After three legal opinions and ongoing disagreement among town boards, Aquinnah selectmen on Tuesday decided to send the issue of whether library employees are eligible to receive holiday pay back to the newly-reconstituted personnel board.

The issue dates back to last summer when the personnel board decided that the library staff — director Jenny Christy and two other employees — should be paid for holidays they were not scheduled to work in the form of compensatory time, much like other employees already receive.

At the time there were questions about whether library employees were eligible for holiday pay because they work three days a week (the library is open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday), and because they work between 20 and 40 hours a week, making it unclear if they are part-time or full-time employees.

The personnel board decided they should receive holiday pay. The matter was referred first to labor counsel Michael Gilman, who consulted town counsel Michael Goldsmith, who consulted attorney Jack Collins, an expert on labor issues. All three said library employees were not eligible for holiday pay, even though they are considered full-time employees, because most holidays do not fall on days the library is open.

“The library employees are telling the town they are entitled to comp time during weeks when other full-time employees receive paid holiday time — e.g. Monday, Memorial Day — even though the library employees are not required to work on that day, being a Monday,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote in an e-mail.

Library employees are now asking for the town personnel bylaw to be amended to allow holiday pay for them.

At the selectmen’s meeting this week Jim Newman said he would like to see an article placed on a town meeting warrant to decide the question. “We should try and get some closure to this, instead of letting it drag on,” he said.

The personnel committee is in transition as two members resigned last year; two new members have been appointed to take their place but have not been sworn in yet.

Selectman Camille Rose said the personnel committee must review the proposed changes before an article is placed on the town meeting warrant.

“Our personnel bylaw requires the personnel board to make a recommendation. They need to do it. Because that’s the law now in this town . . . two of them haven’t even been sworn in. They’ve never read the bylaw. You can’t do this overnight,” she said.

Mr. Newman disagreed. “We are putting up roadblocks to getting this done . . . this is an issue of treating the library staff the same way every other library on the Island does,” he said.

Ms. Christy said there are two issues: whether the bylaw should be amended and whether library employees are eligible for holiday back pay. She said library employees have been treated unfairly. “I’d love an answer why is it that the library staff has to suffer withheld benefits because of a badly written bylaw, but everyone else up to this point hasn’t,” she said.