Cash-strapped town may close its library

Medway residents will decide next month whether to close their public library to help the cash-strapped town cut costs and balance its budget.

The library's budget of around $280,000 would be part of a package of around $868,000 in proposed cutbacks that voters will weigh at a June 12 Town Meeting.

Town officials say they're in a budget bind after voters decided last month to shoot down a $2.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 tax override.

The town instead is seeking emergency loans to balance its budget for the current year and is looking to trim its budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Officials are still tinkering with the final numbers, but the town's Finance Committee and selectmen approved the library closure, in addition to a big cut in the schools' proposed budget, at a May 15 meeting.

Shutting the library's doors would be perhaps the most visible sign of the financial crisis in this town of about 13,000.

''It's a slap in the face to the community," said library director Patrick Marshall, whose six employees would lose their jobs if Town Meeting approves the plan.

''I came to Medway 2 1/2 years ago, and pretty much all I've watched is the slow destruction of the library," said Marshall.

Marshall added he had been planning to leave Medway anyway in coming months for a job in Bourne.

Last year, the library cut its staff by a third, reduced operating hours, and was forced to get a waiver from the state Library Board of Trustees so it could continue to operate with state certification.

Marshall warned that Medway residents could be barred from taking out materials from other libraries, too, because neighboring towns aren't required to honor patrons from communities that have shut their own libraries.

The library gets about 350 visitors a day, and about 60 percent of Medway's residents have a library card, though Marshall estimates that many others visit to use services such as the reading room.

''I would like to see a library open again as quickly as it possibly can," said Finance Committee cochairman Tom Shea, in response to a question at the recent meeting from one unhappy resident on whether the library would be closed for good.

The public schools have also reduced their proposed budget for next year by $542,000, but the schools would still be getting $440,000 more this year than last. The budget would be $19.98 million for the 2007 budget year, compared with $19.54 million this year.