Selectmen encumbered just over $100,000 to pay the bills coming due in the time between the end of the year and March’s Town Meeting during its meeting on Wednesday.
As the fiscal year comes to an end, the Select Board must earmark funds to put aside to pay upcoming bills. This year, the board set aside $103,000 – the majority of which will go toward the completion of the Mountain Road paving project.
About $75,000 of the funds are specific to the project, which should be finished this spring.
Of that, about $30,000 will go to paving work, $30,000 is reserved for a contingency fund for unanticipated expenses, and $15,000 is for remaining engineering work.
In addition, the board also encumbered $20,000 raised this year for the future purchase of a police cruiser.
The remaining $20,000 is anticipated to be raised during Town Meeting this year, and the cruiser purchased in 2018.
About $5,000 was set aside for improvement that have been scheduled at the emergency operations garage. The renovations include insulating the building, changing a door and installing a wall heater.
The remaining $3,000 is to remove a large tree at the cemetery.
In other Select Board business, the board signed a contract to continue assessing services with Granite Hill Municipal Services.
Granite Hill is the company the town has used for its last round of town property assessments, which are done in segments over the course of five years: A quarter of the town every year for four years, and then a whole-town assessment on the fifth. The contract charges approximately $12,000 per year for the service.
The Select Board will meet next on Jan. 4 at 6 p.m. at Citizens’ Hall.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.