[Publib] Food for fines revisited

[Patrick Sweeney]

HAHAHA!   I LOVE your passion here!  Please allow me to address your concerns...

Patrick Sweeney and Phalbe Henriksen wrote:

Patrick"I have to say that I love 'Food for Fines' drives...."
Phalbe"Love" doesn't make it legal.
Patrick  You're right that is absolutely true! However, from what I understand, it had to get approved by the director, the city, the city's attorneys, the accountants, etc... I could be wrong but I wasn't involved in that part. However, I do remember hearing about the conversations our director had with the city and I'm pretty sure these issues were brought up. Maybe if my director sees this she can enlighten us as to that process.

Patrick So, if you returned your items (no matter how late) with some food (no matter how much) we would wave your fines.  We got so many materials returned with a can of food or two that I can't imagine what we saved in the cost of re-ordered and re-processed materials.
Phalbe Compared to what?
PatrickExcellent point! I didn't make it very clear what it was compared to.  What I was intending to say was that getting the items returned was cheaper than the cost of replacing the items or in many cases it was cheaper than the cost of chasing people down with collection agencies or staff time.

Patrick "Sure, some people returned their materials with a package of Ramen Noodles and got 20-30 dollars of fines waved..."
Phalbe Surely, you jest. You allowed them to waive any amount of fines for any amount of food????
Patrick I NEVER jest! :)  And yes we did.  Why not?

Patrick"...but we got the material back, we got the food..."
PhalbeNo, you didn't get the food. Some non-profit agency got the food. And, in the end, private citizens got the food. Your only reward was the returned material. You could have achieved the same with a fine-free month, as far as your library is concerned.
PatrickTrue, very true, I can't argue with you here.  WE didn't get the food...  That was very poor wording on my part.  Thank you for point it out! I will try to do better.  So yes, a local non-profit got the food.  You are correct we absolutely could have done the same thing with a fine-free month, however, we also got an improved image of the library by "doing good." We got to say we give back to the community in some new way (you could argue otherwise on this point I guess), and we got positive PR from the local newspapers, it was like free advertising.

Patrick"...and got the patron to come back to the library.  Really it was a WIN, WIN, WIN situation."
PhalbeUmmm, you *want* that patron back????
PatrickI don't understand this, maybe you could explain it to me.  You don't *want* patrons at your library?  If you have any positions open I'd love to apply.  I was just thinking the other day that I could get so much more done if it weren't for all these pesky patrons running around and checking out all the books and everything.  I just don't trust them!

Patrick"I would also like to point out that for every person who brought in 1 package of ramen noodles or the like, we got people who didn't owe fines bringing in food for the local community pantry that we were donating the food to and we also got people bringing in WAY more food than their fines were worth."
PhalbeOK, so why not just do a food drive with the library as the drop-off point?
PatrickThat's an excellent point! We SHOULD do that.  I'll bring this up at the next meeting!  Thanks! :)  I think this is especially good since we are coming up on Thanksgiving.

Patrick"I can't figure out a bad angle to look at this from, and I tried!"
Phalbe I can, and I've pointed it out. *No one* has said that their county's attorney and/or elected board has approved this. The IRS has a new rule in place that anyone who has a cel phone paid for by their employer has to declare the value of the number of minutes they spent on personal phone calls as "income" on their tax return. Do you think that same IRS would say, "OK, no prob. Let people donate food, and be able to use it as a tax deduction, to a local non-profit in order to write off a local government debt"????
Patrick I think that whether or not the attorneys and accountants were involved is an excellent concern.  But I would suggest that most cities and counties wouldn't just allow a library to do something like this without bringing it before city council and the city manager and getting approvals.  I would suggest your library ask your accountants and attorneys and not a listserv.  They're on retainer, make'em earn it! :)

Think about it, people!

Phalbe Henriksen



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Phalbe,


      
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