The Macon County Board of Commissioners approved two of three amendments to the Fontana Regional Library Interlocal Agreement proposed by Jackson County.
Though Jackson County voted to exit the FRL in June 2025, the county’s board proposed three amendments to the regional system’s interlocal agreement in November. All three county boards signed the interlocal agreement in 2024. Jackson and Swain counties each approved the proposed changes in December, leaving approvals pending from the FRL Board of Trustees and Macon County Board of Commissioners. All four parties must agree to proposals for the interlocal agreement to be revised.
The first amendment would require a county commissioner from each county to sit on the regional board. The second would prevent a county librarian from also serving as the regional director. Tracy Fitzmaurice is currently the regional director and the Jackson County librarian. The third would require FRL funds that were not spent by the end of the year to be returned to member counties after the annual audit.
Macon County’s commissioners unanimously voted for amendments two and three, but voted down the first amendment 4-1, with Commissioner John Shearl voting in favor.
Commissioner Danny Antoine, who is a commissioner liaison to the library board, asked if the bimonthly meeting time of the FRL board has been changed. He said the board’s current meeting time, at 4 p.m. on the second Tuesday of every other month, can cause conflicts with the county board meeting at 6 p.m. on the same day. Antoine said he was not willing to pass the first proposal “unless we know for sure that those meetings are not going to conflict.”
“What’s the point of putting a county commissioner on if you can’t ever make the meetings?” he said.
Macon County Librarian Abby Hardison said the regional board can change the meeting time, but the process would take at least two meetings, one to bring up the change and one to pass it.
County Attorney Eric Ridenour said the current interlocal agreement did not preclude counties from appointing commissioners to the board if they wanted to after the 2024 interlocal agreement made changes to allow county boards of commissioners, rather than county library boards, to make appointments to the regional board.
“I didn’t talk to anyone from Jackson County as to the reason behind why it was mandatory as opposed to if they wanted a [commissioner] board member they didn’t just appoint one,” he said.
Commissioners are also allowed to attend public FRL Board of Trustees meetings.
Shearl moved to approve the proposal and said, “I would like to see the library system change their dates regardless of whether we go with this or not so that it does not conflict with the county commission. Because I know there are several people that attend these meetings that would love to attend the county commission meetings. Or maybe we would like to go sit in on these meetings and just listen and we can’t do it.”
Commissioner Barry Breeden said, “I don’t think it’s necessary for us to have a commissioner on that board to be honest, I think that’s why we’re appointing the people to be on the FRL.”
Commissioner Josh Young said, “I feel like this has been messy for a long time. I feel like Jackson County showed intent to pull out and we’re just kind of trying to keep this thing together. So now we have an interlocal agreement that seems like everybody’s going to stay in. Everybody somewhat wins. So, I was a little bit optimistic. … I’ll kind of step away from the commissioner being on the board.”
Regarding the amendment to separate the roles of county librarian and regional director, Hardison said, “Having a single person be a director and a county librarian was not always the case. It was started, I think, around 20 years ago based on financial concerns. It was never an ideal choice. It was just what we had to do to keep the position filled.”
“The director does receive an additional stipend,” she said. “So, you have the base county and then the person who is the director will get an additional stipend which is basically two jobs for one and a half salaries.”
Hardison said she did not think the work required of both positions was getting done in 40 hours and added she believed Fitzmaurice would be in favor of the proposal if it meant a dedicated regional director was filling one of the positions.
Shearl asked whether a dedicated regional director position would need to be full-time. Hardison said the requirements and salary for the new position would need to be determined by the regional board.
About the third amendment, Shearl said, “Not too long ago we were talking about the pay for the folks in the library. It seems to me like instead of taking the money that’s provided for the library system and use those funds for the pay increase … the Fontana Regional Library made a big thing over ‘we need more money.’”
Hardison said she believed salaries could not be paid out of fund balance, and Shearl said the system should have budgeted allocated funds to salary increases instead of using them to build fund balance.
The Fontana Regional Library board voted Tuesday to accept the amendment to create a regional director position. The board requested changes on the amendment to reallocate unspent funds. The proposed amendment to require commissioners on the regional board was voted down due to scheduling issues with Macon County.