Millville Town Administrator Search Committee vetting applicants in March; April 2 target date
MILLVILLE — The Millville Town Administrator Search Committee will begin vetting applicants next month with a goal of presenting three to five finalists to the Board of Selectmen on April 2.
Committee members Gerry Finn and Jennifer Gill told the selectmen Monday that the position has been advertised and that the committee has received seven applications since Jan. 20.
The plan, Gill said, is for the committee to review applicants after the application deadline on March 1 and then interview upwards of five candidates, which will be presented to the selectmen at their meeting on April 2. The selectmen will then conduct their own interviews before choosing a candidate.
Former Town Administrator Jennifer M. Callahan resigned in September to take a job as town manager in Oxford, Mass. Callahan was appointed in June 2016 as Millville’s first professional town administrator after town voters agreed to create the $70,000-a-year position. For years before that, the town had an executive secretary that assisted the Board of Selectmen.
The selectmen had been mulling the establishment of a town administrator position for the past few years, and it was one of the main recommendations in a financial management review drafted by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s Division of Local Services.
During her tenure as Millville’s administrator, Callahan was been credited with helping the town secure millions in state and federal grants, including a $1 million MassWorks grant for the town’s proposed $1.3 million Central Street Improvement project, an ambitious year-long construction project that will include new roadway reconstruction, sidewalks and drainage improvements and better connectivity to the town center for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Callahan was also instrumental in the project that refurbished the American Legion Hall on Main Street into the town’s new town hall after the existing Longfellow Municipal Center on Central Street was shuttered in the summer of 2016 because of serious structural issues.
She also introduced a strategy to crack down on tax scofflaws and more aggressively collect delinquent taxes and set the wheels in motion to demolish one of the town’s biggest eyesores, the Mug Pub on Main Street.
It was also Callahan who sounded a warning about the town’s longtime practice of balancing the town budget by relying on one-time reserves like stabilization, free cash and surplus, which is a practice frowned upon by the state.
Faced with a massive deficit, the town pitched a $1.8 million property tax override to voters back in June, but it was rejected at the polls. As a result, the town has eliminated town trash service, closed the senior center and has turned off many of its street lights to cut costs.