The Board of Finance (BOF) unanimously approved a request from the Board of Selectmen (BOS) to repay the $485,000 benefit assessment for the high school sewer line out of the general fund. The appropriation will still have to be approved by Brookfield residents, with a town meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. on January 31 at Brookfield High School (BHS).

Members of the BOF debated briefly whether it would be better to fund the payment out of the general fund or borrow the funds and bond it out over several years.

“I look at [the fund balance] as more of an emergency thing,” board Secretary Phil Kurtz said, suggesting the board consider a long-term bond.

“You could go either way,” said Selectman Howard Lasser, who was filling in for First Selectman Bill Davidson as the BOF’s ex-officio member. “I don’t really have a strong opinion how we should do it one way or another,” he said, though in reference to a question about the fund balance, Lasser pointed out that the town expects to receive a payment of about $600,000 in February. (The funds are an insurance reimbursement from a settlement related to the 2000 death of Teresa Kondrat.)

“The fund balance is above what we need it to be,” BOF member Ron Jaffe said, referring to the board’s policy of maintaining at least 7.5 percent of the annual budget in the reserve fund balance.

(Fiscal year 2011-12 is on track to close with a 7.9 percent fund balance, according to Town Controller Jay Wahlberg.)

“If you really believed we need to be at 9 [percent], you would take that position,” BOF Vice Chairman Irv Agard said of bonding, however, “I would prefer not to bond,” he said, “It puts a long-term obligation on the town and we have to pay the interest.”