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Town Manager Christopher Senior is in the process of putting together goals and new procedures for his office and Town Hall, which may result in the establishment of a budget manager position.
“We don’t measure as many things as I thought we did and things are more siloed than I expected,” he told the Select Board during its Oct. 5 meeting. “We have data, but I’ve found gaps. The time it will take to fix it is not something I can do alone.”
For example, Senior said knowing when employees take days off, but not knowing what days of the week those days are hinders measuring efficiency.
“It’s important to measure things that reflect our goals and part of that is planning towards goals,” he said. “I’d like to see measurements for departments responsible for things and show what we’re doing for the community. I’d like to have data that matters and will tell residents what we’re doing.”
As for budget management,” he added, “To do this the right way, it’ll require someone living this in a way I can’t.”
During the board’s discussion, Chair Anthea Brady mentioned the possibility of creating an internal Request for Proposal (RFP) to help define the position and its long and short term goals.
“We need to think about what it would look like and what the requirements are,” she said, of a budget manager position.
Brady also said “long term deliverables” would be having a platform or dashboard to disseminate information, having regular meetings with members of the state Legislature representing the town and instating multi-year budget planning.
Member Michelle Prior said she’d like to see something in writing, including a job description of a budget manager.
“I’d like to see a draft,” she said.
“So do I,” Vice Chair William McGonigle agreed, adding he felt the discussion was giving some good direction “without getting too much into the weeds.”
Senior said he would concentrate more on the matter after the fall Town Meeting in November.
“To do the job I want to do I have to have more information,” he added.
Making an appointment
In another item related to town finances, the Select Board approved the appointment of Fran Li to the Audit Advisory Board until August 2028.
In a short interview at the meeting, Li said she has been a financial analyst for the past 15 years in the information technology industry and higher education, including work at the University of California at San Francisco and currently at the Mass General Bright University for Health Professionals, including supporting audit teams.
She said she wants to “use my financial expertise to use for the good of the community.”
Li also said she would look at town financial papers from 2025 to familiarize herself with things. She said she feels she can familiarize herself with the concepts easily given her background in the field.
“It’s a lot of the same concepts, just arranged differently,” Prior told her.
The Select Board also outlined some general items for a tri-board meeting of themselves, the School Committee and Finance Committee or Long Range Financial Planning Committee for Tuesday, Oct. 13, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at the Lynch Elementary School.
Brady said the idea is “to get everyone on the same page” planning for the fiscal year 2028 budget, including updates from the School Department.
McGonigle added a tri-board meeting “looks like a good kick-off” in preparing the next budget.
Neil Zolot has been a freelance journalist more than 40 years. He has worked for newspapers on the North Shore and in the Boston area.
