MECHANIC FALLS – The town council voted Monday night to close the town office every Wednesday through the end of June.

The action is an attempt to close a projected $50,000 deficit for fiscal 2009 without going back to townspeople to ask for more money and without tapping the town’s rainy day fund.

“Our taxpayers are also having troubles. I don’t want to ask them to make up the difference,” Town Manager John Hawley said.

Hawley’s recommended package, adopted by the council, included reducing the work weeks of all full-time town staff by four hours, reducing fire and rescue administration time and Fire Department duty officer hours from eight hours a week to four, and reducing the Police Department clerk by four hours each week.

Hawley and police Chief Jeffrey Goss, whose positions are salaried, have agreed to amend their contracts, cutting four hours per week pay through the end of June.

“I feel badly but at least everybody keeps their job,” said council Chairman Dan Blanchard.

“It’s too bad it’s come to this,” Councilor Nancy Richard said.

Having noted there was no town jet to sell on eBay, Councilor Bob Small said, “These are hard times.”

Councilor Rielly Bryant opposed cutting hours and favored drawing the money from fund balances.

“The money is there for emergency. This is an emergency,” Bryant said.

Bryant noted that the council has for years been more than responsible in how it has spent the people’s money: The tax rate held steady for three years at $18.90 per $1,000 and, for the current year, dropped to $18.30.

“With cost going up on everything, it’s impossible to maintain a zero increase,” Bryant said.

Councilor Roger Guptill, on business out of state, missed the meeting but it is understood that he favored Hawley’s solution to the deficit problem.

Hawley said that a loss of about $30,000 in excise taxes is the primary cause of the deficit. “People just aren’t buying new cars,” and reductions in revenue sharing from the state and in the interest earned on town savings accounts make up most of the rest, he said.

Hawley noted the deficit would have been about $20,000 greater if the budget prepared a year ago hadn’t anticipated a cut in state revenue sharing and that he expects the town to receive even less in revenue sharing next year.

“For the governor to balance the state budget, he just had to take from the towns,” Hawley said.

While the town office will be closed Wednesdays to accommodate the reduction in staff hours, the council approved town office hours of 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily for the other four days of the week.

Counclors hope that adding 30 minutes at both ends of the day will make it a little easier for people trying to do business on their way to or from work.

Other changes include closing the transfer station on Thursdays and closing the library on Mondays, either in the morning or the afternoon, depending on the library trustees’ decision, which will come later this week.

In other business, the council appointed Bill Diehl, Yvonne Gilbert and Tom Kuklinski, and reappointed Ollie Emery and Peter Ford to the Budget Committee and set the first meeting to deal with next year’s budget for Tuesday, Feb. 24.