Periodically any library board may be faced with the issue of their library director being unable to attend a meeting—sickness, conference attendance, vacation, family emergency are only a sampling of perfectly acceptable reasons why a director may not be available for the board’s regular monthly meeting. Should the board go ahead and meet without the director in attendance? Should this particular meeting be rescheduled?

As with most issues, there is not a black and white answer to this question. The immediate response is “yes, you can meet without your director, but why would you want to?” This implies the board has an option, which may or may not be true. Let’s look at the practicalities first. If your library board regularly meets in the fourth week of the month, there may not be another opportunity to meet that month. The Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS.173.060; 173.350; 173.500; 173.735) state: “The board shall meet on a regularly scheduled basis once each month.” To be compliant with the law, the board would need to go ahead and meet.

The second reason a board might wish to go ahead and meet is to avoid the requirements of a “Special Called Meeting.” Remember, when you reschedule anything about your meeting, such as date, time, or location, even if it is still your regular monthly meeting, it must be conducted under the rules of the special meeting. In a nutshell, this means advertising the meeting 24 hours in advance, with the agenda posted, and the legal inability to discuss anything that is not on the posted agenda. The last part can tie the board’s collective hands from discussing anything that has come up at the last minute or that someone accidentally forgot to include.

Without either of the above situations playing into the picture, it is never a good policy to meet without your director. She is your CEO and the person who can explain what the library has done and why. She is your source of answers to questions you may have about any and all aspects of the library. She is the one employee the board has, and it is she, and she alone, that answers to the board for her performance as director and the library’s performance in the community.