Town Leadership
The Town Administrator’s Office
The Town Administrator
Nick Breault
Three elected residents are Wilbraham’s chief executive officers, and the person they hired to run the town from one Monday to the next is Nick Breault, the Town Administrator. The Select Board’s own page draws the line in a single sentence: the three members act as the town’s chief executive officers, and the Town Administrator supervises day to day municipal services and activities. That is a real division of labour, not a formality. The board decides what the town will do. Breault is the one who has to make it work on Tuesday morning.
Most of what the office does is invisible until something goes wrong. The Town Administrator supervises the department heads who plow the roads, inspect the restaurants, staff the dispatch centre and keep the water flowing, and he is the person a department director goes to before going to the board. His office sits at 240 Springfield Street with the Select Board’s, which is not an accident: the two work the same building and the same calendar.
The budget is where the office is easiest to see. Wilbraham’s Fiscal Year 2027 spending plan was built department by department, reviewed by the nine member Finance Committee, printed in a Town Meeting Workbook alongside the Finance Committee’s recommendation on every article, and then handed to the voters. On May 11, 2026 the room voted $57,018,471, being $56,474,009 raised and appropriated and $544,462 taken from Free Cash. The Finance Committee had recommended it 7 to 2. Nobody at Town Hall could have passed it alone.
That is the part worth carrying away. In a town with an appointed administrator, the plan usually crosses his desk first, then the Select Board’s, then Town Meeting’s. Three rooms, in that order, and the last one is open to any registered voter who walks in. If you want a road paved, a field lit or a programme funded, the earliest useful conversation is with the department, the next is with the board, and the decisive one happens in a school auditorium in May.
| Role | Town Administrator (chief administrative officer) |
|---|---|
| Selection | Appointed by the Select Board, not elected |
| Office | Town Office Building, 240 Springfield Street, Wilbraham, MA 01095 |
| Phone | (413) 596-2800, Ext. 103 |
| Website | wilbraham-ma.gov |
What the Town Administrator Does
- Runs the departments. Police, fire, central dispatch, public works, health, planning, recreation and the rest do their daily work under the Town Administrator’s supervision.
- Builds the budget. Each year the office assembles what the town proposes to spend, and an Assistant Town Administrator for Budget and Finance, Barbara Hancock, works the numbers alongside the Collector’s and Treasurer’s offices she also runs.
- Answers to the board. The Town Administrator is appointed by the elected Select Board and carries out the policies it sets.
- Reports to Town Meeting. Major spending and every bylaw still need the vote of Town Meeting, and in Wilbraham that means every registered voter who walks in.
The Administration
- Department heads carry out policy, from plowing snow to inspecting restaurants, and they report through the Town Administrator.
- The Select Board is the check: it hires the Town Administrator, sets policy, and signs the warrants that put questions before Town Meeting. The same three members also sit as the Board of Health and issue the town’s business licences.
- The Finance Committee, nine residents appointed by the Select Board, has a power written into the town bylaws that is easy to miss: under section 504, no money article can be voted at Town Meeting until this committee has considered it and reported on it.
- Boards and commissions, many of them appointed by the Select Board, decide questions like zoning, conservation, historic preservation and licensing.
Contact & Engage
- Town Office Building: 240 Springfield Street, Wilbraham, MA 01095, open Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
- Town Administrator’s Office: (413) 596-2800, Ext. 103.
- Report a problem: potholes, water and snow go to Public Works at (413) 596-2800, Ext. 208.
- Show up: the Select Board meets at 7:00 pm on Mondays, as posted, at the Town Office Building, and the public is welcome.
Want to weigh in on a town decision? Learn how to contact your officials so they actually hear you.