Town budget, school items to take center stage

DRACUT » With the warrant for Monday night’s Town Meeting now shorn of 16 zoning articles, voters will be asked to approve a $96.3 million town budget, which includes nearly $38.2 million for the School Department and $5 million for the Greater Lowell Technical High School.

Among the articles remaining are two of importance to the town’s schools.

One of those articles asks voters to spend $1 million on a feasibility study of a building project at the

Campbell School.

The feasibility study is one step in the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s process in awarding grants to assist the town in paying for either a new school or an addition to the existing building. The MSBA uses a tightly scripted process before it determines whether a school project will receive grants for its construction.

Voters will also be asked to approve spending $2.35 million to install three solar photovoltaic systems utilizing the rooftops of Dracut High, Brookside Elementary

and Englesby Elementary schools. Most of the funds would come from borrowing $1.8 million. The rest would come from free cash and unexpended funds from previous projects.

At a tri-board meeting in March, Superintendent of Schools Steven Stone asked consultants from Solarkal to describe the plan to members of the Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee.

Dracut would generate up to $400,000 a year from the solar installation, allowing the town to break even on its investment in a few years.

Other articles on the warrant involve funding for enterprise and stabilization funds, including a new one for Greater Lowell Technical High School, funding for the Community Preservation Commission, and a long list of street acceptances.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at Dracut High School. A quorum of 250 voters is required for the spring Town Meeting. If there is not a quorum, the meeting will be rescheduled at a cost of thousands of dollars to taxpayers.