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Town of Princeton, Mass., Selectboard Meeting Minutes
– January 14, 2019 – 10:00 AM – Town Hall Annex
Present: Chair Richard Bisk, Karen Cruise, Edith Morgan w/ TA Nina Nazarian.
10:05 AM Richy opened the meeting.
FY20 Draft Budget Submissions by Town Administrator, Discuss/provide input – As part of the FY’20 budget planning process, Nina asked the Selectboard members to consider supporting a request for additional staff resources. Nina described the resource needs of specific departments, especially the Facilities and Town Administrator Departments, noting that Highway and Town Clerk’s Departments could use more administrative support. She said she did not include the Council on Aging on the list of resource needs, given that the current budget has resources allocated for an additional part time employee and it would be beneficial to move into the new space and hire the new employee before further resources are discussed.
Nina outlined four options that could address one or more of the departments needs:
- Reduced Full Time (maybe 20-30 hours per week, depending upon building projects) Buildings Superintendent to assist with contracting more buildings work and to coordinate the overall work of the department as well as prioritizing items that require immediate action and deferring matters that must be pushed off;
- Full time Executive Assistant to assist with a large part of the administrative work of the Town Administrator away and helping with the Highway Department and Town Clerk administrative work;
- Full time Special Projects Manager to take on or assist with any and all projects as appropriate (buildings, road/culvert/bridge, Human Resources projects, IT projects, etc.), or
- Full time Assistant Town Administrator to assist with some administrative duties and take on higher levels of responsibility freeing up the Town Administrator to work on higher level matters such as organizational effectiveness, seeking and coordinating additional grant applications, longer term goal/strategy planning, creating comprehensive policies/procedures, etc.
There was considerable discussion around the need to demonstrate why additional staff time was needed. Karen asked if there were examples of failures that could be pointed out. Nina explained that there are some here and there, but nothing major, given that staff are well versed at handling multiple priorities and try hard not to let things fail. The real issues are not able to be seen regularly such as limited coordination/communications between regulatory departments during permitting, inefficient systems, lack of procedures/policies, etc.
The group consensus was that a special projects manager might be the most effective approach and agreed that documentation should be generated that describes the need for that position. and what that person’s specific work would entail. Then the SB will consider if a proposal will be made for additional staff time for the Fiscal Year 2020 budget.
Meeting Adjourned 11:14 AM
Respectfully submitted, Nina Nazarian, Town Administrator
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