GLEN SPEY, NY — It was only a 10th of a percent, but it was a reduction.

Lumberland Supervisor Jenny Mellan presented the appropriations numbers for the preliminary 2019 town budget at the town board’s October 10 meeting and they showed a spending decrease.

It was only $136 out of $2,552,530 budget, but it was $136 in the right direction. “A flat budget,” Mellan declared.

By a 4-1 vote, with Councilman James Akt opposed, the board scheduled a public hearing for the 2019 budget at 7:30 p.m., on Wednesday, November 7. Asked why he opposed the budget hearing, Akt said only that “the money is going to the wrong people.”

The budget hearing will follow a 7:10 p.m. hearing on the new Lumberland Volunteer Fire Department budget.

In other business, the board approved a new state-mandated sexual harassment policy; a $2,017 maintenance and service contract with Peak Power for generators in the town hall buildings and the highway garage; the appointments, with Akt opposed, of Alexandra Watrelot and Daniel Edzenga to the zoning board of appeals, and Margrette Blebac as an alternate ZBA member; the $399.99 purchase, from Office Depot, of a fire-resistant records-storage cabinet that will be placed in the town hall’s former art room; a new $6,081.38 per-mile snow and ice removal contract with Sullivan County for winter weather care of county roads in the town; the highway superintendent’s discretion in the purchase of anti-skid material from any of the approved bidders.

The board also discussed, but took no action on, paid time off for part-time clerks, changing the payment framework for the cemetery committee clerk from a monthly to annual schedule and repair costs for the replacement of the school bus garage.

Pending receipt of more information about the process, the board scheduled November action on a school-district request for flashing lights and a school-zone speed limit at the McKenzie Elementary School.