Adams Eliminating DPW Director Position
ADAMS, Mass. — Town officials plan to eliminate the Department of Public Works director position, and current Director Robert Tober will be relieved of his duties at the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1.
The fiscal 2022 budget will not fund the position, and Town Administrator Jay Green said the decision was made for budgetary reasons.
"The decision is a budgetary decision based on an assessment of the value that the position brings to town operations," Green said in an email correspondence. "The Board of Selectmen have asked me to continually assess the value and necessity of positions within town government, keeping an eye on cost controls and the impact to the tax rate."
Without having to pay the position's salary or benefits, the town will save $103,112.
Tober informed the Cemetery Commission on Wednesday that his time with the town was coming to an end this summer.
"I don't know what is going to happen to my position," he said. "I don't know if they are going to reinstate it or if they just want to save some money for the town."
The town has gone through several interim and permanent directors since longtime Director Thomas Satko retired in the spring of 2014. He was replaced by Joe Bettis, who lasted a little over year and Tober was hired in 2019 after the town had gone without a director for two years. Directors tended to move on after a few years and at times it felt as though the town was in a constant search process with employees from within stepping up to cover the post in the interim.
"I was hired a year and a half ago. I moved here in December," Tober said. "Four months later I found out, but that is another discussion."
Green said prior to hiring Tober, the town was operating efficiently without a director.
"During the multi-year absence of a DPW Director prior to the January 2020 hiring of Mr. Tober, the Town learned to function without a traditional DPW Director," Green said. "The majority of the day-to-day duties and responsibilities of the DPW have been assumed by the DPW Operations Supervisor's position and the Working Foremen positions in Highway and Parks/Grounds."
He said the wastewater treatment plant operates in a similar fashion.
Green said higher-level tasks such as planning and purchasing have been absorbed by the Community Development Department or other town staff.
"Design and wngineering is handled by contractors, which is consistent with municipalities the size of Adams," Green said. "This functionality did not change over the past year and illustrated that the position was superfluous as currently structured. Our residents and businesses should see no impact to service delivery."
He said DPW-related duties had been considered in the hiring of a community development director; Eammon Coughlin was hired for that post last week.
"Over the past year, it became apparent that Adams is evolving and successfully operating in a way that does not require a traditional DPW director; over the next year, in conjunction with on-boarding a new Community Development Director – one with transportation planning experience (e.g., roads) – we will assess what skill set we may need to move Adams ahead," he said. "This is part of a continuous improvement mindset that will we adopt."
Green said these are tough decisions he has had to make throughout the town but said it is important to right-size the budget and control costs.
"When a position is vacated, we assess the position as to whether it can be eliminated, reduced to par time or filled full time. For FY21, a position in Community Development was also eliminated and other tactical cuts were executed in the midst of the predicted economic downturn due to the health pandemic," he said. "Most of the sources of municipal revenue, outside of real estate tax, are elastic and thus would likely drop due to the business restrictions used to mitigate the COVID 19 virus. We had to tighten our belt in a reactive fashion in FY21, whereas in FY22, this is a proactive and strategic effort to control rising costs and potential for a revenue drop. Not an easy decision to make."
Tober brought the item up at the Cemetery Commission meeting because he said he would not be around to see through a cemetery restoration grant he wanted to apply for to address many of the lingering issues at Maple Street Cemetery.
He said the money could be used to stand up some fallen stones and make repairs to the Quaker Meetinghouse.
The commissioners said they would coordinate with other stakeholders such as the Historical Society.
Commissioner Fred Hobart was not sold on eliminating the position
"I am surprised they are doing that," he said.
Commissioner Bruce Shepley didn't want to delve too far into the topic but wished Tober well.
"If you are not here at our next meeting then we wish you the best of luck," he said.
This was the commission's first meeting since July 2020 and Shepley asked if there was even a reason for them to consistently meet every month.
"The issues that have happened seemed to have been handled by the DPW there has not been the need for us to meet," he said. "We have not needed to act on anything ... That is the obvious thing, we haven't been meeting and everything has been functioning."
He felt it may be better to only meet when they have actual business.
He did not want to make a decision at that meeting but a meeting was scheduled in July to continue the discussion.
At the beginning of the meeting, the commissioners thanked former DPW Administrative Assistant Marilyn Kolis for her many years of service to the town.
"Marilyn was more than the person that was in the office answering the phone," Shepley said. "Her knowledge was second to none about the happenings in the DPW, especially for the Cemetery Commission."
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