OXFORD — Residents will no longer be required to pay to dispose of TVs, computer monitors, printers and other computer accessories at the town transfer station, selectmen decided Thursday night.

Town Manager Michael Chammings said he wanted to wait on the other fee changes until he could review the station’s revenues and expenses and make any changes for the next fiscal year. The station’s budget is forecast at $10,000 this year and Chammings said the town budgets so its expenses and revenues equal out. 

He said the matter may not be brought before selectmen again until all the revenues have been calculated at the end of the fiscal year in June.

In a Dec. 11 letter to selectmen, Transfer Station Manager William Bennett asked to eliminate fees to dispose of brush and TVs, and substantially reduce fees for demolition material, mattresses, box springs and tires.

Reducing and eliminating fees might encourage people to bring their refuse to the station and cut back on littering, especially big items, he said. 

TVs and computer monitors used to cost the town to have disposed, but are no longer subject to fees, Bennett said. Most other towns have eliminated fees for those items and it was becoming difficult to explain to residents why the town still had fees, he said. Prior to Thursday, the town charged $5 per item for electronics.

Board of Selectmen Chairman Floyd Thayer said it wasn’t uncommon to find TV sets dumped around town and said there were a few on his property.

The town also has not been charged to haul away brush for the past three years, and Bennett said it should no longer charge residents to bring it in.

“We are entering a very definite growth cycle for the town of Oxford, and I feel that if we eliminate the brush fees, the more likely people will be to try and clean up their homes and areas to make the town more appealing to everyone,” Bennett said.

He also said the town’s fee for disposing of demolition material, $155 per ton, was “way too high,” and it should be reduced to $105, the amount it costs the transfer station to handle the waste.

Similarly, the $10 fee to dump mattresses and box springs should be reduced to $5, Bennett said. The transfer station could comfortably handle its own disposal fees at that rate, he said.

The Maine Resource Recovery Association also has new rules and will not be separating car and truck tires, billing a full one-ton load at $65, Bennett said. That allows the town to reduce its fees to $1 per car tire and $5 per truck tire.