The reason Nancy Donahoo gave for her January 9 resignation from the directorship of the Idaho Falls (Ida.) Public Library was her long commute from Pocatello and her desire to spend more time with her family. “I have a 15- and 16-year-old and in less than two years they’ll both be gone and you can’t get them back,” she told trustees, according to a January 8 report aired by CBS-TV affiliate KIDK. However, a city council member is saying the reason was the city attorney’s discovery of financial improprieties at the library.
Donahoo’s resignation came shortly after City Attorney Dale Storer completed a probe of library finances at the request of the mayor and the IFPL board chair. Council member Larry Lyon and library Friends spokesperson Marilyn Bernard told NBC-TV affiliate KPVI that Storer had found evidence of accounting irregularities, including the commingling of library and personal funds, and an alleged violation of child-labor laws in the hiring of a 13-year-old to work at IFPL.
“So finally, the attorney and the city got some results,” Bernard told KPVI January 14, adding, “I don’t really care what she does now, I just hope she doesn’t do it to somebody else.”
“If I had one regret, it’s probably that I didn’t spend more time paving the way for some of the changes that had to be made,” Donahoo said of her tenure in the KIDK report. “If we’re not what the community needs us to be, whether it’s all the latest bestsellers or basic reference to support students, then we’re not doing our job.”
Posted January 15, 2004.