NEW SCOTLAND — A 30-year-old error could cost the town more than $10,000.

In a decision issued by Supreme Court justice Richard Platkin on Aug. 25, the town has been ordered to pay the state the amount it neglected to pay towards the retirement system for seven months between 1972 and 1973, plus interest.

Peter Barber, a Guilderland lawyer who is representing New Scotland, filed a notice of appeal last week, arguing that the six-year statute of limitations is meant to require people to keep records for a reasonable amount of time.

“We think we probably paid it, but we don’t have the paperwork,” he said.

New Scotland Supervisor Thomas Dolin said this week that the town hadn’t yet decided if it would pursue the appeal.

The New York State comptroller’s office discovered the lapse in payments when Walter Myers applied for retirement in 2006, according to the decision from the Supreme Court, the bottom rung in New York’s three-tiered system.

— Saranac Hale Spencer