DIXFIELD — Voters on Tuesday approved buying a plow truck and a pickup truck using up to $375,000 from the undesignated fund balance.

“I’m very excited to get a new plow truck and get that process started,” Town Manager Alicia Conn said. “I doubt as if we’ll have one before this winter. The timeline we’re hearing is still about two years.”

The town plans to appropriate up to $275,000 from the undesignated fund balance for the plow truck purchase, which will replace the 2009 International plow truck.

The town will use up to $100,000 from the fund for a 1-ton pickup to replace the 2011 GMC that is not operational.

With the increased reserve account, Conn said, “We feel very positive about funding those more appropriately for the anticipated increase in cost. We’re trying to set ourselves up to be in a better position so that we’re trading in vehicles and upgrading and making road repairs timely, saving ourselves costs in the long run.”

She said the town has been underfunding its reserve accounts, “which is why we developed our roads committee and came up with a proposed road maintenance schedule that we intend to stick to and update as we go.”

The schedule goes out as far as eight or nine years. “And we’re trying to address every road in town with this schedule and hopefully it will prevent us from having such large repairs and rebuilds.”

Conn said the 2024-25 municipal budget is $3.14 million, a $447,586 increase, or 16.59% more than the current budget. She said the two main factors in the increase are adding $300,000 in the reserve account and a large increase in public safety.

“We are facing a patrol increase of $109,000 from the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office, with no change in coverage.”

The contract for the coming fiscal year, July 1 to June 30, 2025, is $307,942, which is about 40% increase from last year. It follows a 10% increase from the previous year, she said.

The contract is for coverage 18 hours a day, with the remaining six hours on call.

She said that last month she sent requests for police coverage to Jay, Wilton, Rumford, Mexico and the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office.

Select Board Chairman Richard Pickett was reelected and Peter Holman won a seat on the board. Both are for three-year terms.