DEERFIELD — While voters approved the first 20 articles on Monday’s annual Town Meeting warrant, residents did not follow in the footsteps of neighboring Sunderland, as they rejected a citizen’s petition seeking to ask the Legislature to lower the municipal voting age to 16.

In just under two hours, 293 residents made their way through the 21-article warrant, approving a roughly $18.29 million fiscal year 2025 budget, which is an approximately 4.6%, or $806,143, increase over FY24’s figures. Residents also approved a request to shift from biannual tax bills to quarterly ones and to rescind the entire $5 million in borrowing authority for road repairs caused by the July 2023 rainstorms.

Most of the discussion at Town Meeting revolved around Article 21, the citizen’s petition put forward by Frontier Regional School seventh graders in each of the four member towns asking their communities to petition the Legislature to lower the municipal voting age to 16. Supporters said this could encourage more participation in town government among young people in town.

“This gives them some stability and a stake in the community they’re involved in to start to build the habit of voting,” said Frontier Regional School Committee Chair Missy Novak. “Hopefully to encourage them to follow in [town officials’] shoes and become involved in the government they decide to reside in at some point in time, whether that’s Deerfield or another community.”

Town Clerk Cassie Sanderell said there are only 63 residents who are 16 or 17 years old in town, while there are more than 4,000 registered voters in Deerfield.

Several residents said it was great to see young students putting time and effort into expanding the right to vote, but they questioned if 16- and 17-year-olds are ready to handle decisions that could significantly affect taxpayers.

“We are dealing with an $18 million budget and it’s not just the money, but look at the language in some of these articles, especially when you come down to the legal language in our bylaws. Do we believe 16- and 17-year-olds can fully comprehend that language?” said Jeff Upton, who noted the nearly 300 adults in the room sometimes struggle with the legal jargon. “I just think it’s beyond the students at this point in time.”

As discussion bounced back and forth, the question was called and the initial vote was too close to tell, leading Moderator Daniel Graves to count by hand. After a few moments, he announced the petition had failed by three votes.

With Sunderland’s approval and Deerfield’s rejection, the measure will go forward to Conway and Whately at their respective Town Meetings in June. While each of the four Frontier towns are considering the petitions, each vote and, if approved, petition is separate from one another.

Other items

Other items approved by voters include a shift to quarterly tax payments, which will begin in July 2025. Town officials said payments on Aug. 1, Nov. 1, Feb. 1 and May 1 could help residents plan their personal finances, while also providing more stable cash flow to the town throughout the year.

Residents also gave the go-ahead to transfer $600,000 from the General Stabilization Fund to pay for catastrophic road and sidewalk repairs around town, while also rescinding the full $5 million in borrowing authority that was approved by voters at a special election in January.

With the $600,000 approved, voters rescinded the borrowing authority because Deerfield received $1.58 million in state storm damage relief and had $260,000 of leftover storm damage money from July 2021’s storms, which town officials said will be enough to pay off the damages from last year. Select Board member Tim Hilchey and board Chair Carolyn Shores Ness previously explained the town has spent approximately $2.36 million on road repairs, compared to the original $4.8 million estimate that was developed with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

“Through the extraordinary efforts of our legislative delegation, Jo Comerford and Natalie Blais, and working with the governor and Karen Spilka, the Senate president, we were able to get at least $1,580,000 from the state,” Shores Ness said. “We now have established our roads and we anticipate not having to use any of the borrowing authority that you all trusted us with and I want to thank you all very much for.”

Other articles approved include:

■Appropriating $179,600 from several sources for capital projects, such as air conditioning at Deerfield Elementary School and the purchase of a replacement truck for the wastewater department.

■A completely reworked personnel bylaw that Finance Committee and Personnel Committee member David Sharp said will bring the town into legal compliance.

■Sending a court petition to split up the Tilton Library trustees and the Tilton Fund Inc., as trustees are prohibited from raising money for the library, while the Tilton Fund exists for that purpose.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.