The $6 million, 10-year road surface management system (RSMS) plan has a $101,000 shortfall in the first year of the program.

There is expected to be a shortfall of $329,000 for the second year, the Selectmen were told last week.

Municipal Manager Nanci Allard said that the plan initially called for four inches of new gravel, but now six inches is wanted.

She said that she was not prepared to give a recommendation and asked the board "not approve" the highway plan at last week's joint board meeting.

In March voters approved bonding $300,000 the first year of the 10-year road plan that calls for bonding $300,000 a year for five years.

The Town report gives the overall cost as a little over $4.8 million over 10 years, but Ms. Allard told voters at the March meeting that the program would cost about $6 million over a ten year period and that the length of the $300,000 loans would be for 10 years, not 20, as was reported at an earlier February selectboard meeting.

She referred to page 87 in the Town report as the guide to funding the project, which shows that an $87,000 shortfall for next year was expected. No explanation was given for funding of the $1 million plus increase announced at the March meeting.

Last week Selectman Kenneth Johnson said that a reason for the change in the cost is due to the conditions of the roads this Spring which indicate that an additional two inches of gravel are needed.

Speaking of the planned four inches of gravel that had initially been budgeted, he said that "four inches compacted to two inches" and would, as a result, not provide discernible benefits.

He said that he was "taken a back" by the dollar amount and that the highway subcommittee needed "another meeting or two."

Mr. Johnson said that he was reluctant to change the number of roads in this year's plan because doing so "throws everything off."

Trustee Thomas McCarney said that the roads "are in bad shape" and that is evidenced by the $2.5 million allocated for the next two years.

He said that the selectmen are faced with "tough decisions," and that it "has to be done to save the infrastructure."

The roads affected by the shortfall are those outside of the Village.

The trustees approved only the road expenditures recommended by the RSMS program.

Trustee Thomas McCarney said that a request was made to increase the number of Village streets upgraded this year but said that the Village "should stick with" the original recommendations.

He said that the cost would be covered by money already "put aside for paving."

Trustee Vice Chairman Doug Lawson reported on the site visit done on Cross Street that was, according to the municipal website, a "response to a request from a resident to establish an all-day, yearround no-parking zone" on both sides of Cross Street between Vine and Union Streets.

Mr. Lawson said that the majority of the residents were present and that "nobody is in favor of changing" the parking regulations.

He said that the residents "like it the way it is."

The board took no action but did say that the matter would be revisited, if the need arose.

The trustees are expected to hold a hearing this month to change parking regulations in the downtown area.

Last month the board was presented with draft proposals that would limit parking to two hours during working hours along the North side of the common, just in front of the shops and would limit parking along East Street to two hours 24 hours a day.

Jill Donahue, from the Northfield Pharmacy, asked the board to consider also restricting parking to two hours for the spaces on the North side that abut the common itself.