LSSI To Manage Shasta County Library, CA
-- Library Journal, 09/07/2006
The Redding, CA, City Council, which voted Tuesday to take over the Shasta County Library System, then awarded a 3½-year management contract to Library Systems and Services LLC (LSSI). According to the Record-Searchlight, LSSI will keep the main library open for 60 hours a week for the same budget the city would have used to keep it open 40 hours a week. One major difference: LSSI staffers don't get a public employee benefits package, including pensions. As part of the contract, Redding will grant LSSI free space in the library for retail sales, business services, and other "new revenue-generating services," according to the newspaper. The new contract was supported by the three main library booster groups in the county, which sought LSSI's help in running a new main building, more than twice the size of the current library in Redding, which is scheduled to open in January. The county, which is 3850 square miles, has two branches along with the main library in Redding.
LSSI is required to interview current library employees and provide five "preference points"—on a scale up to 100—in evaluating them. A union representative for library employees had asked for ten preference points. "In my mind, LSSI's expansion of hours and services under an agreement to operate the library would be balanced on the backs of the employees themselves, the very same employees who helped deliver the new library facility to our community," Dave Ritchie, United Public Employees of California Local 792 labor representative, wrote in a letter to Redding city manager Kurt Starman. Library director Carolyn Chambers told LJ that a meeting yesterday with LSSI staff left staff "a little more encouraged about how things might go. Their benefits package is much better than what we expected, but not what we had with the county. I think their vacation and sick leave policies are similar; the big difference is in the retirement package and health insurance." LSSI said they'd hire most of the 14 current staffers who applied, according to Chambers, who noted that some of those staffers would seek other jobs with the county. As for her, "I'm leaning towards reteirement."
