Personnel issues top self-evaluation
By Caitlyn Kelleher

"I believe we now have in place a truly outstanding management team that will make the town a model of local government in Western Massachusetts." - KEVIN PAICOS, ASHBURNHAM ADMINISTRATOR

Dealing with 'employee personnel issues' topped a partial list of significant projects worked on by Ashburnham's Town Administrator Kevin Paicos during his first year at the helm.

Selectmen requested Paicos submit a self-evaluation as part of an annual performance review process, which he did at the boards Aug. 16 meeting/workshop.

"With the assistance of the police chief, and fire chief, I negotiated landmark contracts with all three bargaining units," he wrote. "These contracts eliminated sick-leave buy-back, and created the opportunity to increase health insurance co-pays. The savings to the town will be in the 10s of thousands over the next few years."

The selfevaluation covered the rating period of July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006 and denotes 21 specific projects or issues that Paicos has dealt with during his first year.

"During the fiscal year, I was very pleased to conduct several extensive personnel recruitment processes for a new police chief (assisted by an outstanding committee), police sgt., COA director, a new FF/EMT, and two new police officers," he wrote. "I believe we now have in place a truly outstanding management team that will make the town a model of local government in Western Massachusetts."

The work Paicos did with a group of employees to create the non-union personnel bylaw that was adopted at town meeting in May is also addressed as is the settlement of the resolution of the grievance hearings with Police Sgt. Robert Brennan.

The town's financial status was the underlying issue for many of the project's he listed in his self-evaluation. He addressed the reorganization of the financial management team, to the water/sewer financing issues with its pending rate study and the new revenue/expense forecasting method.

"Many other, smaller projects were also worked-on this past year, but brevity requires that this report simply present these highlights."

Some of the projects listed continue to be ongoing such as the public safety building and the town hall renovation projections. In these sections he lists his participation on such things as attending meetings and providing technical advice, to writing bid requests and hiring the town hall architect and project manager.

He also outlined the amount of time and the number of steps for projects such as the Route 12 water line, the Page's Beach water line, as well as the development and implementation of a five-year information technology plan that modernized the town's Web site, established town e-mail addresses and installation of town intranet.

Another project that Paicos lists as having "consumed hundreds of hours of (his) time as well as town counsel," is the Nextel cell tower negotiations. At this point in time the draft contract is nearly finished and the filing for a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals in "imminent."

The selectmen are preparing to complete their portion of the review over the next few weeks. They agreed to use the Massachusetts Municipal Association's standard evaluation for town administrator and to create a specific evaluation for Ashburnham during the upcoming year.

The selectmen will be able to answer each of the 44 questions on the evaluation with a score between one - unsatisfactory - to five - outstanding. The sections evaluation covers are the town administrator's relationship with the board, fiscal management, community and public relations, personnel administration and professional skills and abilities.

They agreed that each of them would complete an individual evaluation, which will then be averaged together by Board Chairman Jonathan Dennehy. Paicos will receive the individual evaluations but only the aggregated one would be discussed and released to the public.

"I don't mind having my review done in public," Paicos said. "In fact I like it done in public."

The public review he said is important because of his position in town as well as the role of the selectmen - an elected body - as his employers. He admits it is awkward, but that he takes the information as an opportunity to improve himself.

Paicos said he would create a list of goals and projects for this upcoming review, but that it would probably take him until the middle of September to finish it. The selectmen agreed to grant him that time.

Dennehy made two requests for the list. He wants it to include goal completion dates and to have the annual times separate from one time items.

Paicos said he had no problem designing it in such a manner to provide that information.

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Caitlyn Kelleher can be reached at (978) 827-3386, ext. 15, or e-mail: caitlynkelleher@ aol.com