North Stonington — The town's transfer station will remain free for resident use despite a proposed fee from the Board of Selectmen.

Last week, the Selectmen voted to add a $10 fee for general usage stickers and a fee by truckload to deposit bulky waste. On Friday, they voted to go back on the decision after hearing feedback from the Board of Finance.

“We didn’t want to complicate the budget process with a new wrinkle,” First Selectman Mike Urgo said.

The town is in the process of approving a budget for the new fiscal year and the proposed fees were expected to bring in an additional $78,500 in revenue.

However, Urgo said conversations around adding a fee will be revisited later, likely at some point this summer.

“The revenue side is a piece of it, but the fact is, our bulky waste pile is filling,” he said. “We need to do the best we can to make it last so that we’re able to have that convenience for our residents.”

During last week’s selectmen meeting, Highway Foreman Don Hill raised concern over the transfer station’s growing bulky waste pile. He said he estimates its life expectancy is no more than 10 to 15 years before it will need to be sealed and closed, a process which could cost the town anywhere from $200,000 to $1 million.

“This is gonna be coming in the future and something’s gotta be done,” Hill said. “We gotta start a stepping point, whether it’s a $5 sticker or $10 sticker, but something has to start to move the ball forward.”

Hill also cited concerns of fraudulent activity by residents of neighboring towns to circumvent paying a fee in their own town. He said residents of neighboring towns have been obtaining permits to use North Stonington’s transfer station by using a town mailing address.

“It’s a small town. We know who lives here, we know who is entitled to be there and we have processes in place that if there’s something like that going on, we generally can sniff it out,” Urgo said of the concerns.

The town has charged for transfer station use in the past. Hill said the annual permit fee was $60 about eight or nine years ago.

“The fact is, (waste is) a problem everywhere — it’s a problem in the state, it’s a problem in the country,” Urgo said. “We’ve gotta be smarter about how we’re treating the waste problem locally.”