NORWICH — The Selectboard voted to lock in Town Manager Brennan Duffy’s services for an additional three years Wednesday night, a year before his contract was set to expire.
After a nearly two-hour executive session, the board voted 4-1 to extend the contract. Board member Priscilla Vincent cast the sole no vote.
The board considered Duffy’s contract well in advance of its expiration next Oct. 1 so that if the town or the manager decided against an extension, there would have been time to look for Duffy’s successor and “ensure stability” for the town, Board Chairwoman Mary Layton said in a recording of Wednesday’s meeting.
Though she thinks Duffy is “doing a good job” and she would like him to continue in Norwich, Vincent said it was too early to be renewing his contract.
Duffy served as Norwich’s interim town manager for nearly a year before the board promoted him and agreed to a three-year contract in September 2023.
His contract stipulates that he earn a base salary of at least $144,773 a year and be eligible for annual merit-based adjustments based on “satisfactory performance and evaluation of the Employee,” as well as cost-of-living increases and performance-based bonuses.
In fiscal year 2026, Duffy is earning a wage of $158,062, a 9% increase over fiscal year 2025 according to the town’s annual report.
Similar to Vincent, the rest of the board gave glowing reviews of Duffy’s performance after the executive session.
“When Brennan first came to our town we were in disarray, chaos,” board member Matt Swett said Tuesday.
In 2021, the Norwich Selectboard voted not to renew Town Manager Herb Durfee’s contract. Durfee had faced repeated scrutiny from the board during his four-year tenure, which was marked by turnover and vacancies in key positions such as police chief and public works and finance directors. Durfee also hired and fired a finance director who lost almost $250,000 in a cyber scam.
After Durfee, Rod Francis took on the job but left after a little more than a year following “unusual difficulties” in municipal operations, including the resignation of 15 town employees during his tenure.
The public works and police departments were especially impacted.
Swett attributed much of Norwich’s current state of “relative stability” to Duffy’s work and said he hopes to “scaffold off of where we’ve gotten over the past two years” and continue to improve.
In one example of stability, Duffy hired current Police Chief Matthew Romei in August 2023. Since then, the department has increased its staffing from one active officer to three full-time officers including Romei and one part-time officer, according to the Norwich town website.
On Wednesday, Layton thanked Duffy for “what you’ve done for our town to stabilize it” and said she hopes he will continue in Norwich “into the far future.”
The group also conducted an evaluation of Duffy’s performance and discussed the report during a 45-minute executive session at its previous meeting on Oct. 8. Duffy received a “very positive” evaluation from the Selectboard and from department heads, according to meeting minutes.
Though the evaluation is not public, the board published the town manager goals and performance evaluation template in May that include general goals like maintaining a “fulfilling work environment” focused on recruitment and retention and other more specific benchmarks.
One of the projects included in the evaluation is planning for substantial and realistic improvements to Tracy Hall and repairing or replacing the building’s heating system. The Tracy Hall renovation project planning has been ongoing throughout this year and Duffy’s October report indicates that the building’s boiler system has been replaced.
“I look forward to continuing this growth and this level of stability and prosperity going forward into the near future,” Duffy told the board Wednesday.
