Pittston residents will be asked at a special town meeting Wednesday whether to take $100,000 in excise tax reserves to do additional road paving this year and to use around $6,000 from the contingency account for fire department upgrades.
The list of roads that would be paved weren’t available Monday, town officials said.
Residents already approved spending $90,000 for paving at March’s Town Meeting, but the town is proposing to do additional work this year because it could receive a good price on paving from the contractor, State Paving, said Jane Hubert, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen.
The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the town office.
Because the additional paving money is proposed to come out of the town’s excise tax surplus, the spending won’t impact this year’s taxes, Hubert said.
She said there is around $600,000 to $700,000 available in the excise tax fund, which is used by the town for road work. This year, residents approved spending $444,500 on summer maintenance, salt shed maintenance, highways/bridges, paving, winter road maintenance and tractor maintenance using the fund.
Hubert said the road commissioner, Sam Snow, proposed doing the additional paving in order to help bring roads in town up to a higher standard. Snow didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday.
Residents at Wednesday’s meeting will also be asked to approve spending $3,600 from the town’s contingency account for breathing air tanks for the fire department and $2,500 from the contingency account for electrical service at the fire department’s communication tower. The fire chief, Jason Farris, proposed buying the replacement air tanks because he could get a good deal on them, Hubert said.
The communication tower at the end of Lancaster Road needs electrical work done, Hubert said, because a barn from which the electricity had been coming collapsed last winter.
The Budget Committee supported using the contingency funds for the communication tower work, but the board split 3-3 in its vote on the fire department air tanks. Hubert said some committee members opposed the spending on the air tanks because they didn’t feel it was an emergency.
But because the town already posted the special meeting warrant saying the money would come from the contingency account, it can’t change the funding source to the fire department’s reserve account, Hubert said. The town would have to hold another special town meeting to spend the $3,600 for the air tanks from a different account, she said.
Paul Koenig — 621-5663
Twitter: @pdkoenig
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