Chinook Regional Library

Minimum Wage
I will start off with the increase to minimum wage as of September 1, 2005. This affects each of your pay cheques and I am sure that you noticed a $0.40 per hour increase on your September cheques. There will be another $0.50 per hour increase effective March 1, 2006 and another $0.40 per hour increase effective March 1, 2007.

Minimum Call-out
The Labour Standards sets a minimum call-out as the time it would take to earn 3 hours salary at minimum wage. Presently minimum wage is at $7.05 for which an employee would earn $21.15 in three hours. If your present salary is $8.40 your minimum call-out would be 2.52 hours (2 hours 32 minutes). If your salary is $9.40 your minimum call-out would be 2.25 hours (2 hours 15 minutes). When having to call an employee to fill in, this formula should be taken into consideration to assure that you are not in contravention of The Labour Standards Act

Public Holidays
Libraries are required to close on Public Holidays: New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Saskatchewan Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day, Remembrance Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. When a Public Holiday falls on your regular opening day, you may reschedule those hours at another time with the approval of your local board.

Sick Leave
Branch librarians accumulate sick leave on the actual hours in direct relationship to hours worked by Headquarters staff. The maximum sick leave credit is $250.00.

Compassionate Leave
Branch librarians are allowed compassionate leave of four consecutive days. This does not mean four days of scheduled work but four consecutive days. Staff members are paid at their regular rate for hours which they would have been scheduled to work within those four consecutive days.

Opening Hours/Christmas Closing
All branches are required to close after completing 51 weeks of opening which is usually December 23rd. The exception would be if you have banked hours from shorter summer hours, from Public Holidays or extra hours paid by the local board. Any changes planned to your regular opening hours approved locally should be reported to Headquarters immediately.

Branch Staff Training
Each new employee is allotted the equivalent of one week of opening hours training paid at the regular wage for that position. In the case of an automated branch, training will be equivalent to two weeks of opening hours.
Branch staff required to attend training sessions at the request of Headquarters will be paid their regular hourly salary. Mileage allowance will be paid if the training is outside of the home community.
Where training is at the discretion of the staff member (i.e. Annual Librarians’ Workshop) compensation will be in the amount provided by the region’s policy on Travel-Committee Meetings.

Payroll/Time Sheets
Direct Deposit of pay cheques was initiated with the September 2004 payroll. There is still a problem of receiving late Time Sheets. Canada Post takes a maximum of 2 working days to deliver your mail. Please be sure you post it the last working day of the month. It takes at least 2 days for me to process the Time Sheets and the Credit Union needs 3 working days to release it into the system. If only one Time Sheet comes in late, it holds up the whole process.

Circulation Sheets
New circulation sheets were sent out with your September returns. There is no longer a column for ILL. These are being tracked by HIP, RSS and Headquarters ILL. Please do not use old sheets –recycle them or use them for your printer.

Registration Forms/Library Cards
Patrons at ALL branches are now required to have the new plastic library card. Please discard any cardboard registration forms or borrower cards that you still have. Paper registrations forms should be filled out for each patron that does not have a plastic card. This form is to be sent to Headquarters so they can be registered online. A plastic borrower card along with the registration form will be sent to your branch for the patron.

Mailing Labels
There is still a problem with some branches taping all the labels on bags and envelopes – this is a waste of tape. All our address labels are printed on special Davac paper (lick and stick). Please peel off old labels and tape on mailing bags before applying the new label. The labels will not stick over tape. Be sure that you fold over the end of the mailing bags before stapling. When the edges aren’t folded over and there is considerable weight, it just pops the staples right out and we have loose books everywhere.

Letters, Memos and e-mails
All mail should be dealt with as quickly as possible and a response sent to the party from which you received the communication.

Administrative Handbook/Branch Library Procedures Manual/Branch Library Handbook
The three manuals are in a blue Chinook Regional Library binder. In 1997 a copy was put into each branch library. The Administrative Handbook is posted on the Chinook Regional Library website and is kept up to date. The printed copy is somewhat out of date in certain areas but the main areas are still relevant. Most of the above items and items dealing with the day-to-day operations of the branch will be found in these manuals. Each new employee should take the time to read these manuals.

Board Responsibilities Branch Library Handbook
Each new board member should have access to the Branch Library Handbook which you received in 1997. This should be required reading to understand how the system works.

Opening Hours
Each year in January I issue a letter to the librarian and the chair indicating the number of opening hours for each branch for the year. It is the responsibility of the local board to assign regular opening hours throughout the year. Do not assume that the hours are the same as the previous year – CAP grant hours are only for one specific year. You should take a calendar and put your regular hours in by the week, reassign any hours scheduled on public holidays and add up to make sure that you haven’t exceeded the total allotted. Any hours over and above those allotted by Headquarters are the responsibility of the local board. The following items are required by law under The Public Libraries Regulations 1996: Municipal Appointments All municipalities are required to appoint a representative to the regional board each January; this person also sits on your local board. If you have not been informed by the surrounding municipalities of their appointment by the end of January, contact them to find out who is the representative. It is also the duty of the municipalities to appoint other members to the local library board. The local library shall consist of not less than five and not more than 15 members. Those of you struggling to find members may have to approach your surrounding municipalities to get bodies.

Local Board Annual Meeting
Each local library board is required by law to hold an Annual Meeting between January 1 and the date of the Regional Library Annual Meeting (usually the 3rd Saturday of April). Copies of the minutes of all local library meetings should be sent to Headquarters as soon as possible after a meeting.

Local Board Annual Budget
The local library board is responsible to draft a budget of local expenditures and present it to all municipal councils that share an interest in your library and to the regional library by March 1st in each year.

Local Board Annual Report
The local library board shall present its annual report to the municipal councils and to Headquarters by March 31st of each year. This is the form that we send out to you at the end of the year.