KINGFIELD –- The town’s budget committee finished its sessions and has a finalized budget ready for town voters at the March town meeting.

Each and every line item throughout the municipality’s budget was designated as either a six-month appropriation or full year. This is because Kingfield is transitioning to a June 30 to July 1 fiscal year from the traditional calendar year. As a result, voters will for the most part approve a six-month budget which will take them to a new official Annual Town Meeting in May or June.

“I think for the most part the process went fairly smoothly,” said Administrative Assistant Doug Marble who assembled his first municipal budget successfully.

Marble reported that Sarah Churchill was appointed to the final budget committee meeting to replace long-term resigned member Bill Brown.

Marble said they’ll be printing a much shorter version of a town report for this six month budget. To save money, specific things like department reports will not be included, Marble explained. He also said the report, which will contain the budget, town warrant and tax assessor’s report will be available for pick up at specific locations for this meeting.

The report and subsequent distribution will go back to usual for the Annual Town Meeting later this year.

Most everything was approved as either requested or recommended except for the cemetery budget. A request for a $5,000 purchase for a lawn mower and other issues gave this budget a “not recommended” status. “They wanted discussion of the cemeteries from the public and they didn’t want the issue of the town control of the cemeteries to be ignored,” Marble said.

A $3,000 request from the Stanley Museum was recommended at $1,000. All other program requests were approved as requested except KV Cap Child & Family Services and the American Red Cross. These requests were either outside the county boundaries or already funded by county funding.

Marble also said the committee recommended Deputy Clerk, Tax Collector and Wastewater Treasurer Erica Bracey to move to a four-day position compared to three days from last year.

Marble also said that this year all program requests will need to invoice the town after it’s approved at town meeting.