TEMPLETON — While perhaps testing the waters for another stint as Templeton’s interim town administrator, Carter Terenzini, who currently serves as Moultonborough, New Hampshire’s interim town administrator and formerly Templeton’s, returned to the select board meeting on July 23 to issue a warning about the town’s upcoming search for its next town administrator.
“The market is thin,” Terenzini said. “In the town of Lunenburg…there were fewer applicants than you could count on two hands. In my town here in Moultonborough, that I just completed the recruitment for, you would not need three hands to count everyone. The pay rate, I think, will shock you, Lunenburg was $173,000, Lancaster was $180,000, Hadley could not recruit.”
Terenzini, who served as Town Administrator in Templeton from August 2016 to around October 2020 before he was succeeded by Adam Gaudette, told the board it should not expect to find a “plug-and-play” candidate.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Terenzini has since served as interim town administrator or manager in Grafton, Boxborough, Lunenburg, and most recently Moultonborough, where he said he helped bridge leadership transitions and supported the recruitment of permanent hires. He said Templeton would be wise to focus its hiring strategy around one factor above all: personal compatibility.
“You need to think outside the box and look in areas that are not generally the source of municipal managers — whether they are planners, DPW directors, finance people, and you need to, in my point of view, concentrate first and foremost on fit,” Terenzini said. “And you need to, in my point of view, concentrate first and foremost on fit. My personality works well in some towns with some people, and it does not work well in some towns with other kinds of people. Our recruitment here in Moultonborough was broken down into two phases. The first set of interviews were only about fit — there were no technical questions whatsoever.”
Terenzini also addressed a looming financial risk: budget reductions under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 29, Section 9C, which he said allows the governor to cut the state budget without legislative approval.
“The governor’s new legislation, as I’ve already discussed with some, is already asking for expanded 9C authority,” Terenzini said. “And what does that mean? That is the authority that the governor has to cut the budget without having to seek legislative approval. Currently, municipal aid’s off the table. There have been twice in my lifetime of the past 15 to 20 years where the legislature gave added time to the governor.”
He warned that the timing of the request for expanded 9C authority, so early in the fiscal year, should raise concern for municipalities. “The fact that they’re asking for it in early July would cause me concern,” he said.
Terenzini then suggested that the board needs to select their next town administrator, arguing that if a screening panel is utilized to hire the next town administrator they may pick someone who doesn’t meet the needs of the board.
“So defining what you have as your challenges are and what kind of skill set you want those people to have, it is this board that needs to do that,” Terenzini said. “Otherwise, when you establish your screening panel, it will be them that’s deciding as they they go through the interview. And you can find if you do not guide the process that a screening panel perhaps has different thoughts than you. And whether that screening panel will be five or 11, there are some common denominators, a moderator, someone from the schools, particularly if there is a school district, chair of the planning board, chair of the advisory committee or their designees. So there’s many, many different models and I know you are working to define those.”
Terenzini closed by warning the board not to suspend the personnel policy regarding out-of-class pay without first defining a new one, cautioning that doing so could leave employees without a clear standard for compensation if similar situations arise.
“People are interviewing you,” Terenzini said. “How you treat your employees is important. The personnel plan defines how you treat and pay an employee when they are working out of class. That was defined because we had employees at the time, working far and above for their fixed pay and the board needed to decide how they should do that when someone is working out of class for three weeks, four weeks, months.”
Terenzini said he understood that the board may at times encounter policies it disagrees with and wishes to change, but he urged members to step back, determine the specific changes they want to make, and then formally adopt them.
“I would urge that you not suspend a policy midstream especially because employees came to rely upon that, and also, until such time as you define that new policy, under the law of unintended consequences, if you will, then if you should have that kind of issue arise again, you have no definition of how to pay those people,” Terenzini said.