Service cuts, multiyear override proposed
Town manager to form working group for long-term planning
DRACUT >> Town Manager Ann Vandal this past week told the Board of Selectmen she plans to form a working group of elected and appointed officials to develop long-term plans, ensuring the town’s financial stability as it grapples with several years of budget deficits.
One possibility — and it would need voter approval — is a multiyear override of Proposition 2½ totaling $10 million over four years. But the override question will not be put before the upcoming annual Town Meeting.
In her report to the selectmen, she gave a detailed look at what the impact of the fiscal 2025 budget will be. The town’s budget for the next year will need to cover a $3.6 million deficit by using $2.5 million available in free cash and $1.5 million in cuts. The cuts will be shared equally between the town and the school department.
In addition to the town manager, the working group would consist of two selectmen, two School Committee members, two Finance Committee members, Assistant Town Manager Victor Garofalo, and Dracut Public Schools Superintendent Steven Stone and Director of Finance and Operations Stefanie Fields.
Town residents are likely to see the first effects of fiscal 2025 budget cuts this summer at two municipal parks: Veterans Memorial Park on Broadway Road and Dillon-mcanespie Park on Lakeview Avenue.
The bathrooms at both parks were a frequent target of vandalism last summer. The high cost of repairs make continued use of these facilities unsustainable, Vandal said. As a result, they will be closed and porta-potties will be available instead.
Additionally, there will be no splashing on hot summer days at the Veterans Park splash pad.
“We will also be refraining from turning on the spray park, we do not have the resources,” she said.
Spelling out other areas of cuts in the upcoming fiscal year, which starts July 1, Vandal said, the town will need patience as the Department of Public Works will be down by at least one crew, “limiting our ability to get things done in a timely manner.”
Examples of other effects include ceasing streetlight installations, reducing legal costs, not filling absences in the Fire Department, closing offices when staff is not available, and limiting building and equipment repairs.
The list she gave selectmen may not be the end of budget difficulties in fiscal 2025.
“Without some sort of revenue boost, the cuts will continue and will be more impactful than the (fiscal 2025) budget cuts as noted previously,” she said.
Vandal said, “When we were making the first
round of cuts it was difficult to refrain from making some difficult decisions because the budgets are so tight to begin with. For fiscal 2024 the town’s budget represented 80% in personnel cost and the other 20% was for operations of the departments. There was no real room to move without impacting town services. Of these expenditures, public safety makes up 54% of the
town manager’s budget.”
Without an override, budget cuts in fiscal 2026 and 2027 could include eliminating 18 full-time positions and some parttime positions, building improvements, as well as police and fire cuts, all overtime, reduced bus services and programs at the Council on Aging, and stormwater management cuts.
Explaining how a multiyear override would work, Vandal said “a separate question must be placed on the ballot for each fiscal year in which the additional
levy capacity being requested will be used. The amounts and purposes in the question may be the same or different.”
Each year an override would require approval from Town Meeting and then by ballot in a local election.
At the end of four years, the term of the override Vandal has mentioned, the tax levy would have increased by $10 million, growing with each year’s override, and any new growth in the tax base. In Dracut average new growth is about $450,000.