PLAINVILLE - Budget cuts will likely mean overworked personnel, as well as slashed services in many town departments.

In light of the town's $1.2 million budget deficit, the senior center, for example, will lose its outreach worker, Sherry Norman, under the proposed budget for the coming fiscal year.

With a $650,000 override of the state's Proposition 2 1/2 tax-limiting law, which town meeting voters will be asked to approve tonight, Norman's position would drop from 37 1/2 hours per week to 30, but would remain intact.

Council on Aging Executive Director Sue Hinski said Norman is responsible for going into the homes of frail seniors who are not able to get to the senior center and helping them with a variety of tasks, from getting health insurance and filling out forms for economic stimulus payments to dealing with bills and eviction notices.

"She does a lot; she helps me run this place," Hinski said. "This is one of the most active places in town." The senior center is currently open Mondays through Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., except holidays.

Hinski said that if Norman's position is lost, she won't eliminate outreach services, although they will be more difficult to deliver considering that Hinski runs the center by herself, with the help of volunteers. The center's only other employee is the bus driver.

"There's just going to be a lot less time, because I can't do it all," Hinski said.

Although volunteers can assist at the senior center itself, they cannot help with outreach work because the position requires specialized training.

"It's not like a volunteer can come in and do that (work)," Hinski said.

At town hall, the situation would be no better. In addition to losing the town planner, Plainville would lose secretaries in the assessors' office, treasurer-collector's office, selectmen's office and town clerk's office, thereby increasing the workload for the remaining seven employees at town hall.

Treasurer-Collector Kathleen Parker said the work will get done, but it will likely mean many 12-hour days and more difficulty working vacations, sick days and bereavement time into the mix.

"If one person goes down when you have a skeleton crew, what will happen then?" Parker said.

"Every single office is going to be under the gun all the time," she said. "There's not going to be a single person who isn't going to be pushed to the limit all the time. We are literally stripped to the bone at this point."

With an override, the four secretarial positions would be restored and the planner position would become part-time. The park department is also taking a hefty cut - 50 percent - in order to balance the budget, meaning that the park will either deliver half its current level of service throughout the year, or will close for six months. With an override, virtually all of the cuts would be restored.

"It's going to be devastating to everyone in town," said Parks Director Maureen Dunfey at last week's selectmen's meeting. "I just would have liked to see a little more equity in the way the cuts were made. I'm one of the smaller budgets, and I was cut 50 percent."

Town Administrator Joseph Fernandes has repeatedly said that making the cuts has been both difficult and unfair to most departments.

He acknowledged that cutting $128,000 out of the $400,000 "quality-of-life" budgets represented by the senior center, library and park department was necessary to balance the budget, but hardly reasonable, considering those departments are operating off of bare necessities only.

"They don't have $128,000 of fluff," Fernandes said. "It's not like they're sending a lucky winner to Paris for the weekend."

Annual town meeting will be held at 7:30 tonight at the Wood School.

Residents will vote on two budgets - one with a $650,000 override factored in and one without. They also will vote on how the override money would be appropriated in the event an override passes. An override election is scheduled for June 16.