INDUSTRY – Although voters supported ample funding for road maintenance, some questioned road upkeep at the annual town meeting on Saturday.

“The roads are going very well, but the upkeep did not happen last year. Why?” resident Jim Bouffard asked the selectmen. “Here we are trying to spend money to keep them up. Now, we’ve got a lot more work to do on them.”

He noted that Federal Row in particular had suffered from torrential rains last summer.

Selectman Lee Ireland said that last year, the gravel roads in town had been graded, but work got started late due to a late spring. Heavy rains came and the contractor was unable to get back out to re-grade them.

“(Federal Row) needs to be graded; I can’t argue with you on that,” he said.

He said the $100,000 requested for summer roads in 2009 was the same amount spent in 2007 and 2008. Citizens approved the $100,000 request.

Several residents also questioned overdrafts in the budget.

“We’ve never made a public statement that there wouldn’t be overdrafts,” Ireland said. “It’s our intent not to overspend the budget.”

He noted that more than $52,000 in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds came in that should be credited to roads, with more federal and state government funds scheduled to come.

Townspeople voted to ratify all 2008 overdrafts, and approved increasing the property tax levy limit of $173,051 established for the town by state law. The property tax levy limit was OK’d in a written ballot vote, 27-6.

The budget that was approved was $437,683.06 as opposed to $418,730.63 last year, an increase of 4.53 percent.

Fire Chief Joe Paradis Jr. said the Fire Department was trying to get a grant for a new tanker. Voters approved $5,000 to go into the fire vehicle reserve account.

In balloting earlier in the day, Rob Geisser was re-elected for another three-year term as selectman; Mark Prentiss was re-elected for a three-year stint on the SAD 9 school board. Both ran unopposed.