SUNDERLAND — A special Town Meeting will be held Friday to amend a budget vote passed at annual Town Meeting earlier this year.
The earlier vote was made contingent on passage of a Proposition 2½ override ballot question at the town’s May 6 annual election, which was required to make up a revenue gap in the voted-on budget. However, the question failed in the popular vote, with 277 against, and 235 in favor, sending budget-planners back to the drawing board.
To that end, town officials have proposed a new budget that fits into the town’s current tax base, reduced by $37,000.
The warrant for Friday’s meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. at the elementary school, asks voters “to amend the vote taken under Article 4 of the April 28, 2017, annual town meeting,” which set a $7,578,569 operating budget, down to $7,541,569.
The lower budget was made “by reducing appropriations under various line items for such purposes and transferring the sum of $26,914 from free cash.”
Those line items that will be cut pending Friday’s vote are $12,000 from schools; $10,000 from benefits and insurance costs; $6,000 from the town’s building maintenance allotment; $4,000 from general government spending; and $1,000 each from the library, police, inspections, miscellaneous, and highway department funds.
A second article to be taken up at the upcoming meeting reduces “from $105,000 to $65,000 the amount transferred from free cash to the Anniversary Celebration Fund for the Town of Sunderland’s 2018 Tri-centennial celebration.”
Finally, a question unrelated to the budget will also be considered, asking voters “to transfer the sum of $14,793 from the Capital Stabilization Fund to purchase and install a fuel pump dispenser system at the Highway Garage, including all incidental and related expenses.”