Wiscasset selectmen will convene in the hearing room for a special town meeting, 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25. The board will ask approval from voters for transferring $71,531 from the undesignated fund balance for two separate articles.

One article seeks $57,058 to pay the first quarterly loan payment for financing a $2 million loan used to cover costs of withdrawing from Regional School Unit 12. In December, selectmen learned the payment was inadvertently left out of this year’s budget. The payment is due in mid-April. The loan is financed over 10 years.

Voters will also be asked to approve spending $14,473 for replacing the furnace and heating system in the airport’s administration building. Bayside Plumbing of Nobleboro submitted the lowest of five bids on the work. The present heating system was installed in the 1980s.  Since the oil furnace failed earlier this winter, the building has been heated with pellet stoves and electric space heaters.

Town Manager Marian Anderson told selectmen all of the departmental budgets are currently in the black headed into the final quarter of the fiscal year. She said she’s keeping an eye on the fire department budget that has a balance left of $19,000. “A lot of their expenditures happened earlier in the year,” she explained.

Selectman Jeff Slack asked the town manager whether she had any news regarding the fire department’s ladder truck. She said no decision had been made yet whether to keep or sell it.

Budget meetings scheduled

At the suggestion of Chairman Ben Rines Jr., selectmen will hold a series of budget sessions with department heads and the budget committee leading up to presentation of the 2016-17 budget.

The board will have the meetings on Tuesdays when they are not holding a regular meeting. The dates set included March 22, April 12 and April 26. The meetings will all be held in the hearing room and start at 5 p.m.

Three budget committee members were on hand for Thursday’s meeting. They have until Monday, Feb. 15 to offer their recommendations on the two special town meeting articles. There are currently five members on the committee and four vacancies. Residents interested in serving on the committee should contact the town office.

Chris Hendricks, budget committee chairman, asked selectmen why they had used contingency funds to purchase the police cruiser and fire department’s brush truck. Hendricks felt both expenditures should have come from the Capital Reserve Fund. Doing so would have required voters to approve the purchases.

Rines explained under normal circumstances the board would have done so but in the case of the police cruiser it was an emergency situation.

The board met for 20 minutes in executive session with the town manager to discuss a personnel matter. Rines chose not to participate and remained in the hearing room. No action was taken when the board reconvened shortly after 7 p.m.