Renovation options will be explored for the aging, undersized Onset Fire Department, a proposal voters OK'd at the Onset Fire District’s annual meeting Monday night.

With few questions and no debates, the meeting’s 44 voters breezed through the 30 items on the agenda in one hour.

Before voting, residents heard a presentation from Bill Lockwood, chair of the Onset Fire District Firehouse Building Committee. Formed last May, the committee has worked to raise awareness for the importance of a new station.

Lockwood outlined why a new station is needed, and he provided a timeline for when the committee hopes to have one built.

“It’s going to be a long process,” Lockwood said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s something we have to start planning for.”

Prudential Committee Chair Charles Klueber echoed the sentiment.

“We fully support this project,” said Klueber.

According to Lockwood, the study launches a process that the committee hopes will end with a new station opening in 2019, either at the building’s current East Central Avenue address or on a new, larger plot.

Voters also OK’d a $150,000 transfer from free cash to the Fire Station Fund, a $772,650 request for the Fire Department’s payroll, $35,000 for a thermal imager and a new gear washer and a total of $92,000 for a 2016 John Deere backhoe.

The backhoe replaces a 1978 model that netted the department $7,000 after it was traded.

Salary increases for the department’s three engineers were approved. The department’s chief engineer received a 2.9 percent raise and a salary of $81,744. Assistant engineers received a 2.9 percent and 2.3 percent increase, that equated to salaries of $79,737 and $78,798, respectively.

All the agenda items passed unanimously, save for one – article 25, a $3,000 appropriation for the Board of Water Commissioners’ salaries. One person voiced “no” when asked to approve the item, which pays each commissioner $1,000 per year for their service.

In response to a voter question, Clerk-Treasurer Mary McCoy said the appropriations will raise the tax rate by an estimated 5 or 6 cents. She said the current rate is $2.73 per every $1,000 of a property’s value.