Library firm ready to take reins: Council to decide whether to negotiate management deal
Source: By Scott Mobley, Record Searchlight (CA), July 16, 2006
Redding will likely push ahead Tuesday with plans to tap a private, for-profit firm to run the new main library and its two branches. The Shasta Library Foundation and other core booster groups support privatizing management, saying the move will expand operating hours and catapult the long-suffering library system into the 21st-century vanguard of customer-driven book lending. ....... The City Council on Tuesday almost certainly will direct staffers to negotiate a contract with Library Systems and Services LLC (LSSI). ...... LSSI would realize the bulk of these savings by offering employees less expensive benefits and 401(k) retirement plans rather than the far more costly and generous public pensions library employees currently receive.