COLRAIN — Voters packed the Colrain Central School gymnasium on Thursday evening to vote for a second time on the town’s request to transfer $50,000 from the Highway Department wages account to a new account for contracted snow and ice removal services.

This time, with considerably more participation than at the November Special Town Meeting, voters passed the sole article on the warrant, but not before amending the sum to $40,000 in favor of sparing some dollars for if and when a full-time employee is hired to the Highway Department. The first vote on this article failed to pass at the Nov. 14 Special Town Meeting, with a vote of 12 against and six in favor.

Selectboard member Emily Thurber explained to voters before a nearly hour-long discussion on Thursday that the town has roughly 90 miles of roads that need plowing each year. The department is staffed by three employees — including Superintendent Steve Daby — and is hiring for a fourth. However, qualified candidates with the necessary credentials have been hard to come by, with just four applications received after posting the job in the May 27, July 1 and Aug. 26 editions of the Greenfield Recorder.

“It was important to put a backup plan in place,” Thurber said, explaining the rationale for transferring money into an account for contracting snow removal services. “Contracting for services is not new for Colrain.”

After residents voted by majority to approve an amendment that lowered the amount from $50,000 to $40,000, one resident motioned to amend that amendment, asking instead for the dollars to be transferred from free cash. However, officials noted that the town’s free cash had not been certified. After a brief back and forth, the motion failed to receive a second.

Residents had questions about staffing and the number of trucks, as well as the logistics of contracts and who would be responsible for things like fuel and salt. Daby explained that the contracted services will add two trucks and two contractors to the department’s fleet. Asked about the cost, he said that between the use of the truck, fuel and salt, and the laborer, it would come to just over $300 per hour.

Resident Paul Norwood said that seemed like “a lot of money.”

“We have trucks; we need a driver,” Norwood said. “That’s a lot of money.”

Others who argued against the article asked why it was necessary now to contract services when it wasn’t last year. Daby noted the department has one less employee on staff than it did last year.

Paula Harrison, who serves as the town’s treasurer/collector, said with funds budgeted to pay for four employees and only three on staff, the money in the wages account was “just sitting there.” With the reduction to the original motion, “we’ll have money” to hire an employee if the opportunity arises, she said.

Selectboard members emphasized the town is prepared to continue its search for a new employee and that this article was meant to provide a “safety net” for the upcoming winter months.

“We’re just trying to help the current employees take their time, plow a little better and have a little less stress,” said Chair Ben Eastman.

Lynn Ditullio said she appreciated the work of the Selectboard and Highway Department in working out a potential solution.

“This has been an enormously difficult situation for many years,” Ditullio said. “I appreciate our Highway Department and Selectboard for doing this in a responsible fashion.”

Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter (X): @MaryEByrne.