MECHANIC FALLS – Town offices will continue to be closed on Wednesdays through the end of June to save money as revenues keep falling, Town Manager John Hawley said this week.

The closings have saved about $42,000 since February, but it’s not enough to balance the budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, Hawley told the Town Council on Monday.

He said town employees have been taking the equivalent of two furlough days a month since February.

The curb in spending is due in part to excise tax revenue lagging behind projections, he said.

“As cars age, the amount of excise tax paid goes down. People aren’t trading in their three-year-old cars anymore,” Hawley said.

Excise tax woes also affect the state, he said, and Augusta has reduced revenue-sharing to towns by 10 percent and plans to reduce it another 5 percent.

The town’s 2009-10 budget was built on the assumption that revenue-sharing will be $48,000 less than the estimates for the current year, and now it appears the budget may be shorted an additional $36,000.

The budget goes to town meeting voters May 16.

After a public hearing Monday, the council approved changes to the town’s shoreland zoning ordinance that turns oversight of timber harvesting in shoreland zones over to the state. The council also approved amendments to the town’s land-use ordinance that restricts the development of dead-end streets.

The council tabled Mike Needham’s request that on-street parking be prohibited on both sides of Fifth Avenue.

Needham noted that a bank directly across the street from his house forces anyone parking along that section to park on the paved street. That, he said, makes it difficult for him to get in and out of his driveway and, more critically, effectively blocks firetrucks from passing beyond his house.

The council asked Hawley to contact all Fifth Avenue residents for a discussion of the situation at the council’s June meeting.

The council also agreed with Hawley’s assessment that the experiment of sharing the town’s code enforcement officer with Poland wasn’t working out.

“Residents in both communities are expressing frustration with reduced accessibility of the (code officer) in their own community,” Hawley said.

The agreement to share Code Enforcement Officer Nick Richards’ services will expire June 30.