NORTHFIELD — Bernardston voters approved paying off the entire balance of the borrowing for a new fire truck at Town Meeting on Saturday, as well as 25 other articles on the Town Meeting, but voted down a citizen’s petition to add an October special Town Meeting to the calendar.

The nearly 40 residents in attendance at Pioneer Valley Regional School made their way through the agenda in about an hour and 40 minutes, with few articles generating discussion.

The major highlight of the warrant, other than the budget, was a request to transfer $587,000 from free cash and $400,000 from the stabilization fund to pay off the entire balance on borrowing approved at 2024’s Town Meeting to pay for a fire engine.

“This approach will save the town interest costs that would have been incurred over the life of the loan,” Finance Committee Chair Jane Dutcher said, adding that if the town went through the course of the loan, it would cost more than $200,000 in interest payments alone. “It seems an obvious move, so we hope you all agree.”

Bernardston’s requested fiscal year 2026 budget, which is typically broken up into several warrant articles, also passed, with residents approving an approximately $237,732, or 4.6% increase.

As part of the budget, the town also saw a big jump, nearly $60,000, in contracted services to Northfield EMS, which is implementing a four-town consortium model due to an increased demand in service. The assessments will help pay to operate EMS services, as well as capital projects.

Northfield EMS Chief Matthew Wolkenbreit said the assessment model’s formula is based off town populations and the number of service calls to each community. The assessment is about a third of the total Northfield EMS budget, which was approved at Northfield’s Town Meeting earlier in May.

“Currently, we on track to do an estimated 600 calls in Bernardston,” Wolkenbreit said. “As we’ve continued to grow, as our communities have started to age, we’re seeing a year-over-year significant increase in the amount of calls.”

Finally, the citizen’s petition, submitted by Planning Board member John Lepore, generated the most discussion of the morning. Lepore and Planning Board Chair Rawn Fulton said the goal of the petition was to set aside an October special Town Meeting date, where town boards could bring complex bylaw changes or other matters to residents without working under the tight timeline of annual Town Meeting or overly extending Town Meeting.

Several residents said they did not see a need to have an October special Town Meeting implemented into the town governance calendar, as the Selectboard, or residents through a petition process, can call a special Town Meeting at any time.

“I just don’t think it’s money we don’t have to spend or time for all of our underpaid officials to have do a mandatory meeting,” Danielle Bordewieck said. “Just call a special meeting like everyone else does, like when we did with the fire station.”

Even after Town Clerk Christina Slocum-Wysk made an amendment to the motion to have special Town Meetings be “held as needed in October,” the article was rejected by residents.

Other articles approved by residents include:

■A $65,000 appropriation and $65,000 free cash transfer, making for a total of $130,000 for the second of 10 payment installments for the Fire Station loan.

■A request to transfer $150,000 from free cash to stabilization accounts, with $50,000 going to the special purpose stabilization fund for vehicle replacement and $100,000 to the capital stabilization account.

■A $15,000 free cash transfer to the renovate/construct town buildings account.

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