Where are all the managers?

Towns face challenge in filling top positions

John Coderre, Northborough's new town administrator, says: ''There has always been a fish-bowl element to working as a town manager, but that has increased.'' (Boston Globe/File 2002)

Boylston was supposed to have hired a new town administrator by now. Instead, officials might as well install a revolving door at the entrance to Town Hall.

Officials have been looking for someone to take over for Sue Olsen as Boylston's top municipal employee since October. But candidates who have expressed interest in the position have either withdrawn their names or didn't fit the town's needs, according to the Board of Selectmen's chairman, James Stanton.

Selectmen have one remaining candidate to vet. But, in the meantime, they appointed the former interim superintendent of the Berlin-Boylston Regional School District, Joseph Connelly, to handle Olsen's duties. Connelly began work as interim town administrator on Aug. 4.

Olsen had been working part time in her old job after her official retirement on June 30, said Stanton, but Boylston needed someone familiar with the town to take over full time, and as soon as possible. Connelly has agreed to step aside as soon as officials find a permanent replacement.

"We thought we'd be closer to finding someone," said Stanton. "It looks like it may be a little longer than we thought."

Boylston's experience is common these days, observers said, due to a shortage of managers qualified to oversee a town's day-to-day operations. It spells trouble for other area communities, such as Upton and Westborough, that are embarking on searches for new top executives with expanded duties. "There are more jobs right now than there are qualified candidates," said Stanton.

Experts said more town administrators have been retiring in recent years, but only a trickle of would-be replacements are stepping up to fill their places, leading to more competition for experienced managers who can handle the increasingly demanding job of running a suburban community's government.

"I think we're in a cycle where there is not a surplus of candidates out there," said Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. He said figures on the number of administrator vacancies statewide were unavailable.

The apparent scarcity stems from the rapid expansion of local government in Massachusetts after the adoption of home-rule laws in the late 1960s, said Beckwith. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he said, as Town Halls added employees, many created administrator positions to coordinate the larger staffs. Now town administrators from that era are retiring, he said.

Administrator jobs are also more difficult these days, leading potential candidates to seek federal or state jobs that offer similar pay with less stress, said Beckwith. Budgets are expanding but revenues are static, he said. Additional regulations crop up every year. Meanwhile, towns aren't gaining any new resources to confront those challenges.

"You're the regulated, not the regulator," said Beckwith. "Quite frankly, it's more easy to be the regulator."

Juggling the needs of elected officials, department heads and citizens is also becoming more complex now that local cable-access television and the Internet make administrators more visible and accessible than ever before, said Mark Morse, president of the MMA Consulting Group, which advises towns seeking to hire administrators.

Morse said he's seen job applicants shy away from towns after they scoured discussions of controversial local issues online and discovered that they might be stepping into fractious environments. "If you are a candidate for a job, what would you do?" he said. "You read the blogs and you get scared."

Northborough's new town administrator, John Coderre, agreed that residents have been paying closer attention to how their Town Hall operates in recent years, especially because of cable channels that focus exclusively on local events.

The increased scrutiny has resulted in administrators wearing their business hats at all times, especially if they live in the towns where they work.

Between evening meetings and conversations with passersby on the street, Northborough resident Coderre said, his job is more a lifestyle than a profession. That's not for everyone, he said.

"There has always been a fish-bowl element to working as a town manager, but that has increased," he said. "The trend has been that the line between your personal life and your public life has blurred and widened the fish bowl."

Coderre began work on July 1, the day after his predecessor as Northborough's town administrator, Barry Brenner, retired. His uncommonly quick appointment highlights another challenge for officials seeking new managers. For the past five years, Coderre had been Brenner's assistant. Because of that experience, Northborough officials didn't feel the need to conduct a search for another candidate, said Selectwoman Fran Bakstran. "I think the town will benefit from that nice, seamless transition," she said.

Boylston appointed Connelly as interim administrator for the same reason. Citing Connelly's stint as the regional school district's superintendent, Stanton said, "He is uniquely positioned because we went through a very difficult process with the budget this year. He knows all the players. He knows all the issues. He knows the financial condition we're in."

But many towns lack experienced assistant administrators or other midlevel managers, said Beckwith. So communities seeking seasoned managers often try to poach administrators from other towns, or focus on the few searching for a new employer, further narrowing the pool of potential candidates and stoking bidding wars.

Consultant Morse said there are no statewide figures on town administrator salaries, but he estimated that the typical municipal manager in Greater Boston earns around $145,000. The salary figure decreases the farther one travels from Boston, he said.

In Upton, officials are preparing to begin a search to fill a newly created town manager position, after voters decided that having selectmen make all executive decisions had become too cumbersome and inefficient. But they are also worried about being able to afford the new expense, said the Board of Selectmen's chairman, Robert Fleming.

Upton Town Hall is closed one day a week to save money, Fleming said, and a proposal to shut down the library for one day per week is under consideration. In this situation, Upton needs someone who can handle the town's financial crisis without requiring a salary that would exacerbate it, he said. At the same time, Fleming said, officials would be picky in their selection.

"The person needs to understand what the nature and culture of the town is and have a clear idea of their responsibilities, not only from the financial perspective, but for the quality of life here," he said.

Fleming said he is optimistic that Upton's selectmen will make progress in the next few months, but they won't rush to fill the position. "Any search for the right person requires attention to details," he said. "If it takes longer, it takes longer. We want someone who is going to partner with the town long-term."

In Westborough, officials have established a yearlong timeline for their search to replace retiring Town Coordinator Henry Danis, with the goal of hiring a new person before his last official day on the job, next June 30. As in Upton, however, the job they are filling is for town manager, after residents voted this spring to revamp Westborough's municipal structure.

Selectwoman Lydia Goldblatt said she understands that good administrators are hard to come by, but she believes her community will draw exceptional candidates.

"Obviously Westborough is a very attractive community for someone in that field," she said, citing the town's location between Boston and Worcester, its relatively affluent families and its large commercial tax base.

Goldblatt also said she understands that towns' demands are high.

"Every community, I think, is looking for a person of high character, a person with tremendous knowledge of municipalities and also a person who has a proven track record of working with department heads," she said.

But Goldblatt added that she will keep one rule of thumb in mind as she and the rest of Westborough's board interview prospective candidates: "The bottom line is, you don't know anybody until you start working with them."