Posted: February 25, 2025
This year, the Mid-Hudson Library System (MHLS) is producing a series of events for library trustees and directors to help strengthen the financial future of your library.
This series is designed to meet directors and board members where they are, providing assistance for a range of developmental activities such as:
- Helping Association and Municipal Public Libraries to a pattern of annual votes;
- Creating budget goals to address issues such as a living wage for staff, benefits, adequate funds for digital collections, programming or your facility
- Building an adequate reserve fund structure or
- Minimizing risk to your organization through adequate insurance coverage
All events for trustees count toward the NYS Trustee Education Requirement for 2025.
Next in the series:
414 Meetup
Tuesday, June 17 | 2:00 – 3:00 PM | Online | Register here
At this meetup we’ll check in with MHLS member library teams going for a 414 vote this year, share best practices and ensure your team is on track to hit all of the required milestones for a successful vote. This is an opportunity to learn from your peers also working on 414 vote campaigns this year.
MHLS Sustainable Funding Series: Finance for Trustees Part 1: The Basics
Tuesday, June 17 | 5:00 – 6:30 PM | Online | Register here
Library boards are trusted with public and private funds to provide quality library service to their community. Transparency and accountability must be at the forefront as a board makes decisions pertaining to the library’s finances. This course will focus on the financial and fiduciary responsibility involved with:
- Fiscal Oversight
- Reading Reports
- Budget Development
This workshop is part of the MHLS Sustainable Funding & Trustee Education Series and is intended for MHLS member library trustees and directors only. Attendance at this event can be applied toward the NYS Trustee Education Requirements.
Posted: January 7, 2025
New York State Public Officer’s Law §10 requires all public library trustees (but not association library trustees) to take and file an oath of office within 30 days of beginning their term of office. Public library trustees are public officers, and the oath of office is required to officially undertake and perform the duties of a public library trustee. If a public library trustee does not properly complete and file an oath of office, the trustee’s position may be deemed vacant. See Public Officer’s Law §30(1)(h). For more information about how and why the oath of office is administered, and where to properly file an oath of office, please see the Oaths of Office FAQ on the New York State Library website https://www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/trustees/oath.htm