At the biweekly meeting of the selectmen on Tuesday, Town Administrator Tim Bragan reported that as requested he had recruited a select committee to consider the pros and cons of moving to a town manager form of government.
Town Moderator Bob Eubank will chair the committee, whose other members include Chairman of the Selectmen Ron Ricci; Town Clerk Janet Vellante; Victor Normand, chairman of the town’s Personnel Board; Finance Committee Chairwoman Alice von Loesecke; and former selectman Rick Maiore.
Harvard has employed a town administrator to manage its municipal services since 1995 when Town Meeting approved the position. Maiore was a member of Harvard’s five-member Board of Selectmen at the time the change was made. Previously management of the town’s day-to-day affairs was handled by an executive secretary, a position created by the town in 1988.
The objective, as recorded in the minutes of the board’s June strategic planning session, is to “streamline operations.” In a phone conversation Ricci listed a number of specific tasks he thought could be delegated. Every appointment made to fill a position in town government, from DPW worker to town treasurer, is thoroughly vetted by Town Administrator Bragan and his staff before it comes to the selectmen for approval. The selectmen typically rubber stamp the recommended candidate. “I don’t see what value we add to the process,” Ricci said. The selectmen are also required to review and approve every invoice that the town receives, a job that could be handled by a town manager, he said.
In a town manager form of government, yhe manager has the authority to hire and fire staff, create and oversee budgets, and execute a variety of other tasks without day-to-day oversight by the selectmen. But making the switch requires either the adoption of a special act by Town Meeting, which in turn must be approved by the Legislature, or a home-rule charter prepared by an elected charter commission and approved by at annual election.
The selected committee will report its finding to the selectmen in two months. Though Bragan recruited its members, he is not on the committee.
