The Interim Town Administrator’s Office

Robert Fennessy

When a road goes unplowed or a permit stalls, the person with the most operational control over the response is appointed, not elected. Robert Fennessy is Plympton’s Interim Town Administrator, hired by the three elected members of the Board of Selectmen to run the town day to day, and they can let him go if they lose faith in him. The word interim is a real signal: the town runs the office under a temporary appointment while the Board and its screening committee search for a permanent administrator, and the job itself does not change in the meantime. He is the chief administrative officer. He helps appoint and supervise most department heads, coordinates the offices that residents deal with most, from the Highway Department to the Board of Health, and shapes and presents the annual town budget. That budget is the heart of the job. Working with the Finance Committee, the Administrator assembles what every department asks for, weighs it against what the town can raise under Proposition 2 and 1/2, and proposes a single plan. Then he carries the biggest spending requests to Town Meeting for the final vote, because in Plympton the Administrator can propose money but only Town Meeting can appropriate it. The split is worth holding onto: the Board of Selectmen sets policy and signs the warrant, the Administrator runs the daily machinery and drafts the budget, and Town Meeting, meaning every registered voter who shows up, has the last word on the money. Because Plympton hands the daily work to an appointed professional rather than to a single elected mayor, the plan to fix a problem usually crosses the Administrator’s desk first, then goes to the Board, and then to the floor of Town Meeting, where you can be standing.