WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Attendees at the annual fire district meeting Tuesday voted unanimously to approve the Fire Department's budget and to fund a study to assess the town's future needs.

 

About 20 voters attended the brief meeting in the Williamstown Elementary School cafeteria, where district officials asked for approval of a $480,751 spending plan for fiscal 2019.

 

The district's operational budget represents a $1,554 increase over FY18, a change of 0.3 percent.

 

The budget adds about $2,500 to the line item for full-time salaries but cuts $5,000 from the allotment for street lights.

 

The chairman of the Prudential Committee, which runs the Fire Department, explained in answer to a question from the floor that the $5,000 reduction conservatively reflects what the district hopes to start realizing from solar credits associated with the town-owned solar farm at the capped landfill on Simonds Road

 

"In 2017, we budgeted $100,000, and [in FY18] we budgeted $80,000," John Notsley said. "We're just starting to receive credits for solar, and we didn't dare reduce it any more than that. But it looks like [the solar installation] is going to be a home run."

 

Most of the articles on the eight-article meeting warrant were familiar to those who attend the meeting. The new item this year was Article 8, which authorized $25,000 "to be used by the District to conduct a feasibility study to review and analyze the preparedness of the Williamstown Fire Department to meet the safety and fire protection needs for the Town of Williamstown for the foreseeable future."

 

District officials hope that future includes the construction of a new fire station on a Main Street parcel that voters authorized the district to purchase at a special district meeting last fall.

 

Notsley informed voters Tuesday that the district closed on the former Lehovec property on April 18, "the first step in what we hope will be a new home for the Fire Department in the near future."

 

No one questioned the appropriation for a consultant to do a needs analysis for the town except to ask whether $25,000 was enough to do the job. Notsley said based on the study ordered by the recent ad hoc group that looked at the future of Village Ambulance Service, the Prudential Committee was confident it could get the information it needs for that budget.

 

Tuesday's meeting also included the annual election of district officers.

 

Ed McGowan received 43 votes (with three ballots left blank) in his re-election bid for the Prudential Committee. Paul Harsh won a write-in campaign for district moderator, garnering 30 votes. And Gary Fuls was elected to serve as the district's clerk/treasurer with 44 of the 46 ballots distributed.

 

All three candidates ran unopposed.