A total of 61 Dunbarton voters attended a special town meeting and voted by secret ballot whether to establish a revolving fund for special police details.

Only eight votes made the difference, with 34 voting in favor of setting up the detail account and 26 voting against it at the Friday, May 9, meeting.

“I think it went well. There was a lot of discussion and debate,” said Police Chief Christopher Connelly, who went before the Board of Selectmen weeks ago because the department had completely exhausted its detail budget due to covering a Public Service of New Hampshire project in town.

The article’s passage authorizes the Board of Selectmen to set up a fund for public safety details outside the typical police escorts and details. Such special circumstances would include events and highway projects.

Connelly said the $3,000 police special detail budget ran dry about three weeks into the budget voted in this past March because of PSNH’s installation of new telephone polls in town, requiring constant police supervision.

The revolving fund, under state law, allows municipalities to set up a fund that accepts payments and also pays out reimbursements for a very specific purpose.

In this case, vendors requesting detail officers for public service purposes would pay into the newly established revolving fund. The officer’s pay and any other costs associated with the detail would be paid from the fund.

Currently, vendor payments go directly into the town’s general fund with the payments to officers coming out of that $3,000 detail line item.

Two amendments were made to the article to bring the wording more in line with statutory language and clarify that the new fund would be used solely for details. One amendment also ensures that the money cannot be used for anything that Dunbarton voters turn down.

Town Administrator Janice VandeBogart said it was a quick and painless process to set up the new account in the computer.

“It’s an accounting thing that we can do in a few minutes,” said VandeBogart.