JAY – The annual town meeting referendum for municipal and school budgets will be held next June.

Selectmen voted Monday to consolidate the votes due to the state requiring two votes on the 2008-09 school budget in June.

For the past several years, with the exception of last year when state education subsidy figures were released too late, people have voted on the annual budget for both school and municipal in April. Last year both votes were conducted in June.

“I would recommend we do it all in June so we don’t have to pay twice,” Selectman Rick Simoneau said Monday during the board meeting.

Chairman Bill Harlow asked if the town would be able to have a second vote in case articles fail before the new fiscal year begins July 1.

Town Manager Ruth Marden said no.

She also said in the past, municipal operating articles have been passed but school operating articles have failed at times, which is the reason voters decided to change the town meeting to spring in the first place. The earlier date gives the town enough time to have a second referendum, if needed, before the end of the fiscal year.

Marden estimated the cost of each referendum at $700 to $800.

Harlow said he was concerned that something could happen with the municipal warrant articles and there would be no money to continue when the new fiscal year begins.

Simoneau said taxpayers are more likely to come out once to vote rather than twice.

Selectman Amy Gould made the motion to consolidate town voting with the school vote in June, which was unanimously approved.

In other matters, selectmen voted to give three sewer abatements, including one to Kevin Jewett of Stone Street for $1,550. Jewett had been billed for about 10 years for two units on the same bill unbeknownst to him until this summer when he asked Sewer Department Superintendent Mark Holt why he was getting double billed, Holt said.

The trailer in question on the same site had been removed about 1995-96, Holt said, but had never been taken off the sewer bill list.

Holt said he took the blame for the error. He said he would have been busy with sewer pump stations and the treatment plant upgrades and may have not given the town office personnel the necessary information to stop billing Jewett for the unit.

Under the sewer user policy, if a customer requests an abatement it may be given for the current year and two previous years.

“But since I think I made a mistake,” Holt said, he asked selectmen to grant the abatement to go back 10 years.

Measures are in place now to prevent that from happening again, Holt said.

Selectmen also voted to repeal a setback variance for a property at 5 Emery St. The board granted the variance earlier this year but since it was not used by the applicant requesting it, Code Enforcement Officer Shiloh Ring said it had to be repealed.

The board also approved the town’s new emergency operation plan and police Chief Larry White’s request to get rid of some of the old furniture and other items in the police station basement. Selectmen asked White to draw up a list to find out if any other department would need some of the items and to sell the rest either by bid or yard sale.