STRAFFORD — Residents will decide whether to commit up to $1 million to renovate and expand the Town Office building during a Special Town Meeting vote Monday.

Voting will take place by Australian ballot from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Strafford Town Office, 227 Justin Morrill Highway. Residents can vote by mail or in person. Ballots were mailed to Strafford’s 940 registered voters earlier this month.

An informational session will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Town House, 12 Brook Road.

Residents are being asked to grant the town permission to obtain a bond in a “principal amount not to exceed” $1 million and “a term not to exceed” 15 years, according to the warning.

The proposal, which was developed by the Town Office Committee, calls for renovating the existing building, as well as putting on a 1,200-square-foot addition at a cost of around $1.4 million, said Curt Albee, the committee’s chairman.

“The building is almost 160 years old,” Albee said. “It’s had minimal maintenance to keep it going over the years.”

The building, which was given to the town by famed U.S. Sen. Justin Morrill and is included on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Strafford Village Historic District, was constructed around 1883 and has housed the town offices since 1969, Albee said.

This is the second time in recent years that voters have been asked to approve a plan for the Town Office. In 2022, they rejected a proposal from the Selectboard to conduct a feasibility study on converting a single-family home on Justin Morrill Highway into a new town office building.

Since then, conditions at the Town Office have continued to deteriorate. Last May, the state fire marshal deemed the stairs leading to the listers’ office on the second floor unsafe, which forced the town to stop using the office. In addition to the unstable staircase, the restroom is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, water gets into a crawl space during heavy rains, the front porch posts and siding are deteriorating and the walls lack insulation, Albee said.

“Even if this goes down, we’re going to have to do something with the existing building,” Albee said. “We’re going to have spend money — and a pretty good chunk of money.”

Additionally, space — including storage of town records — has become an issue, Selectboard Chairwoman Toni Pippy said.

“I really hope it passes and we’re going to make it as painless as possible as far as taxes go,” she said. “Our goal is to do it correctly but not extravagantly.”

Town officials are in the process of securing a $325,000 federal grant and are looking for other grant opportunities to offset the cost to taxpayers. There is also around $250,000 in the Municipal Building Reserve Fund to put toward costs.

An abutter has agreed to donate 0.05 acres of land to allow for the addition.

Based on research provided by the committee, if town officials took out a 15-year loan for $1 million from the Vermont Loan Bank with 3.63% interest rate, annual property taxes would rise $106.20 on a $200,000 house.

Pippy, who was on the Selectboard when voters rejected the 2022 proposal and was reelected to the board earlier this year, said that after the last vote failed, town officials asked residents to weigh in on what they should do about the town office building.

“The majority of the people in that room wanted us to see what we could do with that existing building,” Pippy said.

Albee said the committee asked for the special Town Meeting because they were not far enough along in the plan in February to have it ready for voters during March’s Town Meeting voting.

“We would have had to have warning done a month ahead of time, and we were not really ready to do it,” he said.

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.