Wenham A Great Place to Live

In my previous letter entitled,Wenham is a Great Place to Live I endorsed Catherine Harrison.  In order to ensure that Wenham stays a great place to live, here are three major questions I believe voters must consider when reviewing the candidates for board of selectmen.

 First, a few years ago when I was still a Selectman, it was agreed by the board that the position of Town Administrator was to be filled on an interim basis, and after the Town Meeting we would pursue a more thorough process to fill the office on a permanent basis by using a search committee. However, the subsequent board decided not to live up to that commitment. More recently, a Citizen’s Petition, signed by over 60 Wenham voters, formally requested the board to live up to that commitment, but that too has now gone ignored.  Simply put, we should all expect timely responses from our elected officials, and expect them to honor their commitments to the residents of Wenham. The question we must all ask ourselves is why does the BOS continue to ignore the will of the voters?

 My next concern lies in the area of finance. Wenham no longer employs a finance director but outsources this function, and previously this function reported to the board and now it reports to our Town Administrator.  In a corporate setting this would never happen, as the potential for conflict of interest is simply too great. What are the reasons for having a finance function reporting to anyone other than the town elected selectman, since this reduces direct financial accountability to the townspeople?  Also, although some are touting that finances in Wenham are fine and that we have a AAA rating, recently we hear that almost a $95,000 mistake was made ($85+ per taxpayer), and that we are using another $150,000 from the school’s “returned funds” to delay the effect of increased expenses on our taxes.  So while one Selectman is touting a low tax increase over the past two years, we actually now find out that is only due to what is essentially using money from one-time events (the schools returned funds) – and now “oops”, it will also actually be higher because our outsourced finance function made a mistake.  So the question here is – is outsourced finance the right answer for Wenham voters, and one that will let us understand the true financial picture?

 My third concern lies with what I would consider a high turnover of personnel in the recent months. The 40% resignation rate in just 12 months is extremely concerning, particularly because none of the resignations were health or retirement related. How many more might there be and how can we stop this trend?  The true cost of this turnover to the town is very high, as in each case we must find, hire, train, and then allow time for the new people to come up to speed. The question we must ask here is - how do they plan to address town employee status and morale to ensure we retain quality people?

 As stated earlier, these are major concerns we must not ignore and the trend over the past two years must not continue. The primary responsibility of the BOS is to manage with transparency and responsiveness to the need and will of the voter/taxpayer. It is now quite obvious that the current administration has both shunned and ignored this responsibility. The voters must make a change.   

If you wish to contact me directly, I encourage it. 

John A Clemenzi