Montville — Late in the budgeting process for fiscal year 2017, Raymond Library Board of Trustees member Ray Coggeshall came to the Town Council with a request for $65,000.

The private library, which receives money from the town in each year's budget, had been dipping into its $1 million endowment to pay for operating costs and several construction projects for years.

A recent audit had revealed the library would have to shut down in a decade if its costs remained the same, and Coggeshall was asking the town to increase its annual allocation to bring the library back into the black.

In a budget year when school funding remained almost totally flat, and Town Council members considered repurposing the animal control officer’s vehicle as a police cruiser to avoid buying a new car, the library board’s last-minute request was never likely to go through.

The Council’s finance committee declined to add any money after Coggeshall’s request, and the library was allocated $45,000 — the same as last year.

That leaves the library’s board looking at its future with uncertainty, unsure how it will pay for several additional needed construction projects or even keep the library running for another 10 years.

“Every year we run in the red, and they have to take money out of the endowment,” said Stacia Miner, the library board’s treasurer. “This year they’ll probably have to take more.”

The library has paid for a new well and an expansion to the parking lot. Soon, the roof and heating tank will need to be replaced and the building will need a new coat of paint.

The audit predicted that the library could stay afloat for 10 years if its costs remained steady.

“But we need to replace the oil tanks,” Coggeshall said Wednesday. “If we have to pay for those, it could be five to eight years.”

The $45,000 from the town helps, Miner said, but that covers less than half of the library’s basic operating costs — for payroll, books and heat — which come in each year at about $110,000, Miner said.

“I know there are capital improvement grants that we could maybe get,” Miner said.

But the board would have to pay to hire a grant writer, she said, making the return on such an effort unclear.

“When you’re so fixed with income, does any benefit come from that?” she said.

The board has used grants before to pay for capital projects, said Sherwood Raymond, a Norwich resident who is descended from the Raymond family who endowed the library in 1884 and who serves as the chair of the board of trustees.

But Raymond said the roof and oil tanks won’t be replaced anytime soon, and that the board will likely make a more concerted effort to request a boost from the town next year.

“Our plan is to go before the council next year with a much stronger presentation,” Raymond said.

The State Library issued a report critical of the small annual allocation Montville gives it, Raymond said.

“There are many other private libraries that get more money from the town than we do,” he said.

Town officials should step up to help the library cover at least its basic costs, Miner said.

But it’s a hard sell, she said.

“It’s tough, because we're sitting on the investment,” she said. “They don’t feel that it’s an immediate danger right now.”

But, she said, financial insecurity now will catch up to the library, and the town.

“You don’t want to wait until we have two years left to all of a sudden ask for money,” she said.

m.shanahan@theday.com