Author: Eric Melton

A phone number is now required for browsing and PC appointments. Should we lose power and need to close again, this will allow us to call the rest of the day’s appointments.

Molly has let us borrow an old cellphone of hers that we’ll get activated and use for curbside instead of the iPod with Google Voice. This should alleviate the delays in receiving messages that everyone has been experiencing. It should be ready to go by early next week.

Per the city ordinance, the library must submit an annual report to the city council after the end of each fiscal year. Katie Fiala, the current board president, will present the report at the next city council work session. A link to the report is included below.

https://board.johnstonlibrary.com/2020-08/12%20FY20%20Annual%20Report%20to%20Council.pdf

We will hold an all-staff meeting via Zoom at 9am Thursday, September 24th. I’ll send a reminder and a link closer to that date. In between now and then, if you need help setting up Zoom on your staff of work PC, let me know. I understand that not everyone has a microphone and camera on their PC–that’s ok. If you don’t have a microphone and have questions or comments during the meeting, please use the chat feature.

From city hall. Policy linked below. Let me know if you have any questions.

COVID-19

Attached is the current, updated COVID-19 policy.  Please disseminate to your staff.  If you would like me to meet with any of your employee groups, please let me know some dates and times that will work and I’ll set something up.  Alternatively, employees can reach out to me individually if they have questions.  Please make sure your staff know how to denote COVID time on their timecards.  The Federal Act is set to expire on December 31, 2020.  We will review this policy as that date nears.

Key takeaways in the new policy:

• Employees are still eligible for the 2 weeks of additional sick time during the COVID-19 pandemic.  For illness or quarantine, unless teleworking, this sick time cannot be taken intermittently.  It may be taken intermittently for daycare/school closures as defined in the policy.
• For COVID-19 illness/quarantine, once that 2 weeks of time has been used, employees will be required to use accrued leave or take the time unpaid, per City policy. (No changes to benefits – FMLA applies.)
• For daycare/school closures related to COVID-19, the employee may take the first two weeks as paid sick leave and after that is exhausted, the City will pay employees at 2/3 of their pay and employees can choose to take the remainder as unpaid or use accrued leave. (No changes to benefits – FMLA applies.)
• Employees should submit a written request to their Department Director for schedule changes, teleworking, etc. related to school/daycare closures.
• Employees who are isolated or quarantined are expected to stay home.
• Employees may still “borrow” up to two weeks of PTO.  Separation from employment prior to this being paid back will be withheld from final pay.
• Domestic Travel – Employees should use prudent judgement and follow all CDC, state, and local guidelines applicable to their destination.
• International Travel – CDC currently in a Warning Level 3 – avoid non-essential international travel.  Employees must notify Department Director of specific plans and may be required to self-quarantine for 14 days upon return.  If sufficient PTO is not available to cover the travel and quarantine periods, the request may be denied.  If staffing shortage may exist due to the travel and quarantine period, the request may be denied.
• Work Related Travel – Considered on a case-by-case basis by Department Director.

https://www.johnstonlibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Employee_Covid_v091020.pdf

I hooked a larger monitor up to the bouncer laptop. To access settings like whether to extend or duplicate the displays, search for “display settings” under the search icon in the bottom left corner.

Beginning this coming Sunday, September 13th, we’ll be adding Sunday and Monday curbside hours. Sunday’s hours will be 12-2 and Monday’s 10-2.

We hit three months of curbside pickup this week and, at the end of today’s pickups, have served nearly 4,000 patrons (3,874 for the nitpicky)! A big thank you to circulation staff for your hard work and to PS and YS staff for chipping in.

YS Staff have introduced a new service called “Book Bundles” where patrons can request that staff select 10-15 kids books in various categories. Take a look at the request form linked below for more details:

https://www.johnstonlibrary.com/kids/book-bundles/

Holds for browsers can be placed on the two sets of shelves nearest the bouncer station.

You may have heard of the federal plan to allow employers to offer their employees the option of deferring their payroll taxes to ease financial hardship due to Covid-19. The city has decided not to allow employees this option. Their explanation is included in the memo copied below. Let me know if you have any questions:

Department Directors,
As discussed at Staff this morning, President Trump has signed an executive order instituting a payroll tax deferral program which is set to kick in today, September 1. (IRS Notice 2020-65). This allows employers to defer the withholding, deposit, and payment of the employee portion of the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance segment of the FICA taxes. This deferral applies to taxes on wages from September 1 – December 31, 2020. Payroll taxes are deferred and not forgiven. This means that on January 1, 2021 the employer will begin collecting the deferred taxes, with all deferred taxes collected by April 30, 2021.
Employers are not required to defer payroll taxes. Informal polling in the metro shows that most cities will not be offering this deferral. This is partially related to the fact that for most of us, we have not furloughed employees, or reduced hours for the majority of our employees. This program also presents payroll processing difficulties, and an unclear process for collecting the deferred taxes from employees who may leave employment prior to the end of the program.
Taxes are collected based on employee wages, so it varies for each of us. A baseline of what this would be are roughly $71 per pay period for those earning $30,000. (That would mean that in January, we would begin withholding approximate $142 from each check in that same example.) You can multiply that out for different earners. The threshold for eligibility is earning less than $4000 every two weeks.
We have determined that we will not be offering the payroll tax deferral for the reasons outlined above.
Please let me know if you have questions. (I’m happy to speak with employees who have concerns as well.)

Cyndee Rhames

The website and intranet have been moved to the new server. Let me know if you experience any problems.

It’s good to see more use of slack for communication. I’ve installed Slack on the laptop that will be in the Commons as well as the iPod in the Commons. If you need help installing or logging into slack on your work PC or another device, let me know.

At last week’s meeting, the board ok’d sticking with the casual dress code until we’re more fully reopen.

In a meeting last week, I let department heads know that we’d be sticking with the same hours and services through September.

We’ve implemented a grace period of 7 days to all checkouts. This means that if someone returns or renews their items within 7 days after the due date, fines will not be assessed.

I’ve hijacked the Johnston Arts Council website to host our holds scheduling. The links on the intranet to create holds appointments, view the schedule, and cancel and edit appointments have been updated to point to the new location. (Printing, browsing, and PC scheduling have not been moved to the new site.)  I will email all patrons with holds soon with the new link.

Calls to the circ. phone will now be broadcast to PS, YS, myself, and Molly on the first ring.

Overdrive has implemented a temporary fix for patrons to login to Bridges. I sent the message below to Bridges patrons this morning:

We’ve implemented a temporary fix for logging into Bridges. You should now be able to login, place holds, and check items out. Let me know if you have any questions.

As you know, patrons cannot make their own appointments as the website is inaccessible from outside the library. To avoid confusion and frustration, I’ve temporarily turned off hold notices. I’ve also updated dues dates for all items due 8/10-8/15 to 8/22.