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The Winchester Select Board on Feb. 23 began drafting performance goals for Town Manager Chris Senior, coalescing around three themes — board support, staff leadership and financial management — as it works to meet a deadline to set goals by early March.
The discussion followed a homework assignment the board gave itself at its Feb. 9 meeting, when Select Board member Anthea Brady noted that Senior’s contract calls for a performance review by September, subject to goals developed by the board by the end of February.
Brady asked members to review the town manager evaluation grid — a roughly 45-category framework spanning seven domains, including board support, staff leadership, planning, communications, problem solving, financial management and personnel — and submit their priority areas to the clerk ahead of the Feb. 23 session.
At that Feb. 9 meeting, member Paras Bhayani had previewed the same three themes that emerged two weeks later, recommending the board focus on domains A (board support), B (staff leadership) and F (financial management).
Member Bill McGonigle cautioned against overloading Senior with project-based goals while he was still new to the role and navigating uncertainty around a pending override vote.
“Because Chris is new, he’s coming in at a point where he’s living in the dual reality of an override passing or an override failing,” McGonigle said on Feb. 9. “I wouldn’t want to get too deep into anything, because I want most of his time focused on successfully transitioning into the new role.”
On Feb. 23, Brady went first, outlining four goal areas: effective communication with board members individually and as a group, filling open positions within an appropriate timeframe, budgeting effectively based on the override outcome and demonstrating understanding of the town’s bylaws and charter while providing creative solutions to challenges.
Bhayani said his priorities tracked closely with Brady’s and organized them into three categories. On staffing, he said he wanted to see Senior establishing accountability metrics with department heads, creating collaboration among departments and “fostering collegiality — that whole set of really leading town hall.
On financial management, he pointed to the fiscal year 2027 budget as the clearest near-term benchmark and said Senior should continue driving cost and revenue initiatives from the State of the Town process.
McGonigle and member Michael Bettencourt said the discussion had covered their priorities and did not add new goals. Bettencourt noted the board needed to finalize its own goals before aligning them with the town manager’s.
“The hardest thing for a town manager is that we’re always just chasing random stuff,” he had said on Feb. 9. “It’s a little bit unfair if we’re putting the success of something that just pops off on him, if it’s not in his goals and objectives.”
Chair Michelle Prior proposed an additional longer-term objective: that Senior develop a vision for municipal operations by aggregating input from department heads. She acknowledged it might not be achievable within six months but said the town had never conducted a five-year visioning session.
“It would be nice if the manager really work on creating a vision for the municipal operations, municipal functioning,” Prior said. “Where do we wish to be? What do we need? What might things look like?”
Bhayani supported including the goal immediately, even if it would not be fully evaluable in the fall.
Brady suggested framing it as an interim step, such as identifying a process and establishing a timeline.
Senior told the board the goals were fair and consistent with priorities from recent meetings.
“The points you made are critical to the job — dealing with the board, dealing with staff, and managing the budget,” he said, adding he had already begun preliminary conversations with board members and would refine his thinking as he assessed staff and resources.
Prior directed the clerk to compile the goals and place them in the March 2 meeting packet for Senior’s review. She told the town manager to come prepared with feedback and to flag anything that needs more realistic language.
“We can know what we think we mean,” Prior said. “It’s more important that you understand what we mean.”
No vote was taken. The board plans to adopt a final set of roughly half a dozen goals on March 2.
Will Dowd is a Massachusetts journalist who covers municipal government and community life for Winchester News. He runs The Marblehead Independent, a reader-funded digital newsroom.
