SUMNER – Residents will meet next week to decide on a budget for their town that closely resembles last year’s spending plan.

The town meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 9, at Hartford-Sumner Elementary School after a 5:30 p.m. potluck dinner.

The total proposed budget for 2004-2005 is $992,473.32, or 1.38 percent higher than the $978,805 raised last year. Of the total, only $645,653.32 will come from taxation, with the remainder coming from anticipated revenues and the general fund.

Last year, selectmen asked the SAD 39 board to keep school budget increases as low as possible. The school board managed to create a budget with little increase, mostly through the elimination of five teaching positions.

Selectman Tom Standard voiced his appreciation for the low increase in the school budget. “With good leadership, using innovative techniques and taking advantage of our declining enrollment,” he said “the schools should be able to control their cost.”

“By the same token,” Mark Silber said in his selectman’s report, “we, as selectmen, were encumbered to keep our budgets low.”

By maintaining a low budget, some of the town’s responsibilities have not been met as well as they could have been.

“Over the years our roads have deteriorated so that even the $110,000 that we spend on maintenance and capital improvements is just a drop in the bucket as far as our needs go.”

Standard in his report asked residents to consider a road bond, possibly of more than $4 million. “Properly built roads in good condition are cheaper to maintain than are poorly built roads in deteriorated condition,” he said.

A bond would allow the town to bring all its roads up to an acceptable state as soon as possible, although the yearly cost to pay off the bond would be higher than the amount currently spent on roads each year.

Road Commissioner Jim Keach reported that “the budget as it is allows us to just patch what we have.” In addition, “to maintain the current level of funding means putting off a lot of the projects we would like to do for another year or two.”

Silber and Keach are running for re-election to their current posts. Lana Pratt is also running for re-election to her post on the SAD 39 board. All three are unopposed.

About 100 of the town’s 854 residents attended last year’s town meeting.