MARBLEHEAD — The Select Board unanimously approved a preliminary FY27 budget, which cuts 10 positions across various Town departments.

These positions include the director of Community Development and Planning, sustainability coordinator, a grant coordinator, a firefighter, a police officer, two custodians, two Public Works employees, a Council on Aging employee, and a Treasurer’s Clerk.

The Town is currently facing a $7 million deficit, made up of $5 million on the municipal side and $2 million on the school department side.

The Select Board approved a $56,555,688 proposed budget, which will be brought to the May 4 Annual Town Meeting.

Each budget will also be brought to the Finance Committee for review at their scheduled “Super Saturday” budget hearings, a full day of hearings for all departments in the annual budget ahead of the Annual Town Meeting.

Some departments, such as the Community Development and Planning Department, the Fire and Police Departments, the Public Works Department, the Council on Aging, Public Buildings, and the Treasurer’s Office, will have positions defunded or cut from their budgets.

In the Community Development and Planning Department, three positions have been cut from the FY27 proposed budget.

The director of Community Development & Planning position, which was allocated $127,950 in the original FY26 budget, was cut from the proposed budget. This position is currently held by Brendan Callahan.

Additionally, the sustainability coordinator position, held by Logan Casey, was also cut from the budget. This position was allocated $79,445 in the original FY26 budget.

Also, the department’s grant coordinator position, held by Donna Cotterell, was cut. This position was originally allocated $79,064 in FY26.

With these cuts, the department is left with two positions, one of which is currently vacant: town planner. The second position is the role of senior clerk, held by Lisa Lyons.

In response to the cuts, Select Board member Jim Zisson said, “Proposing a two-person department where one of the positions isn’t even filled, and is not going to be filled, is really kind of dangerous. I mean, that just is a formula for disaster.”

The Police Department currently has 31 officers and is losing one position.

Police Chief Dennis King said decreasing the police staff to 30 officers “gets right at the minimum manning discussion that many police departments have.”

King said on almost every shift, there are three officers and a supervisor on duty, which means if there are incidents around town that require the attention of those officers, such as traffic enforcement or community engagement, “we don’t have the ability to generally do that because our officers are in cruisers responding to calls.”

He added this cut will also impact Marblehead’s only school resource officer position held by Sean Sweeney Jr.

“We have to put everything into control operation, which means every officer outside of my detective, one detective, will have to be in control, covering shifts, covering calls… That means our SRO is gone,” King said.

He added the work of this position “isn’t often measurable because he’s the guy that if you don’t see activity, you’re like, ‘Oh, he’s doing a good job,’ and that’s hard to measure, but I can tell you, it’s measurable in that he responds to calls internally within the school; he writes reports, takes out criminal applications; he does mentoring and all of these other things that require the position. And it is literally one of those situations that people do not realize what that would mean to the development of the pretty robust school system and police community relations.”

In another area of public safety, the proposed budget defunds a position at the Fire Department. The position in the department is currently vacant and has been for about a year, said Chief Jason Gilliland.

In the Department of Public Buildings, the Town’s two custodial positions will be cut from the proposed budget.

Building Commissioner Stephen Cummings said the Town currently employs two custodians responsible for cleaning and maintaining public buildings. With the approval, the Town will not have custodians. This does not affect the school department, which has its own custodians.