WATERFORD – A request to buy a $200,000 firetruck tops a 94-article warrant when the annual town meeting gets under way at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Municipal Building.

Voters will be asked to approve an overall budget of $1,116,000, an increase of $108,386 over this fiscal year.

“The committee worked very hard in trying to keep the line close,” said Finance Committee Chairman John Martin of the seven-member committee’s work to keep the budget increases to a minimum.

Martin, who also serves on the town’s volunteer fire department, said the newest truck is more than a decade old and most of the equipment is 30 years old.

The money to pay for the engine will come out of the town’s surplus account.

“I don’t think we’ll be very much over last year,” Selectman David Marston said of this year’s proposed budget. Marston said because of a slight surplus from last year’s budget and the intent of officials and voters to spread large expenditures over two or three years, the town should be in good financial shape. “I don’t think the mill rate will go up a lot.”

The tax rate will be set in July after the town and SAD 17 budgets are finalized and state funding becomes known. “We have to have all of that before we set the mill rate,” Marston said.

Marston said the large number of articles on this year’s meeting warrant is fairly typical and reflects the desire of selectmen to hold as few special town meetings as possible throughout the year because of the limited number of people who attend them.

“It’s a good way to discuss things and decide things with good representation. We can make judgments based on majority,” he said.

In other town meeting action, voters will be asked to appropriate $68,000 for town officers’ salaries; $25,000 for fuel, utilities and maintenance of the fire station and municipal building and $52,000 for health insurance for full-time employees.

Roads and bridges will get a share of the money if voters agree to appropriate $130,000 for the repair of bridges and the 40 miles of roads, $150,000 to tar, surface or resurface roads and $137,000 for snow plowing and salting during the winter.

Officials will ask voters to approve $144,500 for the continued operation of the transfer station.

Voters will also be asked to appropriate money to support a number of organizations, including the Historical Society, Community Concepts, SeniorsPlus and Big Brothers/Big Sisters.