A contentious Wareham Fire District annual meeting will continue on April 30 at 7 p.m. in the Wareham High School auditorium. All registered voters living in the district may participate.

The meeting will reconvene three weeks after voters demanded officials return with a better picture of the district’s finances. Questions on pay raises, a comprehensive capital plan and other budget issues went unanswered.

“There’s an intellectual void here,” voter Jeffrey Fournier told officials at the meeting. “You’re not equipped tonight to tell us the answers. I want to give you the opportunity to give us the answers.”

Officials sought approval for a combined budget of $12.3 million for Wareham’s fire and water departments – a 16 percent increase from last year. The district, which provides water and fire service, is governed independently from the town. The Onset Fire District, a separate entity, provides those same services for Onset residents and is also self-governed.

Usually a brief affair with little debate and several dozen registered voters, the annual meeting lasted three and half hours and had more than 115 people in attendance.

Some confusion arose in the beginning of the meeting when voter Theresa Tello requested that paper ballots be used for all of the agenda items. With paper ballots, otherwise known as an Australian ballot, voting would be secret.

Moderator Peter Balzarini said while paper ballots are allowed, they must be requested before each individual agenda item is considered.

Tello didn’t ask again, but many were left wondering what the process is for seeking a paper ballot.

Some towns have specific bylaws outlining the procedure for using paper ballots at Town Meetings. The Wareham Fire District does not, leaving the procedure outlined by Robert’s Rules of Order and Town Meeting Time, a guide used by moderators across the state.

To call a paper ballot, a voter must make the request of the moderator before an individual agenda item. If a majority approves, paper ballots will be handed out. The ballots are then collected and counted, a process that takes longer than the usual show of hands.

Use of paper ballots is rare, said Wareham Town Moderator Claire Smith. A longtime resident and Town Meeting goer, she recalled only a handful of occasions when paper ballots were used at either the district meeting or Town Meeting. Once was in the 1970s when Town Meeting voters considered whether or not to approve a jai alai stadium in town.