Vershire — Floor meeting voters felt harmonious this year, passing all 12 articles of business on a unanimous voice vote by the roughly 30 residents in attendance Tuesday morning.

However, voters posed challenging questions about several issues, including how much in tax revenue the town would be giving up by continuing to exempt the Vershire Fire and Rescue building from taxes.

With the property valued at $175,000, Town Clerk and Treasurer Gene Craft calculated it to be about $1,200 per year in municipal taxes, for each of the next five years. The building will also be exempt from education taxes, which were valued at about $3,200 per year.

Voters also questioned, but ultimately approved, a pair of equipment purchases. The first, a 10-wheeler truck, will have its $186,000 sticker price mitigated by the use of $30,000 in reserve funds, and another expected $30,000 from selling the town’s 2007 truck.

The remaining $126,000 would be financed through a five-year loan at a 2 percent interest rate.

The second piece of equipment is a loader, which officials said will cost “up to” $40,000, and will be used for sand-loading work currently being done with a 2009 backhoe.

“When you use the backhoe to load, sand falls down and is sucked into the radiator,” said Selectman Marc McKee. “It was never meant to be used like this.”

Using a loader instead is expected to extend the life of the $120,000 backhoe by “five or six” years.

Selectboard members warned that the town is still facing a looming problem in the form of a dilapidated town garage that is on a shifting foundation, and needs to be replaced. Selectman Vernal Stone said the floor of the current garage dropped by 4 inches this winter alone. In the past, McKee said, the town hoped to tap into state hazard mitigation grant money to build a new garage, but that no longer seems likely.

The town voted to put $25,000 into a highway garage fund to help prepare for its replacement.

Ballot voters were poised to re-elect an unopposed McKee to the Selectboard, and were being asked to authorize a general fund budget of $264,000, a highway fund budget of $327,000, and a Fire and Rescue budget of $34,000. The current municipal tax rate of 71 cents per $100 of valuation is not expected to change.

During the meeting, voters also expressed unanimous support for the election of Gene Sobeck to the Planning Commission, Carol Williams-Suich as cemetery trustee and Jean MacDonald as town grand juror. MacDonald, who sits on the Rivendell Interstate School District Board, said voters will be presented with a significant increase in the education tax rate at the school district meeting, which is scheduled for March 21, at 6:30 p.m., at Rivendell Academy.