For 18 months, town officials have weighed the benefits of building a public works department from the ground up.

During the annual Town Meeting on April 6, residents will get the chance to vote it up or down.

Durham has used private contractors to keep its roads clear and its grass short.

According to a 2012 feasibility study, the town will have spent $1.26 million to maintain its roads and parks by the end of this winter. That amount is expected to increase by about $71,000 next budget year, to $1.33 million, because of rising salt, sand, fuel and other costs.

Summer maintenance expenses have increased by 11.6 percent since 2007 while winter costs have jumped by 22.7 percent, for an average increase of 17.5 percent over those five years.

The trend has selectmen wondering if a municipal department would be more economical.

“It looks like it would be roughly the same cost as it is now, but the town would see a lot more work being done for the same amount of money,” said Jeff Wakeman, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.

Likewise, the town’s current tax rate is not projected to be affected.

“It would not change the tax rate because you’re spending about the same amount of money, just in a different way,” said Town Administrator Janet Smith. “The money would be going back into the town” rather than to contractors.

Towns of similar size and population with municipal public works departments include Rockport, Minot, Buckfield and New Gloucester.

Durham currently shares a full-time roads commissioner with neighboring Pownal — which has its own public works department — and maintains a work force of two part-time crew members and a truck to fill potholes, repair and replace broken road signs, roadside mowing and other tasks.

All other work is hired out to private contractors.

For several years, Copp Excavating has plowed and sanded the town’s 47 miles of municipal roads and 22 miles of state road, as well as the parking lots at the town hall and parks, while either Jaiden Landscaping or Yankee Yardworks has done the summer grounds mowing and maintenance.

The proposal would add 10 employees —six full-time, four part-time — to the town’s payroll, including its own roads commissioner, working foreman, combination mechanic and equipment operator, a second equipment operator, two truck drivers and laborers, and four parttime seasonal plow operators. Salaries, benefits and payroll taxes would cost the town an estimated $380,000 per year.

Equipment would cost the town about $1.6 million, to be bonded over 10 years, with annual payments of $164,202. Land and facilities would cost another estimated $1.46 million. Over 20 years, those payments would be about $100,000 per year.

Its annual operating budget is estimated at almost $617,000.

If approved, the overall effect on the fiscal year 2014 budget would be an increase of $1.26 million; however, projected cost-per-mile of services would drop from current rate of $10,000 to $3,600, according to the study.

If voters approve the article during the April 6 meeting, a steering committee would be appointed to determine a site for the facility.

Ideally, Wakeman said, Durham Public Works would be operational by spring 2014.

Durham’s Town Meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. at the Durham Community School gymnasium, 630 Hallowell Road.

jtleonard@timesrecord.com