GUILDERLAND — It cost the town $24,850 to tear down a small family home destroyed by fire at 7 Ayre Drive, said Supervisor Peter Barber at last Thursday’s town board meeting, during which the board unanimously approved the town’s final $33 million 2017 budget.

Barber mentioned the Ayre Drive home, he told The Enterprise later, in order to let board members know that the budget included a tax lien against the property.

The 1,100-square-foot Cape Cod-style house had burned in January, leaving several family members hospitalized with smoke inhalation, one in critical condition for months; all survived. Living in the home at the time of the fire were the deceased homeowner’s adult children, Daniel Morrissey and Christine Sawyer, and their children and grandchildren.

After trying for months to reach family members, to find out if the home had been insured or in foreclosure, and to discuss the family’s plans for the property, Acting Chief Building Inspector Jacqueline Coons eventually asked the town board to sign off on taking steps to address safety issues by razing the structure.

It stood very close to the adjoining building, and those neighbors feared the structure’s collapse, Barber told The Enterprise earlier; town officials also saw the burned shell as an “attractive nuisance” that children might wander into and be injured.

The approximately $24,500, Barber said, will be “liened against the property,” and, if unpaid for a certain amount of time, treated like an unpaid tax and reimbursed by Albany County.

The family did not return a call asking for comment.

Budget approved

The board unanimously approved next year’s budget after no comments were made at the public hearing. The tax rate will be steady at just over 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.

Barber noted a few highlights from the budget, including provision to hire a new police officer and a new dispatcher, as well as $10,000 for  new police equipment such as body armor or other equipment, not yet purchased, that the force might need in an active-shooter situation.

Barber said that the town will be starting its McKownville draining project, to reduce flooding on Western Avenue during rainstorms; it is currently waiting for the state’s Dormitory Authority to approve the release of grant money that the town has received.

Barber also noted that the front part of the “chalet” within Tawasentha Park, a structure that is a building in back and pavilion in front, has been “totally rebuilt.”

Other business

In other business, the board voted unanimously to:

— Award a construction contract for the extension of the water line from Route 158 to County Line Road in the amount of $578,337 to Pollard Excavating Company as recommended by the by the town comptroller. Ken Johnson of Delaware Engineering told the board that there had been a total of nine bids, and that the highest bid was more than twice Pollard’s.

Johnson said that Pollard has done jobs of this scale before and that Delaware Engineering contacted five or six of Pollard’s client references and received excellent assessments of the company’s work. Much of the cost differential comes from different companies’ assessment of the appropriate cost for the work of installing ductile iron piping, Johnson said; and

— Unanimously approved the warrant for the Guilderland water district as recommended by the receiver of taxes. Barber noted that an overcharge had been found and corrected: One space in Star Plaza, at Western Avenue and Route 155, had previously been assessed as a commercial dry cleaner, but had later been found to be empty.