Residents of Candia gathered at Henry W. Moore School on Saturday, Jan. 31, for the first of two highly anticipated town meetings. More than 100 citizens assembled for the deliberative session of Town Meeting to decide how the town would recommend residents vote in the polls this March. The agenda, which consisted of 36 articles to be voted on, was headlined by Article 15 – the disputed town budget.

After articles 1 and 2 were omitted, the Board of Selectmen recommended making articles 3 through 14 a block and voting on them all at once. These articles asked for relatively small amounts of money for social programs, and were approved nearly unanimously.

Though the first 14 articles were complete in just over 20 minutes, Article 15 dominated discussion for nearly two consecutive hours. The debate over the “Big Kahuna,” as first-time Moderator Scott Tierno named it, was the result of a disagreement between the newly formed Budget Committee and the Board of Selectmen. The Budget Committee, after conducting more than 18 hours of financial analysis, proposed a town budget of $2,317,771.12.

“This is the closest we can come ... to operate on the year and not have to let anyone go,” said Carla Penfield, chairman of the Budget Committee. Penfield went on to stress that the selectmen would be able to reallocate the money from the bottom line budget as they saw fit. This proposal was not greeted warmly by Selectman Rick Lazott.

“How can you move money around if there’s no money to move?” Lazott asked. “The proposed budget clearly underfunds fixed costs, and leaves no room for unanticipated expenditures.”

As the debate raged on into late morning, Article 15 was finally called to a halt. A 10- minute intermission was taken to conduct a secret ballot, which revealed a 90-40 vote in favor of the Board of Selectmen. However, voters were unaware at the time of the ballot that the town can only legally increase the suggestions of the Budget Committee by 10 percent. Therefore, $7,000 was taken off the town budget. The final total to be recommended on the March ballot is $2,525,265.

The rest of the meeting passed relatively smoothly, and articles 16 through 27 were approved in just minutes. Article 28, which dealt with money for a local youth program, provided the only other real debate of the day. Two proposed amendments were voted down (one after a recount reversed the initial ruling of approval) before a third was passed by a vote of 57-47. The final vote knocked off $8,000 of the original proposal of $18,000 to be raised and appropriated for the Candia Youth Athletic Association.

The meeting lasted well over six hours and saw a large turnover in voters between the beginning and the end. When the final town budget was approved at 2:47 p.m., only seven voters who had participated in the secret ballot at 11 a.m. remained.

In total though, there were only 13 fewer voters the second time around. The crowd had almost completely regenerated as citizens came and went.

Voters will reconvene Saturday, Feb. 7, for a discussion on four articles concerning the School Board.