OXFORD – Selectmen voted Thursday to create two warrant articles for buying two dump trucks. The articles will be voted on at a town meeting May 15.

The first will ask for $125,000 and the second for $100,000.

The plan to have two separate articles was suggested by town finance officer Sharon Jackson.

Selectmen plan to use money from the $1,205,298 in the unappropriated reserve account rather than take it from the highway equipment reserve fund as approved at town meeting.

The board would have had to use about $45,000 from the fund of the approximate $225,000 needed and put the rest on a lease-finance deal.

Selectman Dennis Sanborn said he did not like the concept of paying interest on a financing deal when the town could use money it had. He suggested borrowing the money from the unappropriated reserve fund and then pay it back.

“You can’t borrow from yourself and then pay it back,” Jackson told selectmen. “If you are going to use the money from surplus, just use it.”

Town Manager Michael Huston said originally the board planned to lease-purchase only one truck. Then in February one of the dump trucks used for plowing lost its rear end.

Huston said he and Road Foreman Steve Brown are suggesting that the town trade or sell four trucks – three dump trucks and a 1-ton truck – to help defray the cost of the new trucks.

Selectmen also awarded the contract for lawn maintenance for town buildings and the American Legion and Pismo Beach ballfields to Carol Martin of Oxford for $2,500.

The board awarded the cemetery care contract to Richard and Michael Jeselskis of Buckfield for $5,800.