GRANBY — The first half of Town Meeting on Monday will ask voters to approve routine municipal operations, such as tuition payments for students attending vocational schools, operating funds for the ambulance, sewer and solid waste departments and capital purchases.

The meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. at East Meadow School, is the first part of Granby’s annual Town Meeting. The second half will take place on June 9 and discuss critical issues such the addition of a stormwater bylaw, utilization of free cash and the town budget as a whole.

At Monday’s meeting, residents will be asked to approve $605,828 to run the ambulance department, some of which includes salaries for a new part-time shift during the department’s busiest hours and a new full-time position to alleviate overtime costs and coverage gaps.

“The goal of this is to try and bring some stability to the funding of the department,” interim Fire Chief Russ Anderson said. “There’s been a lot of things going on after COVID trying to get staffing and trying to get paramedics, at the same time, everyone’s call volumes are going 10-15%.”

Town Meeting will also vote to approve $613,048 for the solid waste management operational budget and $310,580 to fund the sewer department.

The biggest capital purchases on the warrant include $106,848 to fund a new backup energy generator for the high school, $114,891 to pay for technology upgrades for the school department, $124,000 to buy a bobcat for the Highway Department, and $123,200 for a new energy management system in the Public Safety Complex.

“It’s outdated. They’re (public safety staff) having a hard time connecting to it,” interim Town Administrator Chris Martin said during the April 28 Select Board meeting. “It doesn’t work well with Windows 10 and Windows 11 that’s going to be coming down in October, so they want to update to a current system so they are able to log in and control it with a better method.”

A new van for the Council on Aging to replace the current blue, worn-out vehicle and a field maintainer for the school department are also notable capital items.

“We share a maintainer between the school and the town,” Martin said. “What we are finding is that both departments want it at the same period of time, and it’s getting very difficult to properly maintain the balls fields such as Brown-Ellison, Dufresnes and the school with the one maintainers.”

Two articles were petitioned by municipal departments. The town collector, Nicole Menard, petitioned to increase any municipal collector's pay by 10%, at a maximum of $1,000 per year, if the collectors complete their state certifications. The Board of Assessors wants to include minimum time spent as a Massachusetts resident as a requirement for veteran tax exemptions. The proposal states that veterans must reside in the state at least six months before entering service, or two consecutive years after their service.

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com