Lowell City work session pauses budget debate, votes to move into executive session on city manager vacancy

The Lowell City work session on the budget paused public deliberations after council members said the city manager had left abruptly, and members voted to move into an executive session to discuss hiring an interim city manager and other personnel matters.

Council members told the meeting they were juggling several different budget drafts with differing assumptions and numbers and said they lacked the city manager’s explanation to reconcile those versions. Scott, identified by the chair as the mayor pro tem, and other members said some drafts differed on salary lines and that one late draft included an administrative-salary reduction of about $114,000 compared with last year.

The need for an acting manager grew central to the discussion. The chair said the top priority was "to secure an acting city manager to where we could move forward" and urged tabling detailed budget adoption until an interim manager could help finalize figures and coordinate with the finance office. Council members repeatedly requested up-to-date valuation numbers from the tax office (mentioned by name as Chelsea) and financial reports from the finance officer, identified in the discussion as Lisa, saying those figures were essential for setting the tax rate.

A staff member advising the meeting cited the Local Government Fiscal Control Act and told the council that the budget must be submitted to the clerk by June 30 and that, in practice, municipalities commonly present drafts earlier and set a public hearing in May. The staff member noted the statute typically designates the city manager as the budget officer, which the council tied to the need for interim leadership while the manager position is vacant.

After discussion, Committee member (S5) moved "that we close the budget meeting right now and then go into executive session for the purposes of discussing city manager or personnel business." The motion was seconded by the chair and approved by voice vote; no roll-call tally was recorded on the public record. The chair then dismissed the public session so the body could hold the executive-session personnel discussion.

The council did not take formal action on the budget itself during the public meeting. Members said they expect to reconvene public budget work after an interim manager is secured and the finance officer and tax office provide the requested valuation and salary detail. The public portion of the meeting ended with a voice vote to enter executive session.