New Sharon residents will be asked to approve the establishment of a town contingency fund and elect people to fill seven open town positions Saturday at their Town Meeting.

Residents also will be asked to approve a proposed $917,569 municipal budget, slightly higher than last year’s $912,262 budget.

The meeting will be held at 9 a.m. at Cape Cod Hill School. To start the meeting, candidates for the seven open positions will be nominated from the floor, with elections for the positions following.

Open positions for the upcoming year include a three-year term on the Board of Selectmen, for a seat being vacated by Milton Sinclair; a one year-term for treasurer; a one-year term for tax collector; a one-year town clerk position; a three-year term for a Regional School Unit 9 board of directors representative; a one-year road commissioner term; and a one-year seat on the Water District board.

Voters also will be presented a 51-article warrant, including one article asking residents to approve the establishment of a contingency fund for the Board of Selectmen to use in the case of an emergency.

In the past, New Sharon has not had a contingency fund, and when an emergency occurs, selectmen must hold a special town meeting to ask voters to approve emergency spending.

Board of Selectmen Chairwoman Lorna Nichols said that occurred last year, when the town office’s computer server crashed and the process of fixing the problem was prolonged because selectmen needed approval from residents to use town money to replace the server or restore the lost files.

“Something like that could have been taken care of a little quicker, because if we had a contingency or emergency fund, we would have been able to act immediately,” Nichols said.

Selectmen recommend transferring $10,000 from surplus to establish the fund so residents will not be asked to raise and appropriate any additional funding.

Lauren Abbate — 861-9252

labbate@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @Lauren_M_Abbate

 

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