Town Leadership
The Belchertown Town Manager’s Office
The Town Manager
Steve Williams
The office Steve Williams holds did not exist until March 8, 2024. Until that day Belchertown had a Town Administrator. The town voted at Town Meeting to change it, its own state representative Aaron Saunders and its own state senator Jake Oliveira filed the bill as a joint petition, the Legislature passed it, and the Governor signed it that day as Chapter 44 of the Acts of 2024. The town administrator’s office was abolished the same day and the town manager’s office became its lawful successor, with the sitting administrator carrying on as the town’s first Town Manager.
What the act changed is the reach of the job. Section 1(c) makes the Town Manager the appointing and removing authority for department heads, officers and employees, with four carve-outs written into the law: employees of the School Committee, the police chief, the fire chief and the library director are not the manager’s to appoint. Before appointing a department head who answers to a board or commission, the manager has to consult that body first, and no department head appointment or removal takes effect at all until the Select Board ratifies and confirms it. You can watch that happen: on June 1, 2026 the board voted four to nothing to ratify Zak Bombard as Director of Assessments, and four to nothing again for Paul Adzima as Director of Inspection Services.
Section 1(d) puts the money on the same desk. The Town Manager builds the proposed operating budget and the capital improvement program, and every board, officer and committee in town, the School Committee included, is required by the act to hand over the figures the manager asks for. The Select Board approves that proposal and it goes into the Annual Town Meeting warrant. The manager also signs the warrants that pay the town’s bills. Section 1(e) then sends the manager into both rooms where those numbers get argued: to every Select Board meeting, with a voice but deliberately no vote, and to every session of Town Meeting, where the Moderator can put a registered voter’s question about a warrant article to the manager and the manager has to answer it. If you are registered, you can be the person asking.
One clause is worth reading twice, because it explains why a complaint to a single board member rarely moves anything. Section 1(c)(iv) says the Select Board and its members deal with employees serving under the Town Manager solely through the Town Manager, and that no member may give orders to a town employee, publicly or privately. The board sets policy and hires the manager. The manager runs the staff. Knowing which of those two you are actually asking for is most of the work of getting an answer.
| Role | Town Manager (chief administrative officer) |
|---|---|
| Selection | Appointed by the Select Board for a term of not more than three years, under Chapter 44 of the Acts of 2024. Not elected. |
| Office | The Finnerty House, 1 South Main Street, Belchertown, MA 01007 |
| Phone | 413-323-0403 |
| Website | belchertown.org |
What the Town Manager Does
- Appoints and removes the staff. Department heads, officers, subordinates and employees, except School Committee employees, the police chief, the fire chief and the library director. A department head appointment or removal has to be ratified and confirmed by the Select Board before it takes effect.
- Builds the budget. The proposed operating budget and the capital improvement program are the manager’s to prepare, and every town body has to supply the figures. The Select Board approves the proposal and Town Meeting votes it.
- Signs the warrants. The payment warrants the Town Accountant prepares are approved and signed by the Town Manager, who also controls appropriated budget spending.
- Buys for the town. The Town Manager is Belchertown’s chief procurement officer under chapter 30B of the General Laws, which is the statute that governs how a Massachusetts town spends public money on goods and services.
- Can investigate. Section 1(c)(iii) lets the Town Manager inquire at any time into the conduct of any town office, or the performance of any officer, employee, department, board or commission.
- Answers at Town Meeting. The manager attends every session and answers the questions the Moderator allows on the articles the manager supervises.
What the Act Splits Between Them
Belchertown has no home rule charter. Its government is built out of town bylaws and a long run of special acts of the Legislature, published together as Chapter A301 of the town code, and the Town Manager Act of 2024 is the newest of them. Between that act and the town’s bylaws the work divides three ways, and knowing the division tells you whom to write to.
- Town Meeting holds the legislative power. It votes the budget line by line and it writes the bylaws. Nothing in the manager’s authority reaches that, and the manager’s own budget proposal can be cut on the floor.
- The Select Board appoints the Town Manager and sets the compensation, signs the warrant that decides what Town Meeting gets to vote on, issues the town’s licences, acts as the Licence, Police, Fire and Highway Commissioners, and ratifies the manager’s department head appointments.
- The Town Manager runs the departments, the budget, the purchasing and the labour contracts, and has jurisdiction over the use of town property, except property held by the School Committee, the Conservation Commission and the Board of Library Trustees.
The act also builds in a succession rule. For a short absence the Town Manager files a letter with the Town Clerk and the Select Board naming an acting manager, for not more than ten business days. If the office goes vacant, the Select Board appoints an interim manager for not more than six months, renewable once, while it finds a permanent one.
Contact & Engage
- Select Board and Town Manager’s office: the Finnerty House, 1 South Main Street, PO Box 670, Belchertown, MA 01007. Phone 413-323-0403.
- Town Hall: 2 Jabish Street, Belchertown, MA 01007, which is where the Select Board meets and where the Town Clerk, Assessors, Accounting, Planning, Conservation and Inspection Services offices are.
- Report a problem: potholes, water, snow and the transfer station go to the Department of Public Works at 413-323-0415.
- Show up: the Select Board meets the first and third Monday of the month at 6:30 PM, and the public is welcome in person or online.
Want to weigh in on a town decision? Learn how to contact your officials so they actually hear you.
MassCivics last checked this page on September 14, 2026.