FARMINGTON – In a special meeting Monday afternoon, the Farmington Select Board and Interim Town Manager reviewed the process of recruiting and hiring a town manager with David Barrett of the Maine Municipal Association.
Cornell Knight has been hired as the Interim Town Manager to help facilitate town operations after the sudden departure of town manager Christian Waller.. According to Eaton-Peabody, Knight is a municipal consultant with forty years experience as a town manager in Maine, retiring from the town manager position in Bar Harbor in 2022. Previously he served as the manager for Topsham, Winthrop, Jay, Hallowell and Baileyville, and recently the interim County Administrator for Hancock County.
Monday afternoon, David Barrett from the Maine Municipal Association addressed the select board to go over the details for MMA’s town manager recruitment process.
Barrett noted that MMA does these searches ‘a lot.’ The process involves an advertisement that highlights Farmington’s needs. MMA will receive resumes and applications, and handle acknowledging the receipt of the resumes. Barrett does some ‘light’ sorting through the submitted resumes, filtering out obviously unqualified candidates. He typically presents about half of the resumes to the board, but he can provide all the resumes if the town wishes.
The select board would then review the resumes and decide which candidates they want to invite for first round interviews. Interviews would be eligible for an executive session as the board would be handling personal information, and first round interviews may be performed over Zoom. Barrett recommended that second round interviews should be in-person in Farmington. In addition, department heads and residents may be selected to participate in the interview process if the board chooses. Barrett would need to know in advance if the board wanted additional people in the process as that would require additional time to collect feedback.
Barrett would sit through the interviews, and handle background checks and references. He would provide informational packets for the board, including rating sheets to help determine the board’s top candidates.
“Beginning to end, hopefully, it’s about three months,” Barrett said. The selected candidate may need additional time to give notice at their current employer and make other arrangements if necessary.
Selectman Joshua Bell said he thought it would be good to get the department heads involved once the board narrowed down the candidates.
Selectboard Vice Chair Stephan Bunker, who led the meeting, said that his criteria for a candidate included a ‘futuristic’ look towards the future of Farmington. The town has ‘very strong’ department heads, Bunker said, but he would like to see the new town manager participate in annual planning and goal setting, updating personnel policies and salary packages to aid in employee retention and recruitment, and overall consistency in managing employees and finances. Bunker also wanted someone with a ‘strong grip’ on financial principles and prior municipal experience.
Bell voiced that he wanted someone with a strong grasp on state statute as well. He said that overall the town is growing, even with decreased enrollment at the university. Over the next three to five years he wants to maintain the town’s current financial stability.
Farmington is a service center for the surrounding communities, housing many of the county resources for healthcare, law enforcement, and businesses; the position of town manager for the service center is not an entry level job and requires someone with significant management experience, Barrett said.
Knight said that a lot of the issues are the same as other communities, but they are more involved.
Maine Municipal Association will advertise on their website and on the websites of their corresponding associations in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. In addition, the job listing will be posted on advertising sites such as Indeed and Life & Work in Maine.
Barrett said that the applicant pools are much smaller than they’ve seen in the past, and the application window may need to be extended.
Hopefully, the board will begin interviews in early April.
The town has a handful of vacancies, including a front desk counter clerk in the town office; a highway department crew member; and two long-standing vacancies at the police department for a detective and a patrol officer.
In the last two years the Town of Farmington has hired new administrators in several departments, including Police Chief Kenneth Charles and former town manager Waller in 2021; Fire Chief Timothy D. Hardy, Town Clerk/Human Resources Director Susan Murphy, and Assessor Allison Brochu in 2022; and Treasurer Tammy Bureau in 2023.
Currently, other than the town manager position and an anticipated opening for the executive assistant position, the town has no vacancies in department head positions.
