Boscawen residents will consider a $4.9 million operating budget at their town meeting this year, an increase of roughly $54,000, or 1.1%.

Relatively small increases spread across departments, many related to rising wages or insurance costs, make up the increase. Capital reserve fund allocations totaling $585,000 are also up for approval this year. Last year, residents faced a 6% operating budget jump of more than $280,000.

Boscawen will decide whether to adopt community power – a system where towns and cities can buy power as a unit on the open market, rather than through a utility company, providing more choice on renewables and, in theory, saving on rates – through the Community Power Coalition. The town would join dozens of its peers – including Canterbury, Loudon, Pembroke, Webster, Warner and Wilmot – in changing over to this system, authorized by the state in 2021.

Voters previously approved the sale of Boscawen’s former library, a 1913 building on the National Register of Historic Places, contingent on a plan for the sale gaining their seal of approval this year. That plan is still in the works, according to Town Administrator Katie Phelps, and so, though it is listed on the warrant, it appears as “pending.”

How much of a tax increase Boscawen residents will see also depends on the budget for the Merrimack Valley School District – currently proposed to increase by almost 6%.