GUILDERLAND — The public library here has taken to heart the concerns of workers who recently left, according to the interim director, Nathaniel Heyer.

“We have been discussing shifts to our work/life balance and culture in the past few months in admin, and expect great opportunities ahead with our new director to continue to improve our workplace culture,” Heyer emailed in response to Enterprise questions.

Heyer stepped up from being assistant director to lead the library after Timothy Wiles retired in early February having been director for a decade.

Later in February, the library’s first café abruptly shut as the owner posted on Facebook a notice alleging it was because of racism not just from patrons but library staff. This provoked a firestorm of media coverage and some expressions of community outrage.

The Enterprise has followed up on several issues, most notably writing that no racism was revealed in answer to a Freedom of Information Law request seeking documents on any complaints made by or about the café’s owners.

The library board has hired, for $15,000 plus travel and research expenses, Guidepost Solutions, based in New York City, to look into the allegations of racism.

A new director, Peter Petruski, is slated to start on May 22, coming from a public library in Arlington, Virginia.

Last week, the library’s retired long-time head of maintenance, Lewis Warner, wrote a letter to the Enterprise outlining his concerns. This week, Luanne Nicholson, who had worked as the library’s public information officer for five years and recently moved onto another job, shared her concerns with the trustees at their May 16 meeting and reiterated them in a letter to the Enterprise editor.

The Enterprise emailed questions to Heyer and the library’s assistant director based on statements that Nicholson had made to the board and reiterated in her letter.

Responding to Nicholson’s concerns about salary inequity, Heyer gave context for both the new administrative assistant’s salary and for the new role of personal administrator, which Nicholson referred to as HR, for human resources.

“The previous Administrative Assistant was making $48,000 per year when she left,” Heyer responded in an email to The Enterprise. “After her departure, members of the admin team reviewed updated civil service job specifications for the Administrative Assistant title, and discovered the job functions had broadened significantly over the years of our previous employee’s long tenure.

“We were particularly excited to learn that marketing functions were now included in the official job specifications for the position, as this meant we could devote some of this new worker’s hours to graphics production, providing much needed overflow support for Ms. Nicholson who was a very hard working employee with a lot on her plate. 

“We also considered the needs of the administrative teams and the board, and developed a strategy for how the new employee could support current needs of these teams. This analysis led to a re-imagining of the position as an ‘Office Manager’ — a role with more responsibilities than that held by the previous worker.  Given this change, we reviewed comparable positions in other public employers in order to find the competitive market rate for the salary that matched the new scope of the role.

“We settled on a maximum salary of $65,000 after careful consideration of all these factors. Upon advertising the position, we received a slate of extremely qualified mid-career applicants — exactly the kind of skilled workers we knew could hit the ground running and make a positive difference to the entire staff of the library, and provide excellent support to Ms. Nicholson.

“We hired one of these talented individuals, who brought extensive graphics production skills from a previous role, and has been doing great work for us since day one.  Ms. Nicholson was included in the panel interviews and expressed enthusiasm for the candidate we all agreed on.”

On the human resources administrator, Heyer wrote, “The position was initially advertised at $60k and a candidate was hired at that rate. Upon consideration of the much higher rates of pay for comparable positions in public libraries in this region, and the fact that the candidate selected had a SHRM [Society for Human Resource Management] certification another worker in the same title at another local library did not have, a raise of $20k was negotiated by the former Personnel Administrator with the former Director to a total pay rate of $80k.

“Additional context on the Personnel Administrator’s raise is that these negotiations occurred during a time period when the board had expressly allocated extra funding to increase all management confidential employees here to a fair market rate.

“This was before my tenure here, but my understanding is that we needed to address many years of wage stagnation that left our management confidential workers underpaid compared to other local public employers, and to counteract the impact of high inflation.”

Finally, in responding to Nicholson’s concerns, Heyer wrote, “None of these changes to wages were aimed at disrespecting or devaluing Ms. Nicholson’s contributions, which were valuable to the library. In point of fact, we were seeking to improve her work life balance by providing qualified support.

“We reviewed comps for her position on multiple occasions at her request, but found that the higher rates of pay she was seeking were only found in private industry. Being a public employer, our wages often do not stack up to what talented individuals like Ms. Nicholson can earn in private employment.”

Heyer concluded, “Many workers find that New York State Retirement and other benefits make civil service employment with us attractive, despite the lower wages.”

Catherine Barber, president of the library’s board of trustees, was asked by The Enterprise to respond to the four concerns raised by Nicholson.

On the reorganization plan, she said, “All the employees are covered by a union where they’d bring their grievances.” 

As with the safety plan, Barber said the trustees really didn’t have a role in that. She noted, “Way back when, there was a COVID committee with both board members and library members.”

As for working from home, Barber said she believed there is a work-from-home policy for employees as opposed to administrators.

On hiring, Barber said, “The board gets involved in spending additional money but not in terms of who’s hired … The director and department heads know better what they’re looking for.”

On Tuesday night, Barber noted, “The new director, Peter Petruski, starts tomorrow. Maybe some of these things might have been an issue under a prior director … We should give the new director a chance to address these concerns.”

She said of Petruski, “He seems enthusiastic … [He] will be energetic and know what’s going on.”

She went on about Heyer, “I think the interim director did an excellent job,” noting that in a temporary position “you can’t plan in advance to address concerns.”

After five years serving on the library board, Barber is not seeking re-election. She previously served for 12 years on the Guilderland School Board. Both are unpaid posts.

Barber called her recent term “pretty tough.” 

“It seemed a lot longer than five years,” she said, noting her term encompassed the pandemic and the library’s massive expansion project.

She found the virtual meetings during the pandemic lockdown particularly difficult. When communication is just “little squares on a screen,” Barber said, “there can be misrepresentations.”

Barber concluded she is happy the board is meeting in person again.