Town Leadership
The Whitman Town Administrator’s Office
The Town Administrator
Mary Beth Carter
On the evening of April 7, 2026 the Select Board and the Finance Committee sat down together at Town Hall, and the person who walked them through the town’s money was not on any ballot. Mary Beth Carter is Whitman’s Town Administrator, hired by the five elected members of the Select Board and answerable to them. That night she laid out a balanced budget for the coming year built without an override, department by department, and she told the room which shortcuts she would not take: not the stabilization fund, not other one time money, because of what both would do to the town’s long term position and its bond rating. Nobody had to agree with her. That is the point of the job. The Town Administrator’s work is to put a complete, honest plan on the table so that the elected board, and then Town Meeting, can vote on something real instead of on a hope.
The office is the hinge between the two halves of Whitman’s government. On one side are the departments that actually do things: police, fire, public works, health, the clerk’s counter, the library, the senior center. On the other side are the two bodies that decide: a Select Board that meets about twice a month, and an open Town Meeting that meets once a year and holds the last word on every dollar. Carter is at the Select Board table for all of it, and the approved minutes show what that looks like in practice. She researches whether a zoning hearing was easy to find on the town website when a resident says it was not. She fields the question of what a change to school busing would do to the rest of the budget. She brings back what the town’s own counsel says before a vote is taken. She is assisted by Matthew Dyer, the Assistant Town Administrator.
Here is the part that matters if you live here. Because the administrator is appointed rather than elected, you cannot vote her out. What you can do is aim one step higher: the five people who hired her are elected town-wide, every one of them by you, and they meet in public with the agenda posted in advance. A problem you raise at a Select Board meeting lands on her desk within the week, because she is sitting in the room when you raise it.
This office is changing hands right now, and you can watch how. At the Select Board’s May 19, 2026 meeting Carter announced that she will retire on September 5, 2026, after 23 years working for the Town of Whitman: 19 of them in the Treasurer/Collector’s office and 3 as Town Administrator. On June 17, 2026 the town posted the opening, listed as open until filled. Whoever fills it will be chosen by the same five elected people, in the same public room, and their vote will appear in the approved minutes like every other vote they take. If you want to see who holds the hiring power in this town, this is the search to follow.
| Role | Town Administrator (chief administrative officer) |
|---|---|
| Selection | Appointed by the Select Board under contract, not elected |
| Office | Town Hall, 54 South Avenue, Whitman, MA 02382 |
| Phone | 781-618-9701 |
| Website | whitman-ma.gov |
What the Town Administrator Does
- Runs the departments. Police, fire, public works, health, recreation, the library and the rest report up through this office for their day to day operations.
- Builds the budget. Each year the Administrator assembles a spending plan for the town and its share of the regional schools, then defends it before the Select Board, the Finance Committee and Town Meeting, which holds the final vote.
- Works inside a hard ceiling. Proposition 2 1/2 caps how fast a Massachusetts town’s tax levy can grow, and going above it takes a vote of the whole town. Whitman voters were asked twice and answered no both times: 677 to 1,678 in May 2025, and 425 to 899 in May 2026. A budget built after those votes has to fit inside the ceiling, which is exactly the work the Administrator brought to the April 7, 2026 joint meeting with the Finance Committee.
- Answers to the board. The Administrator serves under a contract with the elected Select Board and carries out the policies it sets.
- Reports to Town Meeting. Major spending and bylaws still need the vote of Town Meeting, and in Whitman that means every registered voter who walks in.
Who Is Appointed and Who Is Elected
Whitman puts more of its government on the ballot than most towns do, which is worth knowing before you assume an office is out of your reach.
- Elected by the voters: the Select Board, the Moderator who runs Town Meeting, the Town Treasurer/Collector, an Assessor, the Board of Health, the Planning Board, the Public Works Commission, the Library Trustees, the Housing Authority, and Whitman’s six seats on the regional School Committee. Every one of those was on the May 16, 2026 ballot or a recent one.
- Appointed: the Town Administrator and the department heads who run the daily operations, along with many of the town’s boards and committees.
- Voters have said so on purpose. In May 2025 a ballot question asked whether Whitman should switch to an appointed Treasurer-Collector. The answer was 947 yes to 1,303 no, so the office stayed elective, and in May 2026 the voters filled it.
Contact & Engage
- Town Hall: 54 South Avenue, Whitman, MA 02382, 781-618-9700.
- Town Administrator’s Office: 781-618-9701.
- Report a problem: potholes, broken lights, and water or sewer trouble go to the Department of Public Works, 781-447-7630.
- Show up: the Select Board meets about twice a month, usually on Tuesday evenings at Town Hall, and the public is welcome.
Want to weigh in on a town decision? Learn how to contact your officials so they actually hear you.