MACHIAS, Maine — Town cuts to funding for the Porter Memorial Library could, ultimately, cause the facility to close, according to library board member Gerard NeCastro.
At the Machias town meeting June 10, about 20 voters passed an article giving the library $20,000 in fiscal year 2016. The amount is $8,000 less than what the library had been receiving for the past several years, said NeCastro.
The library’s annual budget is just under $80,000, NeCastro said in an interview Wednesday. That means funding next year will be down by slightly more than 10 percent.
If the town continues to provide only $20,000 annually, “we will be closed in five years,” NeCastro told those attending the town meeting. “The library is essential to the town, and without the support of the town, the library can’t continue.”
“We are the only town giving money to the library,” Machias Selectman Dr. James Whalen said at the meeting.
The library has asked other municipalities for funding and been turned down, said NeCastro.
“I think the library has to reconsider what it charges out of towners,” said Whalen. “The library has resources.”
Whalen was referring to a 2004 bequest of a home and its contents to the library.
However, NeCastro said, that gift came with the restriction that the library sell the items and create an endowment, using only the interest for expenses. The home sold for $65,000. That money has been invested and yields about $2,600 per year in interest, he said.
“We need, maybe, another 20 gifts like that, and we’d stop bothering the town,” NeCastro said.
Whalen also suggested the library charge a higher fee to out-of-town patrons.
NeCastro said Wednesday that the library charges out-of-town residents $15 for a library card and will offer a family additional cards at $5 apiece.
“If you know the demographics of Washington County, that’s about as much as you can charge,” NeCastro said.
The money from the town of Machias makes up about a third of the current budget, NeCastro said. The rest comes from endowments and fundraising.
Complicating matters are much needed repairs to the building, NeCastro said.
In the 1990s, funds were raised for repairs, but these repairs were not done correctly, he said.
“Ten years after the rebuilding, we started getting leaks in the building,” NeCastro said.
The completed repairs cost about $200,000 — which represented more than half the library’s savings.
“We were in an emergency situation, and we didn’t have time to raise money,” NeCastro said. “We had to dip into our coffers.”
Additional repairs are needed, but the library hesitates to spend its remaining savings because it uses the interest on that money to pay annual expenses such as payroll, heating, insurance and utilities. The library lost annual interest income when it spent the $200,000 and now gets about $5,000 per year in interest on the approximately $125,000 remaining.
“We might be able to spend that [$125,000], but we don’t want to. We’re giving away the future if we spend that,” NeCastro said.
In addition to repairs, the library needs to make the building handicap accessible. People in wheelchairs cannot ascend the front stairs. The children’s area is down a flight of stairs in the building, which NeCastro said is about 115 years old.
In addition to needing funds to make the building accessible, money must be found to make additional repairs such as fixing gaps in the stonework around the windows.
NeCastro said monthly income usually falls short of expenses by $500 to $1,000.
The library has managed to “climb out” of the red by using funds coming in from book sales or other events.
Library officials had been considering hiring a professional fundraiser but abandoned such plans in March when they learned their funding from the town of Machias would be cut, NeCastro said.