SUNDERLAND — Residents at Friday’s Annual Town Meeting will consider a $10.56 million budget and a $472,173 Community Preservation Act allocation for the proposed restoration of the Graves Memorial Library, as well as a citizen’s petition regarding land acknowledgment.

The meeting will be held at Sunderland Elementary School, 1 Swampfield Drive, at 6:30 p.m.

The first major article to come before residents will be the proposed $10.56 million operating budget for fiscal year 2026, which is a 3.9%, or $489,077, increase over the current fiscal year. Selectboard Chair Nathaniel Waring said it is “definitely a tight budget year,” as local receipts “weren’t spectacular,” but through the efforts of department heads, the town has avoided tough discussions about cuts, unlike some other communities in the valley.

Big drivers of the budget increase include Sunderland Elementary’s $128,626 increase, a $215,805 spike from Frontier Regional School and a $66,615 insurance bump, on top of general skyrocketing costs, according to Waring.

“None of the increases we had this year were department-driven,” Waring said, noting the budget is pretty much “level-services across the board.” “It was a perfect storm of costs going up dramatically. … Things are just more expensive this year than they were in years past.”

On top of the elementary school’s budget, Article 5 asks voters to transfer $60,000 from the General Stabilization Fund to pay for sick leave and vacation leave buybacks.

The second major financial transfer to come before residents is a $472,173 CPA request to fund the restoration of the masonry, foundation and site at the Graves Memorial Library at 111 North Main St.

Library Trustee Lorin Starr said the work will ensure the building, which is more than a century old, will stand for “future generations.” The historic building is operated under an agreement between the Trustees of the Sunderland Public Library, the Sunderland Historical Commission and the Swampfield Historical Society. The Graves Memorial Library is home to the Swampfield Historical Society museum for Sunderland’s historical artifacts and it is typically open on Wednesdays from 1 to 3 p.m., according to the society’s website.

“This is a project that we’ve been working on for several years that addresses masonry repairs and repointing in order to preserve this landmark building,” Starr said, adding that the main issue affecting this “critical part of the town center” is the passage of time. “It’s just the age of the building.”

Finally, before the consent articles, which allow the town to conduct business, residents will be asked to consider a pair of citizen’s petitions.

Article 13, which was submitted by the Sunderland Human Rights Task Force, will ask residents to adopt a land acknowledgment recognizing the ancestral homeland and territory of the Pocumtuck, Nipmuc and Abenaki people. The acknowledgment would be posted on the Sunderland town website and be read at the start of Annual Town Meetings as well as other community events.

Aaron Falbel, a member of the Sunderland Human Rights Task Force, said the warrant article was crafted with help from David Brule, president of the Nolumbeka Project, an Indigenous history and culture preservation nonprofit. Task force members Joanna Schoen and Jay Baudermann also assisted.

“Indigenous people often start their own gatherings with expressions of gratitude, and the Sunderland land acknowledgment is offered in this spirit. We are grateful to those who stewarded the land before European settlers arrived,” Falbel said. “The beauty of the land we inhabit today is due in large part to their care and reverence for the area we now call ‘Sunderland’ along the Connecticut River.”

All 20 articles on the warrant, except for the citizen’s petitions, are recommended by the Selectboard and Finance Committee. The second citizen’s petition involves a resolution in favor of a nuclear weapons freeze.

Other matters on the warrant include, but are not limited to:

■A $100,00 transfer from the CPA Annual Budgeted Reserve to the town’s Conservation Trust for future acquisition of parcels of land under the authorization of the Conservation Commission.

■Charter amendments for the Franklin Regional Council of Governments.

■Closing the existing Recreation Recycling Account to create two new accounts regarding programming and field use, as well as a one-time transfer of $100,000 in free cash to the Recreation Department’s budget.

To view the full Annual Town Meeting warrant and language for its 20 articles, visit bit.ly/37E2UHP.

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