The library is open 23 hours each week.
LIVERMORE FALLS – Selectmen slashed the library budget nearly in half this week, mainly due to the amount spent on wages.

The library is open 23 hours a week. Of the $42,174 in wages for the four-member staff plus substitutes, more than half goes to Director Sheila Dorey. She is paid $21,528 for 20 hours a week.

The assistant director is paid $8.11 an hour for a total of $9,699; the second assistant $6.58 an hour for a total of $4,579; the library aide $6.25 an hour for a total of $1,500; and substitutes $6.25 an hour for a total of $1,262.

The proposed wages were: director $21,944; assistant director $9,890; second assistant $4,579; aide $1,500; and substitutes $1,262.

The total requested for the library was $57,800 for 2004-05; selectmen cut that by $26,000, which will come out of wages and books.

“It’s only open 23 hours a week and we’re paying $42,000 in wages. That’s awful expensive, we can’t justify that,” Selectman Russell Flagg said. “I never go by and see it jammed full,” he added.

“That’s $811 a week to keep it open 23 hours,” added Doreen Maheux. “One’s being paid for 40 hours a week and isn’t there even all 23.”

Chairman Bernal Lake agreed with the board, noting that, when he had done carpentry work in the building last year, there were never more than one or two or three people there. “The library is not that busy,” he said.

Roger Ouellette, president of the Livermore Falls Library Association, which operates the library, defended Dorey’s salary.

“When it’s 5 o’clock, the others will leave, but Sheila will stay until the work is done,” he said.

He said she spends much time at book shows and other events on behalf of the library, and his board feels she puts in more than 40 hours a week.

Selectmen had asked for a listing of all the books purchased this year and were presented with a multi-page, handwritten document, which reportedly had taken 10 hours to be done from invoices at home by one of the helpers.

“I never would have asked for this, if I had known it would have required this type of work,” Lake said as he displayed the carefully written pages. “This is the type of record keeping we have at the library.”

Ouellette explained that the library’s computers had been obtained through three grants, which Dorey wrote, but they were not set up for that type of inventory.
Other areas cut
Looking over the recreation budget, the board cut the director’s $300 raise in half and took $750 from the part-time wages since enrollment was down last year and probably will not increase, they reasoned.

The Fire Department’s budget request of $62,887 was cut $7,500 due to the many accounts that still had large balances as of March 31.

If the fire chief needed the money in July, he should have spent it, the board agreed, referring to the chief’s habit of holding money until the year is nearly up.

The board also said the town should not be putting $1,000 into fire prevention (at the elementary school level) when Livermore reportedly only contributes $100.

“It should be done fairly between the two communities,” Bill Demaray said.

The board agreed to include $18,500 in the budget for a new cruiser because no money was set aside last year. It cut the highway department by $11,000, turned down the purchase of a new 1 ton truck, and discussed going to four winter plow routes instead of five.

They will ask townspeople to raise $25,000 to go with state funds to make repairs on Moose Hill Road and to fix the loader at the landfill.

A joint hearing will be held with the Planning Board at 6:30 p.m. April 20 in the library auditorium to discuss two proposed ordinances.

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