Hatfield Town Hall GAZETTE FILE PHOTO/KEVIN GUTTING

HATFIELD — As a $12.03 million project to upgrade the aging wastewater treatment plant comes before annual Town Meeting, a resident is again asking the town to redo a portion of a $3.6 million water and sewer line improvement project on Route 5, which officials say could drive those costs up by $750,000.

Voters will be presented with a 43-article warrant, including a $12.59 million operating budget that preserves town and school services, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Smith Academy gymnasium.

The wastewater treatment plant project, which will also be on the ballot at the May 17 town election as a Proposition 2½ debt-exclusion vote, depends on a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant that will reduce the cost to taxpayers to about $9 million. The $9 million loan will be spread out over 40 years.

Select Board member Edmund Jaworski said during a recent warrant review that this is the cost-efficient way to handle the work. “If we kick the can down the road, the project will cost a lot more,” Jaworski said.

The plant is 35 years old and most of its mechanicals are that age, as well, and have reached the end of their useful life, said Select Board member Brian Moriarty.

Three citizen petitions from Susan Berry are asking residents to revisit and re-engineer the ongoing water and sewer improvement project on Route 5, at a potential cost of $750,000 to the town should residents agree with her request. That includes expenses related to relocating a sewer pumping station from 32 and 34 West St.

Berry, who has filed a lawsuit against the town, has concerns around a permanent easement of 1,100 square feet at 34 West St. and a temporary construction easement of 250 square feet at the same site. Last year’s Town Meeting failed, by one vote, to have the pumping station moved away from the Waxwing restaurant at that site.

Articles brought by the Select Board would amend last year’s action taken by eliminating required landscaping at 34 West St., and borrowing $750,000 to cover the costs of Berry’s articles, should they pass. That would add to the $1.6 million the town already appropriated to go with the $2 million MassWorks grant to extend sewer service on Route 5 from Linseed to Rocks roads, and water service for 2,200 feet along Route 5 south of Rocks Road.

Hatfield’s $12.59 million operating budget is part of $15.68 million in total spending. The operating budget is $1.25 million , or 10%, higher, than last year’s $11.35 million. The public schools budget is proposed at $5.24 million, up $455,343, or 9.5%.

Finance Committee Chairman Darryl Williams told the Select Board that the budget is only sustainable due to the infusion of free cash and a significant number of one-time items. Even so, Williams said the town may need to seek its first-ever Proposition 2 ½ general override in 2022.

“If we want to maintain services this budget has in it, we are going to have to pass an operating override sometime this year,” Willaims said

The Community Preservation Act account will be used to provide $234,000 for a pavilion at Smith Academy Park, $30,000 for walking paths at Smith Academy, $10,000 for baseball diamond dugouts, also at Smith Academy, and $11,000 for preservation of the Hatfield Historical Museum collection.

The largest request from the CPA account, though, which was to use at least $375,000 to purchase 21 acres on Jericho Road, will likely be passed over, with the land expected to be sold to a private party. The town has eyed the site for a walkway and canoe launch for the Mill River, and community housing.

Capital items will depend on $694,116 in free cash, including $48,000 for a police cruiser, $71,758 for radio communications equipment for the fire department, $80,000 for a compactor at the transfer station and $100,000 in drainage repairs from Raymond Avenue to School Street.

Department of Public Works Director Phil Genovese is seeking $26,000 to remove 11 pine trees on Elm Court, which he says are posing a danger, and install a fence in the area, and $94,500 to construct a storage building in the same location for sand, salt and road materials.

Other articles include establishing a new Celebration Committee and revolving fund for its work as a successor committee to the Hatfield 350th Committee, reducing the Conservation Commission from seven members to five and rescinding a 2000 Town Meeting vote that set the Luminarium as the last Sunday before Dec. 24.

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