LIVERMORE FALLS — Roughly 40 residents approved spending up to $650,000 for repairs to the town fire station at a brief special town meeting Tuesday.

“I do hope that you folks will vote to have our fire station back so we can get our equipment back in town and stop paying for all these rentals,” Jim Purington, a member of the Fire Department, said before the vote.

The money will come from general obligation bonds or notes. The estimated interest rate is 2.75 percent.

The funds will pay for work to make the fire station ADA-accessible and for a new roof and a boiler. Additional repairs include installing structural supports in the front and back bays.

In October 2015, the town’s insurance company said it would no longer insure the station because of structural deficiencies that were discovered. The town was forced to move its equipment to the Jay Village Fire Station, and to a garage on the Karn Road in Livermore Falls.

Voters also approved $83,990.56 from the Fund Balance to cover engineering expenses for the fire station. The estimated Fund Balance is $1.1 million.

Resident Scott Roberts cast a vote against taking money from the Fund Balance.

He explained his rationale in an email: “I took exception to raiding the fund tonight for the same reasons I railed against doing it last year. To me it doesn’t matter what the nonemergency reason is, be it engineering costs or keeping the (tax) rate down, we should be paying for current expenses out of current revenues and not dipping into the rainy day fund because it is convenient.”

He wrote, “The fund exists for really out of the ordinary and unexpected costs, not items that can be planned for. The fire station does not qualify at this stage.”

bmatulaitis@sunmediagroup.net