The Moffat County Library Board of Trustees resolved two issues and worked toward settling two others at Monday night’s meeting.

Troubled by controversy about a purportedly high turnover rate among employees, the board worked toward setting criteria for a study of former employees and board members.

They decided to hire a contractor to interview 10 past board members and 20 to 25 past employees and determine why these people left. According to Moffat County Human Resources, 39 employees have left the library in the past six years.

The board expects to spend $5,000 to $7,500 on the study. But members still aren’t sure what the study should entail.

“We don’t want to spend the money and still deal with employee turnover and board members leaving,” said Dave Longwell, board president.

The study is in response to county commissioners’ concerns that the turnover is high at the library.

Board member Linda Booker argued that the study should include interviews with current employees, saying such employees should be the board’s priority. But other board members said that the library has to understand its history to understand any problems.

Board member Tracy Elliot said she’d like to think that library employees think the board is open, approachable and willing to handle employee problems.

But Donna Watkins, library director, raised concerns that the turnover issue was a county problem not limited to the library.

If that is true, Longwell said, the study should show it, in which case he thought the county would be willing to take on the problem.

The board decided to send its request for a study to its attorney. Details will be ironed out at the Oct. 16 meeting in Dinosaur.

The board also decided to send a copy of the county’s termination policy to its attorney. At the last library board meeting, Moffat County Commissioner Darryl Steele asked the board to adopt the county’s termination policy. County offices, departments and boards need to hold consistent employment policies for insurance purposes, he said.

But Longwell worried that the board would sign away its rights by adopting the policy. For example, the voluntary termination policy requires the notification of elected officials, department heads and human resources when an employee quits. Appointed boards aren’t included in the requirement.

Controversy arose recently because the library director had never been evaluated. The board developed evaluation forms during the past two months, and Longwell distributed these to each board member after the meeting. He said he already had received Watkins’ self-evaluation.

After dialogue between the board and commissioners, the board voted to buy in to the county’s new purchase order system at a cost of $800 for server access.

Before buying into the new server, a library employee went to the courthouse to enter purchase orders, and it proved to be time-consuming, Watkins said.

The server will expedite the process, but Watkins warned that it still could take someone 10 hours a week to enter purchase orders.

She told board members they might need to hire a new employee to perform this task.