Chilmark voters opted for smaller government and a quieter town at Monday’s annual town meeting, approving a reduced town budget and stricter new noise bylaws.

The budget cuts, however, amounted to the lightest of prunings — about $6.64 million for fiscal year 2010 compared with 2009’s $6.68 million appropriation — after the meeting rejected proposals for a more serious attack on staff costs.

The major debate of the first half of the night’s meeting was about whether town employees should receive a cost of living adjustment (COLA) to their pay, and if so, how much.

The town personnel board, using consumer price index data from the U.S. Labor Department, calculated town employees had lost 4.6 per cent of their purchasing power due to inflation.

The Chilmark finance advisory committee, however, felt this could not be justified, given the current state of the economy. They recommended a COLA of three per cent, and the budget was printed on the assumption of a three per cent increase.

The selectmen were split on the matter. Two of them, Warren Doty and Frank Fenner, thought the amount should be amended down to two per cent. The third member of the board, J.B. Riggs Parker, wanted to give the employees nothing.

And so the budget debate began with a motion from the fiscal hawks to amend the COLA down to zero, which would reduce the budget by $50,000.

The most forceful advocate of that position was Judy Jardin, who said she could not understand why the town would even consider a COLA pay rise, under the circumstances.

She argued in particular on behalf of seasonal residents who underwrite the town’s services.

“We have no idea . . . what is happening to the summer people, what their jobs and investments are experiencing,” she said.

Mrs. Jardin said the town’s employees were benefitting in other ways — they would receive 3.4 per cent step increase and the town paid 75 per cent of their benefits. They had become used to getting a six or seven per cent increase in their pay year after year.

She cast her argument in patriotic terms.

“We are all being asked to step up to the plate and make this country work,” she said.

Mr. Parker echoed her view that 3.4 per cent was “sufficient extra” and there should be no COLA.

Mr. Doty equally forcefully called for voters to defeat the amendment. Even at three per cent, he said the budget would be smaller than the previous one, as a result of other cost cutting measures.

Debt had been retired, some employees had been replaced with others lower on the salary scale, the hours of some employees had been reduced.

He noted, for the benefit of the retirees in the hall, that their most recent social security COLA was 5.8 per cent.

Mr. Fenner said only about half of the town’s employees would get the step increase Mrs. Jardin referred to.

“Two per cent would give those other hard-working employees . . . a terrific pool of employees who take care of us all year long . . . some sort of increase,” he said.

After an unsuccessful attempt to decide the issue on the voices, a standing vote was taken, and the zero per cent amendment was defeated.

After a little more discussion voters agreed on the amended COLA of two per cent.

The rest of the budget proceeded smoothly. The meeting agreed to another minor savings measure proposed as an amendment by Mrs. Jardin, which made payrolls bi-weekly instead of weekly, thus cutting data processing costs by $2,600.

The meeting then took a brief time out from its consideration of articles to thank a group of people who had served the town for a collective time of more than 160 years: Albert O. (Ozzie) Fischer Jr., animal inspector, selectman and fire chief; the late David Flanders, charter member of the conservation commission and member of the land bank advisory board, the planning board, surveyor of wood, lumber and bark, and fence viewer; Raymond Kellman, of the conservation commission; cemetery superintendant Basil Welch; Jackie Sexton, a library trustee for 18 years, and police chief Timothy Rich, who is retiring after 30 years.

After that, things moved fast. Articles four through 20 passed in about 15 minutes, unanimously and without debate, save for a brief explanation of Article 19.

Article 20, which was to provide a limited property tax exemption for people over age 60 who volunteered or provided services to the town, also required some explanation and brought the logical question of whether such work was really voluntary if it was done for a benefit. It passed with a handful of dissenters.

Then came Article 22, the last remaining issue for discussion, and the momentum stopped and the meeting became bogged down in a long and increasingly arcane discussion.

The article noted that “mechanical devices associated with and accessory to dwellings,” such as air conditioners, heat pumps, pool heaters and pumps and electrical generators were proliferating in town and the noise was becoming a problem.

It proposed a new bylaw: that all such equipment be placed in soundproof enclosures or otherwise screened or insulated, such that noise levels reaching the neighbors did not rise above ten decibels above “ambient sound level” at the property line or the nearest abutting residence.

There were many questions. What about commercial premises? What about moveable equipment? How loud is 10 decibels? Would the law apply retrospectively to equipment already in place? Which property line? What about emergency generators?

One amendment called for the last paragraph of the article to be deleted. It would have made wind turbines exempt from the bylaw provisions “only as regards the sound made by the rotor blades as they pass through the air.”

After considerable discussion, some of it about how one could differentiate the noise of the rotors from other turbine noise, and some about how that paragraph might relate to possible future regulations about wind turbines, the amendment was approved.

Another amendment removed the words “or at the nearest abutting residence.” Instead, the bylaw will refer to the property line “closest to the unit.”

As the discussion went on, it became at times pedantic. Someone wanted the word “residential” inserted before the word “dwellings.” Someone else argued that was tautology, because dwellings were residential.

The discussion went on for about half an hour, and in the end it was put to a standing vote. The count took a long time. The rules required a two-thirds majority.

In the end, the article passed, barely, 52-26.

Perhaps fortunately, voters were spared a debate on the only remaining article — another attempt to amend zoning bylaws, this one to regulate wind turbines.

It ran to some five pages in the warrant, compared with less than half a page for the noise bylaw, and was vastly more complex.

But it was withdrawn for more work, possibly to return at a special town meeting in the fall.

In the annual town election Wednesday voters returned Frank Fenner to another three-year term as selectman with 70 votes; Mr. Fenner had no opponents and there were no other contests on the ballot. Turnout was extremely light; 96 voters turned out to cast ballots out of 838 registered. Elected without contest were:

Leonard Jason Jr., assessor (87); Janet L. Buhrman, board of health (70); Frank LoRusso, John Maloney and Frank S. Yeomans, finance advisory committee (78,85,71); Jane N. Slater, library trustee (86); John Flender, cemetery commissioner (91, top vote-getter); Mitchell Posin, fence viewer (81); Keith L. Emin, tree warden (86); Pamela S. Goff, land bank commission (82).