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Date: 11/3/2021
LUDLOW- With Town Administrator Ellie Villano set to retire at the end of February, the Ludlow Board of Selectmen met with Human Resources Director Carrie Ribeiro during its Oct. 19 meeting to discuss the next steps in hiring her successor.
To start the appointment, Ribeiro said she spoke to two consulting firms about beginning the search for a new town administrator after reaching out to towns and cities across the state about which firms they used in similar searches.
“A couple of the names that kept coming up were Community Paradigm Associates out of Plymouth and the Edward Collins Center for Public Management, which is the UMASS Collins Center. So, those were the two most used firms from different cities and towns throughout the state. In the meantime, I have reached out to both,” she said.
Ribeiro added both firms provided proposals, timeframes and some profiles they will put together when they go out for recruitment.
While both consultants would cost the same, Ribeiro said that because the town previously worked with the UMASS Collins Center for its Human Resources audit, she was in favor of working with them for the town administrator search.
“I do want to say that Mary Aicardi [of the Collins Center] did do the HR audit for the town. She was able to come in and help us with the process of getting personnel policy bylaws out of town meeting hands and into an employee handbook. She certainly is more familiar with the town and does a little bit more work out in this area,” she said.
Regardless of which company the town uses, Ribeiro said one of the key points in the search will be establishing a screening committee.
“Both companies do recommend having a screening committee, which I highly recommend as well. The company we hire would do the posting, do the recruitment, screen through them, look at the qualifications based on what we are telling them what we want and then they would bring six to eight candidates to the screening committee to make a recommendation of three to four final candidates,” she said.
With the holidays approaching, Ribeiro said the timeline could be about three to four months, but the town could have the job advertised by mid-November.
“Some of the factors are going to be we are going into the holiday season and the Collins Center makes note that the biggest challenge is going to be scheduling the Screening Committee members and getting five to seven people together and meet a couple times a month,” she said. “If we pick somebody this week and have a contract signed, we could get the position advertised by the middle of November.”
Once the position is advertised and the screening committee is established, Ribeiro said they could begin conducting interviews in January.
Board member James Gennette said he was in favor of moving forward with the Collins Center since it was Ribeiro’s recommendation.
“I personally do not want to wait on this, I agree with Mrs. Ribeiro on it, I do not think we have the time to delay. If her recommendation is Collins, then I would back that,” he said.
Board member Manuel Silva said he was concerned about spending $11,000 when the town has hired previous town administrators without using a consultant in the past, but Ribeiro said it would be hard for her to find a quality candidate on her own.
“Quite honestly, I can post a job, but I do not have the time to be cold calling individuals and I do not know them like they do. They both have at least 65 town administrator searches in Massachusetts alone so within those searches they have seen candidates I would not even be aware of,” she said.
Ribeiro said she was also concerned about doing the search properly because of a lack of applicants for municipal employees across the state.
“This is an important position, I think we need a professional approach to it and I think it is important to us to spend the money. It is not a good market right now, there are not going to be 100 candidates knocking on our door, especially in Western Mass. This is going to be a tougher search and why I think it is going to be even more important to use a company like this,” she said.
Board Chair William Rosenblum said he was in favor of hiring a consultation firm because of their potential familiarity with candidates that may be out there.
“I think that most important is the fact that they know there are candidates. Once they see the profile for this town, they will probably already have some names pop into their head they will reach out and say this is a good position to apply for,” he said. “It needs to be done right.”
The board agreed to move forward with the UMASS Collins Center as a consultant in the search for a new town administrator.
During the meeting the board also discussed some initial uses for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds but will host a larger discussion after receiving recommendations from department heads on Nov. 9. Some of the initial ideas included using the funds to restore fields, parks or potentially for fiber optic internet in town.
The Ludlow Board of Selectmen next met on Nov. 2 and coverage of this meeting will appear in the Nov. 11 edition of the Reminder.