the information distilled and dispatched in this way.

The state budget isn’t due out for a while yet, and it isn’t required to be signed until June 30, so I think we probably still have a ways to go before we know anything definitive on that front.

However, I guess things are already starting to ramp up in the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate, regarding some hot topic issues that will affect libraries. I opened my email this morning and found the latest e-newsletter from the Ohio Library Council, mentioning 5 bills they have their eye on: HB 3 (estate tax); HB 69 (public pension reform); HB 88 (public library legal counsel); SB 3 (also public pension reform); and SB 5 (collective bargaining unit reform).

I have been hearing about the public pension reforms (HB 69 and SB 3) for a while now. There have already been several emails from OPERS (our pension plan at the library). Now, I’m all for retirement plans actually being able to sustain themselves, but I also disagree with changing the rules of the game on people, part-way through. Guess we’ll all just have to wait and see what happens with that and hope for the best. I sure don’t claim to have the answer.

Also in my inbox this morning was an email from the president of our union (DMLSA), regarding SB 5 (the one about collective bargaining unit reforms). SB 5 would “amend…enact…and repeal” various sections of the Ohio Revised Code “to make various changes to laws concerning public employees, including collective bargaining, salary schedules and compensation, layoff procedures, and leave” (view SB 5 in its entirety).

The email from the union president alerted those of us who were not already aware (like me), that “the State Legislature is working on a bill that would take away our right to collectively bargain,” and urged us “to consider the benefits of collective bargaining” and contact our legislators accordingly.

I appreciated the fact that the union’s email made an effort to acknowledge that some people (even among union members) are more pro-union than others and made its case to both sides. [For those who may not know, library employees - at least at our library - either pay union dues, if they are in the union, or a "fair share fee" of the same amount, if they choose not to be in the union: so that's how you get people who may not be particularly pro-union who are in a union. They take the same fee out of your paycheck either way, so you might as well be in it.]

The union question is definitely a hot topic. Check out this poll at the Columbus Dispatch, asking whether collective bargaining should be eliminated for state workers. At the time of this writing, 81% of the 432 poll respondents had voted “No.” I wonder how many of them are public employees themselves?

Anyhow… And so begins the season of everyone at the library being all spun up about budgets and legislation and wondering what’s going to happen next. We have a union contract negotiation coming up this summer, on top of all the probably-inevitable changes due to budget cuts and new legislation. I don’t know what the weather’s going to be, but it’s sure looking like another long, hot summer.

Okay… I think that’s about all the politics I can handle for right now.

Funding Ohio’s libraries

Did you know: Ohio’s libraries have the highest circulation, computer usage, volume of materials, and patron traffic per capita in the country. That’s one of the highlights of the Ohio Library Council‘s white paper: “Ohio Public Libraries: Open to All”. The white paper includes quite a bit of interesting information about the history and funding of Ohio’s 251 public library systems.

This is interesting background reading in light of the upcoming change of command in the Ohio governor’s office. At the end of the year, Strickland (D) will pass the torch over to Kasich (R), who will then try his hand at dealing with the state’s budget situation. I’m not political enough to offer any speculation on what this might involve or what its impact will be to already-hurting libraries. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.