NORWAY – The Budget Committee will ask Norway Memorial Library trustees to make further reductions to its fiscal 2009 budget.

“Everyone else in town is having to live with a 3 percent increase. Why not them?” committee member Arthur Hill asked Wednesday. “It’s like life. You figure out a way to make that goal.”

Committee members had balked at the library trustees’ initial budget presentation April 22 asking for $252,800, or a 7.4 percent increase over last year’s approved budget of $224,000. The increase did not include an additional $11,900 that is expected to be requested to cover a fiscal 2008 budget overrun. That budget was $12,800 more than proposed by Town Manager David Holt.

Although library trustees cut their request by another $13,800 on Tuesday night, committee members said the $239,000 proposal was still too high.

“Some of these things impinge on the library programs a little bit, but the times are such we felt we had to do our part. We had heard the message the week before that the budget was too high,” trustee Steve Veazey said Wednesday.

Veazey said the latest cuts included:

• $3,500 for part-time staff used to cover full-time employees who are out;

• $1,600 for books, magazines and audiovisual materials;

• $500 for supplies;

• $2,500 for an audit of the financial books;

• $1,800 for a matching fund for public access computers (selectmen will now decide whether to place that request as a separate article on the town meeting warrant); and

• $3,900 to replace two fuel oil tanks.

Veazey said there is also discussion about placing a item for $4,400 boiler repairs as a separate article on the warrant if selectmen approve the request. If voters OK that request at town meeting, the library’s budget would be further reduced to below 5 percent.

Veazey said he was not aware of what the Budget Committee had recommended Tuesday night. The committee and selectmen caucused separately without the trustees to discuss their recommendations.

Library trustees had said originally that the need for the additional money was driven by a 2.9 percent cost-of-living raise for staff, which amounts to $4,000; the health insurance premium increase of $2,600; $4,400 in boiler repairs; a $1,100 increase in property insurance and a $3,900 replacement of two fuel oil tanks that are 20 years old and deteriorating. Additionally, $800 was assessed to the library for workers’ compensation.

Slightly more than 70 percent of the library’s budget is for salaries and benefits for the five full-time and one part-time worker. The town picks up about 90 percent of the operating budget with other revenue coming from items such as user fines, grants, nonresident fees and fundraising.

Selectmen are expected to discuss the status of the budgets Thursday at 7 p.m. in Town Hall.