Candia voters will see a selectmen- petitioned warrant article at this year’s town vote asking whether the Budget Committee should remain in place.

The Candia Budget Committee is only three years old at this point, but selectmen Chairman Fred Kelly said the committee has made the budget process more complicated, adding an extra layer of government.

According to state laws governing the establishment of municipal budget committees, such committees can be set up and likewise removed through a majority town vote.

Article 35 on the town warrant asks whether the voter is in favor of rescinding the vote that approved a town budget committee. During their public hearing on Wednesday, Jan. 9, to present the town budget and warrant articles, Budget Committee members did not discuss the article to disband them.

Carla Penfield, Budget Committee chairman, said they did not discuss the article because it is not a monetary item.

Kelly said the Budget Committee has made it difficult to run the town by picking over budgets too critically. The effect trickles down to different departments who are on “pins and needles,” according to Kelly, over putting together their department budgets for the coming year.

“What I’m getting back from the town people, and maybe I don’t speak for everyone, feel the town ran much better without the Budget Committee,” Kelly said.

The Budget Committee trimmed more than $120,000 from the selectmen’s proposed operating budget, but did not eliminate specific lines from the budget.

Candia residents will now vote to approve an operating budget of $2,261,255 or accept a default budget that is about $4,000 more than that, at $2,265,781.

The 2008-09 budget also includes the first bond payment for the transfer station, which totals $219,000. The bond payment increased the bottom line of the budget from the current to next year’s by about 10 percent alone, Penfield said.

After the first two years of the bond, she said, the yearly payments will decrease steadily.

The Budget Committee voted not to approve several articles, including a few for the new transfer station submitted by the Fire Department and Solid Waste Committee. One of those asked for $75,000 for a 30,000- gallon cistern to be installed at the transfer station.

The Budget Committee did not recommend an article asking to raise $30,000 for a portion of the Candia Youth Athletic Association’s operating expenses. The committee also approved several hundred thousand dollars in road improvements, including $150,000 for the first phase of construction on Patten Hill Road.

Funding for the services of the Red Cross, Meals on Wheels, Lamprey Health Care, Visiting Nurses Association, Community Action Program, and Child and Family Services of New Hampshire also passed with the Budget Committee.

The deliberative session of Town Meeting will take place at 9 a.m. at the Moore School gymnasium on Saturday, Feb. 2.