CUMINGTON – Voters at Friday’s annual Town Meeting will consider a $2,128,706 budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, which is up by $31,000, or 1.5 percent, from this year.
The annual Town Meeting at 7 p.m. will be preceded by a special Town Meeting at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Community Center on Main Street.
Finance Committee Chairman Dennis Forgea, the total budget would have gone up by $104,000, except for a recent reduction in school spending.
“After they closed Berkshire Trail, the kids are now going to all different schools all over the place now and some are being home-schooled,” Forgea said.
Last year, the Central Berkshire Regional School District closed the Berkshire Trail Elementary School. That left the parents of elementary school children scrambling to secure alternative educational arrangements, and the town with responsibility of maintaining the well-worn building and a badly leaking roof.
Voters will be asked Friday to spend $500,000 on repairing the roof of the school, contingent on a Proposition 2 1/2 debt exclusion ballot question.
“We are still in negotiations with the district because it is our position that it should have been fixed before they turned it back over to us,” Forgea said. “When they got it, it was in good shape and they didn’t keep up with repairs.
Forgea said that if the Central Berkshire district comes up with money for the repairs, the amount the town would have to pay would be reduced.
“We aren’t very hopeful that will happen, but we are prepared to go to court if we have to,” he said. “The building won’t last long without a roof.”
Other items on this year’s annual Town meeting warrant include $1,500 for a thermal imager for the Fire Department, and $10,000 to begin the restoration of cemetery stones in the town’s three cemeteries.
Articles on the warrant for the special Town Meeting include $1,500 for a tombstone assessment in the town’s three cemeteries, and $6,500 for the purchase of computer software for the Board of Assessors.
Voters also will be asked to amend current town bylaws regarding the addition of Martin Luther King Day to the town holidays; employee funeral and bereavement benefits; and sick time for town highway employees.