The Town Manager’s Office

What the Town Manager Does

• Nominates the department heads. Charter section 4-3(c) gives the Town Manager the appointment of every department head, and makes each appointment contingent on the approval of a majority of the Select Board. That second step is the one to remember: the name goes on a public agenda and gets a recorded vote.
• Builds the budget. The Town Manager prepares the operating budget and the capital improvement program, files them with the Select Board and the Finance Committee on the charter’s clock, and approves the warrants that authorize the Treasurer to pay the town’s bills.
• Runs the administration. Section 4-3 puts the standard operating procedures, the compensation of officers the manager appoints, the town’s purchasing, the inventory of town property and the use of town buildings other than the schools in this office. Section 5-2 has the manager write the personnel plan, and it takes effect unless the Select Board rejects it within thirty days.
• Answers to you, at Town Meeting. Section 4-3(g) requires the Town Manager to attend every session of Town Meeting, present the budget and the capital outlay program, and answer every question the voters ask about the office. If you are registered, you can be the one asking.
• The job is open to apply to, indirectly. In July 2026 the town asked residents to submit interest cards for seats on a Town Manager Search Committee, with a deadline of August 3, 2026. Gregory told the Select Board on May 18, 2026 that he will not seek a renewal of his contract when it ends. A resident on that committee helps choose who runs the town next.

What the Charter Splits Between Them

Hudson adopted its home rule charter on May 8, 1978, and has amended it three times since: in 1979, in 2021 when the board took its present name, and in 2025 when the Executive Assistant became the Town Manager. Section 1-2 names the result “the open town meeting, select board, town manager form of government.” The charter divides the work three ways, and the division is worth knowing before you decide whom to write to.

• Town Meeting holds the legislative power outright, which means the budget and the bylaws. Nothing in the manager’s authority reaches that.
• The Select Board are the chief executives of the town under section 3-4(d). Section 3-7(a) gives the board the appointment of the Town Manager, the Board of Registrars, the Board of Appeals, the personnel board, the town accountant, town counsel, the conservation commission and the industrial development finance authority, and section 3-7(c) hands the board every appointment the charter does not assign to somebody else.
• The Town Manager runs the administration: the departments, the budget, the purchasing, the personnel plan, and the warrants that pay the bills. Every department head and every town employee still needs the board’s approval to be hired.

Here is that relationship in one line from the town’s own minutes. On July 7, 2026 the Select Board voted on the appointment of a constable, the confirmation of the library’s summer staff and the appointment of a housing authority commissioner, one at a time, in public, on the record. That is a board doing the approving the charter requires, and any resident could have been in the room watching it happen.

Contact & Engage

• Town Hall: 78 Main Street, Hudson, MA 01749. Open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 8 am to 4:30 pm, Tuesday 8 am to 6:30 pm, and Friday 8 am to noon.
• Town Manager’s Office: 978-562-9963.
• Report a problem: potholes, broken lights, water and snow go to the Department of Public Works at 978-562-9333.
• Show up: the Select Board meets at 7 pm every other Monday in the Community Room of the Hudson Police Station, 911 Municipal Drive, and the public is welcome.