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Three weeks after approving Town Manager Christopher Senior’s contract through 2027, the Winchester Select Board on Sept 14 began finalizing the goals he will be measured against, and started the same work for Comptroller Stacie Ward, the only other employee who reports directly to it.
No goals were adopted. Chair Anthea Brady said she would work with Senior to pull the board’s comments into a “more formalized list” and bring it back at the Sept. 28 meeting. She said she would sit down separately with Ward.
The two situations are not the same. Senior’s employment agreement ties a second year to a performance evaluation, and the board spent much of August arguing over whether it also needed a new set of goals in hand before voting on his renewal.
Ward told members last week that apart from a 360-degree review after her first year, nothing formal has ever been set for her job.
Goals discussed for Senior
Brady walked through the themes that came out of Senior’s August evaluation: strengthening leadership around fiscal planning and long-term planning; running more focused Select Board meetings; organizational efficiency, building departmental teams and fostering relationships; and building the management dashboard Senior has described.
Michelle Prior pressed two of them. The dashboard, she said, has been on the manager’s goal list since the winter.
“I think that needs to get more than just a draft, but actually done,” Prior said. “I think that would be good and something that we can all see and point to.”
Her second item was written recommendations from staff.
“A little more written and a little less verbal, so that we can then go back and refer to what was the update, what did happen, when did we get those details,” she said.
Prior said she would not rewrite the goals themselves.
“I don’t know that I would change the goals broadly,” she said. “I think they’re directionally right.”
Vice Chair William McGonigle said he had nothing to add, having submitted his comments with the evaluation.
Senior said he would send back additions and was working on a longer horizon than he was in the winter.
“I will include a few things, and I’m looking further out than we were initially,” he said.
Michael Bettencourt, whose connection kept dropping, was absent for the discussion.
Expectations for Ward
Ward’s work is set largely by statute, she told the board, with “all these timelines, these deadlines, and reporting requirements just based on the job description.”
Her contract, Brady said, describes the role more than it sets goals.
What has existed instead is an informal sit-down with the chair covering accomplishments and challenges, Ward said.
“I don’t know if there’s anything else that the Select Board wants to put together as like a goal list for me,” she said. “If there’s been anything that's been lacking, I’m certainly open to getting that criticism, critique constructively.”
She listed work already underway: an updated financial policies and procedures manual shared with other departments, end-of-year report allocations being cleaned up with the School Department for state review and a template for transfer station indirect costs.
Prior asked her to tie those to something larger, including the town’s long-range financial model, which Prior said should be shared between Ward and Senior, and work with the treasurer on investment income and debt structure.
“So that’s not a goal. That’s an outcome,” Prior said. “But maybe there’s a goal in there somewhere.”
McGonigle asked for one thing: the plain-language summaries Ward gives out loud, delivered in the packet in advance.
“It’s hard to suggest a review when it seems like they’re already doing everything right,” he said.
The August renewal
Senior started Jan. 14 under an agreement signed Jan. 9 that conditioned a second year on an evaluation completed by Sept. 30. He cleared it.
On Aug. 10, McGonigle’s motion to renew died for lack of a second after Prior said she wanted Senior’s goals, his self-assessment and a proposed set of new goals in one packet first.
McGonigle said the contract turned on the evaluation, not on future expectations.
The board renewed him 4-0 on Aug. 24, through Dec. 31, 2027. His salary rises to $235,750, an increase of $5,750, or 2.5%, on the $230,000 he earns this year.
The goals at issue were adopted March 2 and updated July 10, built in February around three areas: board support, staff leadership and financial management.
Brady said Aug. 24 that she wanted quarterly check-ins with Senior in October, January and April, and that Ward needed a formal evaluation process before the end of the calendar year. Neither came up on Sept. 14.
The board meets again Sept. 28.
Will Dowd is a Massachusetts journalist who covers municipal government and community life for Winchester News. He is also the founder and editor of The Marblehead Independent, a reader-funded digital newsroom.
