This week, we learned that the two top executives of Montpelier’s Kellogg-Hubbard Library have resigned, and that management is being restructured. Beyond that, a number of questions are unanswered. Given the cozy insularity of many Vermont institutions, public and private, large and small, I fear these questions will never be answered.
(Pretty much the only media source for this story is the Times Argus, whose website and archive are behind a paywall, so I won’t bother embedding a link. I’ll include some fair-use quotes in this story. To see the rest, subscribe! Or go to your local, ahem, library, and read it in the February 9 edition.)
For the last six-plus years, the Library has had a rather unusual two-headed leadership model. An Executive Director (Daniel Pudvah) responsible for finances, fundraising, and such. And a library Director (Robin Sales) responsible for day-to-day management. There are reasons to have this kind of structure, but I’d always wondered if it was really necessary in a smallish library like Kellogg-Hubbard.
Now, I’m wondering even more — about the original move, and its reversal.
First of all, in retrospect, was it a mistake to adopt the structure in 2005? Did we get our money’s worth out of the extra burden of two directors? If so, why are we abandoning it? If not, why did it take six-plus years to figure this out?
There were two events that precipitated the move. One was Pudvah’s decision to take a new job with Radio Vermont/WDEV. He’d been in talks with WDEV since sometime in the fall, and in January he notified the library’s Board that he was leaving. The other event, as reported the Times Argus:
According to Sales, while she was out on maternity leave, the board of trustees hired a consultant to examine the leadership structure of the library.
The consultant recommended that the library do away with the dual director model and return to a single chief executive or head librarian.
…Board Secretary Marialisa Calta said the dual director model was “clunky,” and that the restructuring will streamline the organization and possibly save money.
One executive instead of two? I’ll bet it will “possibly” save money. But wait a minute: This all happened while Sales was on maternity leave? Yep.
When Sales returned, she learned of the restructuring and decided to resign. …[she] would have been required to apply for the new position.
“I was a little disenchanted by the process,” Sales said.
Well, yeah. An employer can get in hot water for taking away a woman’s job while she’s on maternity leave. If this wasn’t illegal, it was a skin-of-the-teeth, carefully-crafted procedure designed to meet the letter of the law while violating its spirit. Board President John Page, perhaps in a nod to any employment attorneys tuning in, was careful to note that Sales and Pudvah “resigned on their own free will.”
But while Pudvah resigned to take a new job, Sales is unemployed. She may have resigned on her own free will, but was she really given a choice?
How did all this play out? Which came first: the realization that the dual model was “clunky,” the hiring of the consultant, Pudvah’s pending departure? The Board isn’t saying.
Page declined to comment on when exactly the consultant was hired to look at the leadership structure, who the consultant was or when the restructuring recommendation was made.
“I;m not going to comment about that,” Page said, because it involves an “internal personnel matter.”
Bullfeathers. The hiring of a consultant, the identity of the consultant, and the timing of the recommendation are only tangentially “personnel matters.”
Unless, of course, it would make the Library look really bad. Or even make them vulnerable to a lawsuit from Sales. Say, for instance, it went like this: Pudvah let people know he was planning to leave. A consultant was hired, and produced a report that provided cover for the forced departure of Sales by effectively eliminating her job.
That’s a worst-case interpretation. But the lack of transparency by the Library Board lends itself to unfavorable interpretations.
Public institutions that use public funds have a responsibility to answer for their decisions to the public. The Kellogg-Hubbary Library Board is, so far, failing to meet this obligation.
If, and only if, they are being laid off due to the elimination of their position.
However, it would be in Sales’ best interest to at least chat with an attorney. If an email trail shows that the position was eliminated specifically to skirt the FMLA leave requirements, she could be owed some serious compensation.
“That’s a worst-case interpretation. But the lack of transparency by the Library Board lends itself to unfavorable interpretations.”
I really dislike this kind of hidden agenda. I like to know what’s going on. That the board is refusing to tell the truth about anything, their argument being, ‘we don’t want to tell you, so there!’
I say we go with the worst case scenario unless someone feels like telling the truth.
Kellogg Hubbard Library fired their director BECAUSE she was on maternity leave!
You’re 100% right to demand more transparency from the library board. On the bright side, Montpelier is small enough that most people that serve on boards (library boards, school boards, selectboards) are very easy to get in touch with.
Most of these institutions are dying for community members to be MORE involved. They need more public interest to survive.
When is the last time you attended a library board meeting? Spoke with a library director? Asked them directly about what is going on?
I don’t live in Montpelier but I certainly encourage anyone who is interested in finding out more about this important issue to reach out to the library board’s members and ask them for more details.
Simply assuming the very worst (as some here have) is very, very counterproductive. It takes more effort to go to the source and get the facts … but that’s what democracy is in small town Vermont. It’s about you and I being directly involved with our local governments.
Any member of the public can attend the library board’s meetings or read the minutes. Have you ever bothered? Of course, it’s much more fun to sling random baseless accusations.
The KHL works hard to serve its community. It saddens me that people who have absolutely no facts are so ready to believe unkind things about it.
First, go to Kellogg Hubbard and ask to read the minutes of the library board. They are publicly available.
No, first erase this whole post, then go read the minutes, and then decide whether to chastise the board for a lack of transparency. And don’t expect the minutes to contain details on personnel issues.
Then try out a completely different set of assumptions. Perhaps Robin Sales was failing at her job before she went on maternity leave. And perhaps the board is being tight-lipped to allow her to save face. I’ve seen that happen at any number of organizations. But that would be assuming the worst in the other direction. See how easy it is when you don’t have the slightest idea what the facts are?
Yes, they hired a consultant and made decisions while she was on maternity leave. I’m assuming she didn’t spend her maternity leave in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, and that she and the board were in contact by phone and internet. But that’s just an assumption, because I have no idea where she spent that time, or whether she and the board were in touch, or what subjects they might have discussed. So I won’t accuse anyone of anything.
Assuming that volunteer board members are a bunch of malicious Snidely Whiplash characters is careless and insulting, verging on libelous. I have been on a few nonprofit boards. My experience with volunteer board members for nonprofits is that they love the institution or organization. They have too little time, too little money, and too many people with competing interests hounding them. They get no feedback at all for months (often after asking repeatedly) and then a flood of negativity when something changes. Personnel issues require a fine and dangerous balancing act between disclosure and privacy. The advice I received was that it was better to leave the public wondering than to face a lawsuit.
A number of questions will never be answered because it is an internal personnel matter and therefore not for public consumption. There is a limit to transparency. That addressed, I’m with Hugo on this: If you are curious, ASK.
Until then, let’s go with “We’re ignorant” until otherwise notified.