LIVERMORE — After much debate on each issue, voters at the Livermore town meeting cut funding Wednesday night for town roads and local nonprofit agencies.

Livermore Budget Committee member Warren Forbes talks about capital road improvement funding at the annual town meeting Wednesday. Livermore Falls Advertiser photo by Pam Harnden

Budget Committee member Warren Forbes moved to approve $350,000 for roads rather than the $395,000 initially recommended by the Board of Selectpersons.

“We’ve been over this before,” Forbes said. “It’s a wish-list category. They wanted to raise $500,000 last year, but we stayed the course at $350,000. We are spending money on roads. They’ll get done what they can with the money they have.”

Select Board Chairman Mark Chretien moved to increase the amount to $378,500.

“That would do to the top of Waters Hill Road to Route 4,” Chretien said. “They’d grind it, take the rocks out, put in 6 inches of gravel and 2 inches of hot top. After going through the winter, any rocks that came up would be taken care of and a finish coat applied next year.”

Several residents commented on the poor condition of Livermore’s roads.

“We’re not keeping up,” one resident said. “We’ve got to at least keep up. It’s going to be astronomical in three or four years if we don’t.”

“I appreciate the work done on Robinson Road,” Randy Berry said. “I won’t see the road crew back there in my lifetime. We can save money to a fault. The selectpersons have been working on this for awhile. We need to keep up.”

Megan Dion asked about putting money aside for a few years, then doing a whole road at once.

Another resident said with the cost of materials increasing, the town would be going backward if it waited.

The amended amount of $378,500 passed, after which the article also passed.

In other matters, selectmen recommended $6,050 in funding for nonprofits, which included a cut of $500 from Rural Community Action Ministries and adding $1,000 for Area Youth Sports to heat its building. The Budget Committee did not recommend supporting AYS.

The Select Board’s recommendation was amended to restore RCAM’s previous funding of $500.

Randy Berry speaks Wednesday night in support of restoring funding for Rural Community Action Ministries, at the Livermore town meeting. Seated to his left: Janice Daku, executive director of RCAM. Livermore Falls Advertiser photo by Pam Harnden

Randy Berry said he has been watching what has been happening with the Franklin County budget.

“We’ve been partners with RCAM for years,” he said. “They do a lot with a little.”

“We don’t realize how important these organizations are,” Town Clerk Renda Guild. “A $500 cut to them is hard,”

Voters approved the increase for RCAM and a recommendation not to fund heating costs for the AYS building.

In election results from Tuesday, Chretien was re-elected to the three-year Select Board term and Brett Deyling won the two–year term held by Tom Gould.

Incumbent Stephen Langlin will serve another three-year term on the Regional School Unit 73 board of directors. There were several write-in candidates for the second school board seat.