WILTON — Selectmen unanimously approved a plan to share highway department equipment and services with the towns of Jay and Livermore Falls during their Tuesday meeting.

The effort is a way for the three town departments to “improve what they are doing without additional cost,” John Welch, Public Work’s foreman, told the board.

While outlining how the idea generated from one town needing more trucks for snow removal, he said one benefit for Wilton could come from sharing the use of a road sweeper in the spring.

The other towns have sweepers but Wilton has to rent one to the tune of $4,000 a week, he said. Helping the other towns with the use of Wilton trucks could offset the cost incurred by renting the sweeper.

“The plan is to help each other out instead of adding money to the budget,” he said.

In fairness to all three towns, a crew and equipment made up of members from the three towns would start the spring sweeping in one town and work its way through all three, he explained.

The foremen would also keep track of what equipment and time each town used in order to keep the work fair for each.

The three towns’ department foremen got together and have written an agreement for the new plan. Town managers were then introduced to the plan, he said.

The effort to stop duplicating the purchase or rental of equipment especially some that’s only used one or two days a year makes sense, Selectman Russell Black said while endorsing his support of the idea.

The board then agreed Wilton roads were “as good as any roads around and are cleaned and kept up as good as any in the vicinity” before approving the town’s participation in the agreement.

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