Idea #108 – Establish a Working Group of Town AdministraTors/Managers
Report Status: Fully Reviewed
Researched by: Mark Paolillo
Original Idea as Submitted
Establish a working group of Town Administrators/Managers with comparable communities to enable the sharing of innovative ideas and solutions to the common challenges we face in the delivery of town services, effective management of our increasing costs of infrastructure, and the generation of additional non-property tax revenues.
Other ideas included in this report
- None
Idea Intent
as stated in the Idea Text
Weighted Final Score: 53 (Financial Impact: 3, Operational Impact: 4, Time Scale: 4, Ease of Implementation: 2)
Background Information
This idea was in the Financial Task Force I report, dated January 30, 2015. Financial Task Force I was comprised of 5 working groups:
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Group A – Education
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Group B – Resource opportunities
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Group C – Capital Projects
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Group D – Town Government
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Group E – Financial Projections
This idea was generated by Working Group D, Town Government, which looked at Program requirements and opportunities for structural changes.
The group explored a variety of issues regarding delivery of Town services. Examples of areas that were discussed included regionalization, consolidation, alternative service delivery models, establishment of enterprise funds, staff planning, and review of services that were not currently provided. What became clear throughout the process of examining town government during the Financial Task Force I work was that the Town Departments were stretched extremely thin in terms of resources. Many Departments were operating at staffing levels that were significantly reduced from 10 or 20 years ago with some facilities that were long past their useful life. This had in many cases led to a slow erosion of services. The Working Group believed that innovation in technology, regionalization, collaboration with other comparable towns, identification of alternative service delivery models, and finding efficiencies in service delivery could stem the tide in the erosion of Town services.
The Town is facing many of these same issues and challenges today, and therefore, moving forward with the execution of this idea is important to prevent further erosion of Town services.
Recommendations and Next Steps
- The Town Administration should take the lead in establishing a Working Group of Town Administrators and Managers with surrounding communities that are comparable in size to Belmont.