WINTHROP — Town Councilors considering a budget for the library on Monday responded to the impassioned pleas of a standing-room-only crowd by cutting the proposed budget by $15,000 while forgiving $100,000 the library owes the town.

The proposal, which will not be official until it goes to voters on June 1, would provide an operating budget of $268,600 for the upcoming 2015-2016 fiscal year for the C.M. Bailey Library. While that represents a 6.5 percent increase over what the town provided for the current fiscal year, it is $15,000 less than the library trustees requested to provide programs, staffing and utilities.

Library Director Richard Fortin said $9,600 of that decrease will be recouped by asking library employees to pay a greater portion of their health insurance, leaving library officials with $6,000 to make up. Unless the trustees make up the difference, which they have been reluctant to do because of the library’s debt to the town, Fortin said the library will be forced to cut programs and hours.

“We have a very, very flat budget that I submitted,” Fortin said. “We’re already operating under staff. I can’t stretch it. This isn’t a threat. I can’t stretch what doesn’t exist.”

The council’s decision to forgive $100,000 of the library’s $300,000 loan was designed to free up money from the library trustees’ endowment to make up the budget deficit. The library took out the loan with the town to complete a $1 million expansion and renovation of the library’s Bowdoin Street facility.

Councilor Kevin Cookson, who made the motion that passed with unanimous support, arrived at the $100,000 figure based on a new library roof trustees paid to put on the library a number of years ago. Cookson said he could be persuaded if the library could show that the loaned money was used on the structure rather than for new equipment to forgive the remaining $200,000 the library owes the town.

A motion made earlier in the meeting to cut the budget request by $10,000, which Fortin said would be made up by asking employees to pay a greater portion of their health insurance, failed on a 3-3 tie. Chairwoman Sarah Fuller and Councilors Richard Henry and Lawrence Fitzgerald voted in favor of the motion. Cookson and Councilors Ken Buck Sr. and Linda MacDonald voted against it. Councilwoman Linda Caprara was not in attendance.

Councilors last week voted to shave more than $26,000 off the budget requested, which library director Richard Fortin said would force reductions in hours, staffing and programming, including the elimation of all children’s programs.

A large crowd gathered in the Winthrop Grade School cafeteria to urge the council to reconsider the budget cuts.

“My goal here today is to ask you to reconsider that decision and to put back in the amount that was requested,” said library trustee Paul Cottrell. “That’s what we feel we need to run the new library.”

Part of the discussion turned on a 1916 agreement between the town and the library, which is managed by the board of trustees and is not a town department. The 1916 agreement, however, stipulates that the town pays for care of the buildings and programs at “reasonable” levels.

Fortin said the trustees have routinely submitted a budget to councilors well below actual operating costs and paid the difference themselves out of a sense of duty to be fiscally sensitive to the town’s contribution.

“We ask from the council what we think is reasonable to run the library keeping in mind the trustees will have to kick in. If you cut the budget more, the trustees will have to kick in more.”

Cottrell said the trustees’ endowment has only about $100,000 left. Dipping below that figure, particularly in light of the library’s debt to the town, would not be “prudent,” Cottrell said. Councilors urged the trustees to begin actively fundraising to rebuild the endowment, which Cottrell said they would do as soon as the fundraising for the building renovation is complete.

Councilors said they are facing considerable pressure to reduce a total school and municipal budget proposal that could increase by about 12 percent. Without cuts to staffing, projects and equipment, Cookson said, the budget will increase 1.5 mils, which would be a $150 increase for every $100,000 of property value.

“The budget crisis is real,” Cookson said.

His daughter, Amy Cookson, a former member of the library’s trustees, said the cut to the library budget will do little to alleviate the town’s crisis while having a potentially devastating impact on the library.

The library on June 1 will re-open its doors after a $1 million renovation and expansion project. Trustee Eric Conrad said the fundraiser for that project, which raised $900,000 in donations, was a public referendum on how much residents value the library.

“”We think this is a special year for the library,” Conrad said. “When you go to that grand opening, are you going to feel bad about cutting library services or are you going to feel good about supporting the library in a very special year.”

Not everyone at the meeting supported restoring the funding, however. Resident Betsy Rowe, the only one to speak out against the increase, said there were 37 houses in town in foreclosure. Others are struggling to pay their bills, which will be complicated by a tax increase.

“This whole town’s having a money problem,” Rowe said. “A lot of us don’t have a savings account. We’re living paycheck to paycheck.”