By MAUREEN DOHERTY
LYNNFIELD — The stage is set for the next chapter in the town’s governance.
By a unanimous 3-0 decision Monday night, the Board of Selectmen voted to offer the town administrator’s contract to James M. Boudreau, the current town administrator of Norwell.
Boudreau was not present Monday night, but he previously signed the contract during his negotiations with current Town Administrator Bill Gustus, who he will succeed beginning Jan. 5.
Boudreau is the town’s third Town Administrator since this structure was adopted in the early 1990s. Gustus, who has served for the past 12 years, was the second. Joe Maney originally served as the selectmen’s executive secretary and then transitioned to the role of Lynnfield’s first town administrator until his retirement.
The two-year contract provides Boudreau with an annual salary of $175,000, which is equal to the compensation Gustus currently receives. A few changes were made to some language in the contract, but it is essentially the same as the one in place with Gustus.
Selectmen Chairman Dave Nelson credited Gustus for working “diligently” with Boudreau on the contract, terming it a “straightforward document that has laid out a lot of really good information on how we will work with the new town administrator.”
Nelson believes that Boudreau is deserving of this compensation level, pointing to his nearly 20 years of experience in the position, including 16 years in his current position as the T.A. of Norwell. Nelson said his primary concern during the search was “to find a town administrator that would wear all the hats and do all the good work that Mr. Gustus does and I truly feel that Mr. Boudreau fits that ticket.”
Selectman Phil Crawford agreed, stating the “intention” of their search was “to find somebody that would replace Bill (Gustus) with the same qualifications, the same education, the same experience and be able to handle the same responsibilities.”
Working closely with the search firm MMA, and with the knowledge that the town administrator position in Lynnfield would be considered desirable by those in this field serving in other communities, Crawford said it was the board’s hope “to draw in some of these more talented town administrators and that is what we did with our final group. We advertised the current salary … and that number is what attracted several of these top candidates.”
Nelson noted that Boudreau chose not to take a car allowance.
Gustus said, “We looked at it as total compensation … I told him that there was no wiggle room to exceed what was available in our current appropriation. We talked about how it might be broken down between base salary and other factors. He decided the total compensation was acceptable and he would take it all as salary.”
Selectman Tom Terranova said that MMA did a great job giving the town a large number of recruits. “I think any one of those seven were phenomenal. Mr. Boudreau certainly has credentials to do the work and has done the work in his current position.
“He is young and invigorated and it sounds like he is looking forward to this change,” Terranova added.
However, Terranova was hoping that the town could negotiate a lower starting salary with the promise of “a quarterly bump” as a “learning curve” was met. He suggested starting at $160,000 and going up over time until $175,000 was met.
Nelson disagreed with this approach. “I don’t think there is much of a learning curve simply because he knows what he is doing … He has been a town administrator in three towns. He does not have to be broken in,” Nelson said.
Gustus said a lower salary would not have been accepted by Boudreau because he has a “good, solid position” in Norwell. “He is looking for an additional challenge but he was not willing to make a lateral move,” Gustus said. A big factor in his decision is the need to move his family to this area and he could not justify doing so if it was a lateral move, he said.
Gustus explained that Boudreau was willing to begin the transition now over the next six weeks, both after hours and during some business hours, by attending some budget meetings with him, as well as meet department heads. Terranova was encouraged by Boudreau’s willingness to get to know the town on his own time. During his first week on the job there will be an overlap between Gustus and Boudreau, with Gustus’s last day being Jan. 9.
Crawford said he wants the board to create a “transition timetable” at their next meeting to introduce Boudreau to department heads and town groups in an “orderly fashion.”
