WALLINGFORD - The town is readying its ballots for November's municipal elections, but the issue of whether a referendum to revise the Town Charter, which will appear on the opposite side of the ballot, is really all that much of an added cost still appears to fall pretty much among party lines.

Town Clerk Barbara Kapi, a Democrat, said printing the seven proposed charter revisions on the opposite side of the ballot will result in an increase of about 9 cents a ballot. Nine cents multiplied by 17,250, the number of absentee and regular ballots Kapi plans to order from Adkins Printing, the New Britain printing company that supplies the town with its ballots, amounts to an increase of $1,552.50.

Kapi said her office expects to spend about $9,000 on ballots this year, but typically budgets about $13,500 for that expense to cover costs for any potential primaries before an election, so the added expense for the referen-dum questions will be borne by the unused primary funds this year.

"We always have to budget for a possible primary, so you always budget for an election and a half," Kapi said.