HOWLAND – Residents won’t be gathering tonight at the Town Hall because officials have scrapped this year’s annual town meeting.

Instead, the fate of a $510,889 municipal budget proposal will be decided during a daylong referendum. The polls will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today.

Voters can expect a five-page ballot that contains 42 questions, which typically are considered at the annual meeting.

Last fall, three of the town’s five selectmen decided to scrap this year’s annual town meeting and replaced it with the daylong referendum. Supporters say special interest groups are “controlling” the annual meeting, but others disagree.

Selectman Leeman King proposed the change last fall. A nonbinding advisory question placed on the November 2002 ballot won voter approval by 2-to-1.

King said members of the Fire Department were controlling the outcome at the annual meetings by bringing out their relatives and friends. He said more people would participate in the daylong vote. He said many didn’t like to go out at night. “It is the fairest way to do this,” said King. “We will get more of a true vote of the town.”

Joe Dunn, chairman of the board, agreed. He said a lot of people didn’t want to go to the meeting because they were ridiculed. He said that was not in the best interests of the town, but for employees.

Town Manager Glenna Armour, who took no position on the voting change, said special interests could control a meeting, but people on both sides of an issue could bring people to support their respective causes. “That is called politics,” she said.

King and Dunn expressed concern about a 9 percent increase in the cost of providing employees with town-paid health insurance.

Armour said her proposal was that employees receive no pay increase and the town would continue paying 100 percent of employee health care. At the Feb. 5 budget hearing, residents voted to adjust the budget to include funding for a 3 percent employee pay increase and for the health insurance benefit.

The budget proposal of $510,889 represents a decrease of $6,767 compared with last year. Proposed to be raised from local taxes is $298,489, an increase of $1,639.

Armour said the municipal budget would not affect the town’s tax rate. But increases in the school and county assessments would affect the tax rate.

If voters turn down all 42 budget questions, officials said, the town operations would be shut down until new budgets were adopted.

If voters approve question No. 1, which allows the town to operate through the end of this month, and turn down any or all department budgets, the town will continue operating, officials said. A new budget proposal would then be considered.

Residents will elect three selectmen for two-year terms. Candidates are incumbent Michael O. Harris, John H. Herlihy, Frederick W. Ireland, incumbent Leeman King and incumbent Richard C. Merrill.