ANDOVER — Selectmen decided Tuesday to cover a $6,600 deficit in the Transfer Station budget with carryover and contingency funds.

Town Treasurer Barbara Simmons told selectmen that $34,000 in contracted waste management services and $1,200 to lease a portable toilet were the main reasons for the shortfall.

Selectman Jane Rich said the $43,000 budgeted for 2016 was $5,000 less than the year before.

“The Budget Committee didn’t spend it all (in 2015) so they decided to cut (the 2016 budget) and evidently that was not the right thing to do,” she said.

“Now we’ve got a bigger trash volume anyway,” partly because of property owners in some of the unorganized territories such as South Arm and East B Hill, and Oxford County’s responsibility for those areas, she said.

“We made an agreement with the county that those people could dispose of their trash at our Transfer Station. And the county reimburses us $5,000 a year to do that,” she said.

In other business, landowners with property abutting the Bailey Farm may need to wait until 2018 to vote on an ordinance regarding the use of pesticide spray by Sunday River Farms, which leases the property, Rich said.

The ordinance cannot be voted on at the March 2017 town meeting, because state law requires a public hearing at least 90 days before. However, there could be a special town meeting after that to consider the ordinance, she said.

In new business, property owners who began participating in the Tree Growth Renewal Program in 2007 will receive letters requesting they submit their tree growth plan for the next 10 years. The letters will be sent the first week in January, Rich said.

Also, Simmons told selectmen that the Recreation Committee’s walking group requested a larger television for its exercise program held in the school gym. Selectmen approved a 39-inch TV for $208.

The meeting ended with an executive session to address personnel matters.

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net