Checks and Balances

Building relationships takes time and effort. Good relationships require an understanding of structures, authority, roles of the various officials, and a willingness to recognize the challenges that have to be balanced in order to provide the best library services your community expects and can support.

Board authority, budgets, facilities, and personnel are the four most common areas of potential tension.

For you, as an individual trustee and collectively as a board of trustees, it is important to plan for the time and effort needed to productively engage with local officials to address the areas of potential tension. 

Some Suggestions

• Consider assigning individual trustees to monitor one of these areas.
• Keep up-to-date contact information available to make it easy to reach out with a quick phone call.
• Track meeting dates and times for local government entities and plan regular attendance.
• Create standing agenda items to report out or check in on each of the four areas.