Study shows Hall library employees underpaid

GAINESVILLE - Hall County Library Board trustees Tuesday night looked at employee pay figures and saw most employees are underpaid, but system director Adrian Mixson said right now there's not much to do about it.

A recent salary study revealed Hall library employees are paid 25 percent less than comparable system employees; Chairman Wayne Colston also cited a discrepancy in pay between county employees and library employees.

Mixson said the time to ask the county commission for a bigger salary budget is when the economy picks up.

"I'm hoping that in the next couple of years we'll have an economic upturn and we'll have the chance to address our salaries for the library," he said.

Mixson said recently a system employee quit because it was costing too much to commute from her home in Jackson County.

"We used to recruit from surrounding counties, but if you have to work an hour and a half or two hours to pay for your gasoline to come to work you begin to think about not taking a job over here," he said.

Mixson said Hall is not alone when it comes to different salary rates for county and library employees; it occurs where library workers actually are employed by boards and not the county, even though the county finances both.

"Most of our employees are funded by the county," Mixson added. "While they work for the Library Board, the county gives the board the money to operate with so they're not really county employees. As a result they're kind of falling behind in many ways with similar jobs."

NEW VICE CHAIRMAN

Colston brought a nomination from the floor to fill the board's Vice Chair seat for FY 2009.

He nominated long time former Gainesville City Manager Carlyle Cox to the post, and Cox was unanimously approved.

NOT WET SWIM SUITS PLEASE

Mixson got approval from the board for a new policy regarding how to dress at the new Spout Springs Library in Flowery Branch.

From now on if patrons come in with wet bathing suits or clothes from a dip at a nearby subdivision swimming pool, they will be asked to leave and come back attired in dry clothes.

"Folks hit the pool, get out and get ready to head home," Mixson said. "They want something to do and a library book is what it is. They come in dressed in bathing suits and sometimes wet bathing suits."