Changes in the Front Office
Julie Dupree has retired after 15 years of service to the Town of Truro. This presented an opportunity to reorganize the Administration Office. We are promoting Nicole Tudor and adding Noelle Scoullar to the front office to provide support services for the Town Administrator and the Board of Selectmen. Also, they will be the first contact for visitors to Town Hall. Both have worked for the Town for several years, and they will hit the ground with knowing the players and procedures.
Looking Back Over the First 300 Days
This is part of an address I gave at the Truro Non-Resident Taxpayers Association Annual Meeting on July 7, 2012:
I have been in Truro for ten months now, and I have enjoyed every minute of it. Already, I've experienced two Town Meetings, a Town Election, a change in Police Chiefs, a new Deputy Assessor, a new Library Director, and a new Beach Supervisor. Fortunately for me, most of the Department Heads have been with the Town for many years, which makes my job a lot easier. They know what to do and when to do it. I have implemented an operations review to improve our efficiency and to offer more services on the web. We will be instituting a computerized beach sticker registration program this year, which should speed up the process and make renewal easier. We are looking down the road at accepting credit cards for many Town services and fees; and we hope to offer many of our services, such as permits and licenses, via the Town website for our non-resident tax payers and our year-round residents.
Financially, the Town is in good shape. Our budget is balanced, and the Department Heads have done a phenomenal job of doing more with less. We have level-funded our Department budgets for the past several years, with the exception of salaries. We have been able to absorb the increases in fixed costs, such as energy and health insurance, by making reductions in our overall operating and capital budgets. We closed FY2012 with a $40,000 surplus in the legal budget. That is the lowest amount spent on legal services since 2008.
This has allowed us to move forward without Proposition 2½ overrides and without drastic reductions in staff and services. We have an outstanding financial team that includes the Town Accountant, Town Clerk/Treasurer/Collector, Assessor, Assistant Town Administrator, and me. A good example of this team's working together is the recent savings of $35,000, which was realized by paying our insurance premiums and retirement assessments up front and in full. Also, we are always looking for grant opportunities; and we just received a One Million Dollar CDBG for housing rehabilitation and child care. That money will be shared with our neighbors, Provincetown and Wellfleet. Truro will serve as lead community for the grant.
Another exciting opportunity will be Open Cape, the $40 Million Dollar fiber optic backbone on Cape Cod that will connect more than 70 anchor institutions, including several sites in Truro. This is not some "pipe dream" that is way off in the future but rather a system that is being built as we speak, with a completion date of December 2012. Because a major portion of the funding for the project is coming from stimulus funds, the money must be spent and the project completed by the end of this year. Once on-line, Open Cape will offer conductivity at six times the speed of services that are currently available and bandwidth to carry amounts of data beyond anything we can imagine. This new reliable and cost-efficient telecommunications infrastructure will support economic diversification we so desperately need to reduce our reliance on tourists and a seasonal economy. No longer will the model for economic development be to bring a factory to your town. Now, workers will decide where they want to live, and they can telecommute to the office. Who wouldn't want to live on Cape Cod year-round if we can provide that opportunity?
A major factor in bringing us all to Truro is the Town's natural beauty and rural character. The Town is making major progress in the environmental realm with the implementation of a comprehensive study of water resources and an ongoing expansion of our solid waste recycling program. The Water Resources Oversight Committee just published its first newsletter, which outlines the progress they are making toward a Comprehensive Water Resources Plan. We have implemented recycling at the beaches this summer, and we are looking at other ways to reduce our solid waste stream as we look down the road at major increases in the cost of disposal.
Many of you may know that last year Truro was designated a Green Community and received a grant in the amount of $142,000 to improve energy efficiency of our facilities and vehicles. We are replacing HVAC equipment, including boilers and air handlers, in a number of buildings and tracking and reporting our energy use and savings. We are working on projects to increase our capacity for photovoltaic arrays at the Truro Central School and eventually at the capped landfill.
I want to let you know about two on-going projects on which I am working with the Town Department Heads. First, as I mentioned earlier, we have undertaken an operations review to identify areas where we can improve services and procedures. A number of very interesting ideas have come out of these meetings; and we have organized those ideas into short, medium, and long-term objectives. The second project on which I'm working with the Department Heads is the implementation of the Selectmen's goals. The Board recently finalized its goals for FY2013; and, as we did last year, staff teams will be formed to implement the goals with quarterly reports on our progress. This allows for communication from the top down about what our priorities should be. This formal process for implementing the goals also provides an opportunity for Department Heads to work together with those who might not interact ordinarily. We had great success with last year's goals as we implemented the majority successfully, and we made major progress on some that will be ongoing this year.
I hope you visit frequently the Town's website www.truro-ma.gov for information about Town Government. In addition to launching our own Truro TV Channel 18 this year where you can see broadcasts of meetings for the Board of Selectmen, Board of Health, Conservation Commission, and Zoning Board, those same meetings are archived and can be streamed on the Town website any time.
I hope you all subscribe to the Truro eNewsletter. Once you sign up, this monthly newsletter will automatically appear in your e-mail in-box. Brian Boyle and the rest of the eNewsletter staff do a fantastic job of providing updates for all kinds of Town Hall news and the news and events from various nonprofits in Town. We're hoping to expand its content by featuring updates from Department Heads as well as the Town administration.
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Sincerely,
Rex Peterson
Town Administrator
townadm@truro-ma.gov
(508) 349-7004, ext 10