Town Administrator Tom Gaydos said he’s pleased with a piece of state legislation passed earlier this month that will loosen restrictions on receiving federal aid from the federal economic stimulus package.

Passed by the New Hampshire State Senate on April 8, the bill will allow towns and cities to schedule special town meetings to accept federal dollars or vote on matching funds or bonds for stimulus-related projects without first petitioning the courts.

For Gaydos, who is looking at the economic stimulus package as a way for the town to fund the construction new fire station, the measure represents savings in money and time.

“Normally we would have to go to the Superior Court and get permission. (This) makes the process less expensive, for one,” Gaydos said. “It’s quite a nice piece of enabling legislation.”

According to Gaydos, department heads in Pelham are considering applying for a number of different grants available in the economic stimulus package, including the COPS Hiring Recovery Program. Under the program, municipal police departments will receive federal funding for the hiring of three officers and their salaries and benefits for the first three years.

Departments that enter the program are required to keep the newly hired officers on the town payroll for a fourth year.

Gaydos said the town is also applying for a grant through the Department of Homeland Security to fund a portion or all of the costs associated with constructing a new firehouse. Voters have rejected constructing a new building to replace the department’s existing, out-of-code fire station three times in the past, most recently during March’s Town Meeting.

Regardless of how much federal funding the project could get, the plan to rebuild the town’s fire station would still need to go before voters. Gaydos estimated the cost of holding a special town meeting at between $2,500 and $3,000.

But that’s not as costly as having to petition the court to hold the meeting, according to Gaydos. “We’re still going to have to pay to have the town meeting,” he said. “Obviously, if we had to hire an attorney to make our argument in court, that costs money too.”

In neighboring Windham, town officials have already received roughly $30,000 to add technical enhancements to the software the Police Department uses to report crime. Though selectmen have declined from pursuing funding from the police officer hiring program, Town Administrator David Sullivan said the town may potentially seek funding for the renovation of several historic freight sheds in the Windham Depot. Currently, the sheds are used to house the town’s highway department.

While the town has already has money for the project lined up – partially through state aid – Sullivan said he has been urged by state officials to apply for federal stimulus funds as well.

“To renovate those buildings, we’ve got a program with town funding and state funding to do enhancements and to bring them back to what they were,” Sullivan said. “We already have funding to do the project, any stimulus funds would just replace it.”

The few roadwork projects the town has already undertaken are ineligible for stimulus dollars, Sullivan said, including plans to build a secondary access road for the new high school.