"April Fools' is a fool's errand," said Selectman Peter Teitelbaum, in regards to the commencement date of the annual spring town meeting.

Selectman Alan Slavin raised the idea to consider a charter change moving the start of the town meeting from April 1 to sometime in May. All the board members expressed support for this idea.

"When you have the April 1 date, it just doesn't work," Slavin said. "We're setting budgets that we have to correct anyway come the fall town meeting."

The town administrator has to have the budget ready by Dec. 15 but the school committee doesn't have to have their budget ready until Jan. 15.

"We're looking at numbers now, 3.5 weeks after the deadline and we know these numbers are in flux," Teitelbaum said. "Sullivan doesn't have local aid estimates. He doesn't have any number of things he needs to properly format a budget and have a sensible discussion about it. So, I think it's something we should take look at."

Teitelbaum said that the budget numbers from Sullivan and the school committee have to arrive at the same time.

"It's silly to ask for one to come in a month before the other it doesn't make any sense," he said.

Teitelbaum added he doesn't see this process being started in time for the spring Town Meeting, and would likely have to wait until the fall.

He said that moving Town Meeting to May would make the budget numbers more accurate, but they wouldn't be perfect. Other selectmen had different reasons for changing the town meeting date.

"One reason is because a lot of the people who would normally vote in our election sometimes aren't here yet in April because they're in Florida," Selectman Patrick Tropeano said. "This has been something that's been talked about for years and years and it's really overdue."

Topeano said the idea of moving the date has been discussed many times before, including pushing it back to May and holding it on a Saturday.

"The budget in April or May is still going to be partially fictitious," he said. "The only thing this is going to do is help the process."

Selectman Judy Whiteside said she is supportive of a time change but has some reservations. She said, "I don't want people to take that as an excuse for not doing their work."

Slavin agreed, saying, "If you do it back a month you set dates everybody has to comply with, or else we'll be in the same situation saying we have to move it back to June."

A motion to move the spring Town Meeting date at the 2010 fall meeting was defeated.

A discussion on the date change will be on the agenda for the Jan. 21 board meeting.