WebJunction

MLA Legislative Committee
October 1, 2008

Present in St. Paul:  Mike Bloomberg, Mark Ranum, Ann Hutton, Susan Miller, Barbara Misselt, Ann Walker-Smalley, Bill DeJohn, Chris Olson, Sam Walseth, Marlene Moulton-Janssen

Present in St. Cloud:  Verne Oleskowicz, Patricia Post

Present in Traverse:  Nancy Steele, Doug Johnson, Dave Henning

Present in Pelican Rapids:  Peg Werner

The Legislative List did not distribute the minutes from September or the Agenda for this meeting.

Legislative update from Sam Walseth.  The primary news from the legislature is the election.  No specific data on the budget forecast until November, but there is word going around that there will be an up to $2 billion deficit for the next biennium.

Mark attended the Politics in Minnesota event.  There are some odd things going on in races around the state.  He heard that budget instructions came out from the administration to the Departments and included further cuts.

Mark and Elaine have met with the House Education Committee research staff to attempt to work libraries into the New Minnesota Miracle bill.  They advise us not to tie our funding requests into the New Minnesota Miracle.  There have been MLA people at all of the hearings around the state.  You do not need to get on a list to testify, just show up on the night of the hearing and fill out a registration card.  Ann Hutton and Doug Johnson reported on going to hearings.  Both reported that attendees were generally positive and underscored the need for increased funding.  Continue to send updates to Mark if you attend.  There is a sign-up and talking points on the MEMO wiki and on WebJunction.

Elaine and Mark met with Nora Slawik to talk about supporting the Early Learning Summit.  They would like ideas of nationally known speakers to draw people to the Summit.

Platform update:  The platform has been up on WebJunction for about a month.  Most comments have been coming directly to Mark rather than being posted.

We discussed the timing of the platform for MEMO's membership meeting and MLA's conference.

Telecomm:  RLTA will request no substantial increase, schools are asking for 9.5M first year, 10.5 next year.  It's important the we show that schools and libraries present themselves as a team so that we can support each other.  Dale and Peg are working on the language of the plank and talking points.  Doug is concerned about requesting a large dollar amount in a tight year.  MEMO is concerned about getting school telecomm funding moved into the base so it's not one-time money. 

State Technology Plan with technology standards:  MEMO is concerned about getting the state technology plan so that planning can go forward in the school districts.

General Ed formula increase:  such as that represented in the New Minnesota Miracle. 

Multitype funding request:  increase of $1.2M/year added into the base the first year and no increase the second year, thus making it $2.5M base funding for Multitype funding.  Given the budget forecast in the next biennium, this will be a very difficult case to make.  The multitype directors will discuss the talking points to support this request at their quarterly meeting tomorrow.

RLBSS:  add $4.8M to the base the first year.  Of that, $3M would go into the formula, $1.8M divided equally among the systems.  This is intended to allow the regional systems to all have increases, even those that would have a very small increase according to the formula.

Minitex:  asking for current base budget to be sustained during this biennium.  MNLink Gateway asking for $165,000 increase over the biennium to cover increases in costs.  These proposals have not yet made their way through the Departmental review to get into the Governor's budget.

Public Library directors met last week and want to make sure that increase of LGA/CPA appear on the platform.  They also discussed a potential additional plank to provide funding for some kind of Homework Help statewide.  Could it be run centrally from Minitex or the State Library?  MELSA is using a substantial portion of their of their RLBSS increase to run a pilot program and they were considering coming back in 2 years.  Bill doesn't think that Minitex can lead this charge because it's primarily a K-12 issue, not a higher education issue.  Suzanne agrees that it's a K-12 issue.  Doug asks where this need is coming from, Marlene explained that students are coming to the public library after school.  We guess that it would take $1-$1.5 million to provide the service statewide.  There was discussion pointing out that without a pilot project and time to increase support statewide support it would be a hard sell at the legislature.  We also discussed that while there is a need and it's a good idea, we should have a more integrated planning and development of a "big picture."  There was also discussion that the timeline is very short to get it on the platform this year.

Marlene moved that we include on our platform a plank to seek funding for a statewide homework assistance program that would include consideration of those seeking a GED and/or citizenship.  Barbara seconded.  After further discussion, we voted.  Traverse:  4 no, Viking:  2 no, St. Cloud:  2 no, St. Paul:  1 yes, 6 no, 3 abstentions.  The motion fails.

LGA/CPA:  We support the investment in our partners in the Local and county governments.  We have similar talking points to last year.

Werner moved that we include a plank supporting the work of the Minnesota Library Funding Committee in cooperation with our partners in Local and County governments.  Ann Hutton seconded.  Traverse:  3 yes, 1 abstain; Viking:  2 yes, St. Cloud:  1 yes, St. Paul: 9 yea, 1 abstention.  The motion carries

Braille and Talking Book library:  We will get numbers from Suzanne.  We need a full-court press on this.  We will get stories from all over the the state.  Suzanne will collect stories, Mark and Elaine will develop a strategy.

Structure study:  There is support within the Department of Education for a comprehensive structure study of library activities in Minnesota. 

State Library report:  encouraging increased support for ELM and a structure study.  Working on school media annual report.  Finding that lack of media center corrolates with low reading scores

Minitex report:  Cathy DeRosa in Como Park talking about OCLC report.  Minitex staff are working on RFP and RFI for ELM database contracts that are up next year.

MLA Board:  all about the Conference.  online registration is available.

MEMO:  conference is this week.

CRPLSA:  Peg has been working with Minitex to bring in Open Source vendors.  Open discussion last week with the Gateway sites about Open Source/future of ILS last week.

Multitype:  More things on a stick.  had 1690 registrants for 23 Things on a Stick. 

Telecomm:  no report.

We need to move some of our discussion to WebJunction.  We will post minutes and agenda on WebJunction Minnesota for next month.

Next meeting November 5.