Eye Of The Storm | Economic turmoil has turned up the heat on the already tough job of town administrator
Photo/Edd Cote
FULL SCHEDULE: A town or city manager's day starts early and ends late. Pictured above is Shrewsbury Town Administrator Daniel Morgado during a recent busy morning of meetings and phone calls. Morgado is only the third town manager Shrewsbury has had since 1953.
On the cold and snowy morning of the U.S. Senate special election in mid-January, Shrewsbury Town Administrator Daniel Morgado got a call from the fire chief.
Residents were complaining that the satellite fire station, which was being used as a polling location, was too cold. They wanted the polling station moved or the fire house to be closed. Morgado couldn’t logistically do either.
Morgado had just finished a budget meeting discussing contingency plans in case the state cuts local aid to cities and towns again this year. He was fresh off a decision to outsource a handful of jobs in town to contracted workers to save on personnel costs.
And the voters at the fire station were cold.
“There’s no little issue in this business,” Morgado said with a smile. “Every issue I deal with is important to someone.”
Such is the life of a town’s chief executive.
As a paid official at the center of high-pressure politics, the job of a town administrator may be the toughest in Central Massachusetts. But the men and women who fill that role locally say they wouldn’t have it any other way, even in an economic climate that has battered local budgets.
During the economic downturn many communities have seen an increased need for services and stagnant revenues to pay for them. Utility costs, pension mandates and health insurance have all gone up for many communities. Meanwhile, revenue increases haven’t kept pace.
Money Matters
And all that pressure lands squarely on the desk of the town manager or town administrator.
“Without a doubt the biggest challenge we have is the same as in the private sector: the economy,” said Westborough Town Manager James Malloy.
The state and federal governments are frequently placing new unfunded mandates on communities. For example, each year the state dictates how much money a community must spend on education, but only a portion of that is paid for by the state.
While education is often a local flashpoint, infrastructure needs are a less glamorous, but just as confounding problem in many communities. For example, the state has asked Westborough to study the town’s storm water management system and a new mandate to make millions of dollars in repairs could come at any time.
So, what’s a town manager to do? In Westborough’s case, Malloy is looking for innovative solutions to close an estimated $1 million budget deficit for next fiscal year, which begins in July.
But unlike in a private company, unilateral change can’t just come down from on-high. In the case of Westborough, Malloy is targeting health insurance as a place for potential cost-savings. But to make any changes to public employees’ plans, the town must negotiate concessions with unions.
While a town or city manager can’t operate unilaterally, there’s plenty that the municipal and for-profit worlds have in common. That’s because the qualities that make a good public sector leader are the same that make any good leader, said James Kane, a Shrewsbury selectman.
Kane is familiar with both sides. He’s a senior vice president at A.D. Makepeace Co. in Wareham, the largest cranberry grower in the region, and is a former city councilor from Marlborough.
“It’s all about culture and professionalism, for anybody,” Kane said. “It requires a focus and a drive for anyone to do their job well, that’s what Dan (Morgado) has and that’s what is needed in the public or private sector.”
Building Consensus
While the current economic situation for many towns is extremely difficult, the budget pressures can lead to efficiencies and change, said Morgado, the Shrewsbury administrator.
“There’s always good opportunity, even in difficult times,” he said. “The key is getting people to work outside of their comfort zones.”
Of course, getting people to agree, especially when town politics are involved, is easier said than done.
Morgado had a minor victory recently when he was able to convince the Shrewsbury Board of Selectmen to approve a measure that would allow at least two jobs in town to be contracted out. The immediate savings are small, but using contracted services will provide a long-term savings in pension and health insurance. Morgado saw the opportunity to institute the private contractors when two town workers retired. Instead of hiring new town workers, the jobs were outsourced.
That need to bring about change through building consensus is a common theme for many local town executives. In fact, Littleton Town Manager Keith Bergman says that his job is a lot about bringing people together.
While the board of selectmen, the planning board, the zoning board of appeals, the conservation commission and the finance committee all may have the same goal — in Littelton’s case economic development — they don’t all necessarily have the same priorities.
“It takes a lot of time and energy working with all of these boards and getting everyone working on a unified front,” Bergman said.
Creating that unified front can be helped by consistency in personnel, according to Morgado. Shrewsbury has had extremely low turnover in the 12 years he’s been on the job. In fact, Morgado, who also teaches public policy at Clark University, is only the third town manager Shrewsbury has had since 1953. But no matter how long a town manager has been on the job, his or her position is often precarious.
The Business Of Equity
John Petrin, town manager in Ashland, said he hears the phrase, “I pay your salary,” often enough to remind him that it’s the taxpayer that’s really in charge.
He said in some ways his job is to give all the residents of the community the same product, which is municipal services.
“It’s a constraint, but it gives you guidelines, rules to play by,” he said.
Morgado said customer satisfaction is an essential piece of running a community.
“My goal is to make sure that everyone feels that each interaction they have with the town is a good one,” he said. “The quality of our product is customer satisfaction.”
For Michael O’Brien, Worcester’s city manager, who manages a half billion dollar budget and a city of more than 100,000 residents, the hardest part of the municipal executive’s job is having to say “no.”
“The needs are great and the opportunities are abound, but at the end of the day you have to prioritize and determine what you know you can accomplish that will make the biggest difference,” he said.
Doing that requires dedication and a love of the job. O’Brien said his family understands he has a busy job and he tries to balance his personal and professional life.
“There’s no start to the day or end of the day when you have a job like this,” he said.
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