The last time the job description for the town clerk was updated, President Barack Obama was serving his first term, the final episode of Oprah Winfrey’s 25-season run had aired, and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” was top of the charts.
“At Town Meeting every year, we’re asked to vote on the salary of elected officials, and the one we always have the most discussion about is the town clerk,” said Precinct 2 Town Meeting member Kathy Keohane. “For years, we’ve asked for context. What is that number based on, what does it include, is it competitive? There has been no data provided.”
After years of asking for more context, Keohane and fellow Town Meeting member and former Town Moderator Mike Widmer decided to look into it.
“As a byproduct of that work, we learned the job description dated from 2011,” she said. “This is a common thing in town or town jobs, where job descriptions get updated and kind of get reviewed; it’s an iterative process.”
At Monday night’s Select Board meeting, the Select Board agreed to accept the pair’s citizen petition, to be added to the November special Town Meeting warrant. The petition, which garnered more than 300 signatures, asks Town Meeting to vote on creating a seven-member ad hoc committee, to be appointed by the town moderator, for the purpose of updating the job description for the elected town clerk, conducting a market analysis on compensation, and recommending such compensation to the annual Town Meeting in the spring.
Though the town clerk’s job is defined almost entirely by state statute and town bylaws, there have been many changes in the work a town clerk does since 2011, not least of which is the complexity of elections, Keohane noted. Early and mail-in voting has been introduced since 2011, for example.
“This is all about the person in the job, the current job, are they being adequately compensated for the job they’re doing,” she said.
With Town Clerk Ellen O’Brien Cushman’s input, Widmer and Keohane began the work of updating the job description. Eventually a draft was shared with Select Board Chair Taylor Yates, and it was brought to a recent Select Board meeting for review.
Cushman was not available for comment as of press time.
Though the Select Board was more critical of the edits at the Sept. 1 meeting, Yates said at the meeting Monday night “their changes are fine, with exceptions.”
The Select Board reviewed the edits in detail—ensuring any language wouldn’t deter future prospective clerks from running for the position—but ultimately passed it back to the petitioners for their review.
“Any progress toward iterating on the job description is great, and it’s input to the committee,” Keohane said.
The work being done on the job description right now is a starting point for an ad hoc committee, if Town Meeting votes to establish one.
“The immediate concern is the current job, what’s the scope, what’s the responsibilities, what’s the appropriate compensation,” Keohane said. “I think we owe it to the citizens to have something that outlines what those responsibilities are, so we can make informed decisions about the best candidate.”
