By Darrell Halen

A proposed $32 million operating budget and a $7 million warrant article to construct a new police station top the list of warrant articles Salem voters will consider when they gather for the town’s first deliberative session of Town Meeting.

That first session will be held Saturday, Feb. 9, at Salem High School, and begins at 9 a.m.

Selectmen are asking voters to approve a $7,135,712 warrant article to construct a 26,000-square-foot police station behind the department’s current building.

The new facility is being requested to accommodate a police department that has outgrown its station, which was built in 1966 and has been added on to several times.

The article, if approved, would authorize the town to issue not more than $6,985,712 of bonds or notes and use up to $150,000 in interest earnings on the invested bond proceeds.

Asset forfeiture money and impact fees would also be used to cover some of the project’s $7.3 million total cost. The new station would cost the average homeowner $42 annually.

Officials are proposing an operating budget of $32,249,993. The property tax impact is $4, the water rate impact is $2.85 and the sewer rate impact is $2.80.

In addition, there are five warrant articles that each provide increased financial benefits to unionized workers. These include: $121,376 to firefighters; $101,366 to police employees; $43,614 to clerical and administrative employees; $50,092 to professional employees; and $45,851 to public works employees.

If the operating budget is rejected at the polls, voters will take it up again at the town’s second deliberative session on Saturday, March 15, when at least 19 other warrant articles, including requests for roadway improvements and hiring four new firefighters, will be debated and voted on.