NORWICH — During recent meetings, Selectboard members and the town manager have expressed conflicting ideas about how to best set performance goals for the town’s top employee.
Town Manager Brennan Duffy’s three-year contract had been set to expire this October, but last fall, the Selectboard voted 4-1 to extend it an additional three years.
At the time of the extension, which came after Duffy’s annual performance review, Selectboard members praised him for the stability he brought to Norwich throughout his 10 months as interim town manager and first two contracted years.
But now, board members appear to have questions about his plan for moving the town forward.
Two new members, Brendan Classon and Robert Gere, joined the board after Town Meeting elections in March. And during conversations over two meetings last month, the Selectboard put forward a list of proposed goals for Duffy, while the town manager appeared to bristle at the board’s suggestions and sought to carve out space to operate independently.
“Generally, there needs to be some flexibility for the town manager to do his work as he sees fit and to be successful,” Duffy said in a recording of an April 22 Selectboard meeting. “That needs to be respected.”
Efforts this week to reach Duffy and Selectboard members for comment on the situation were unsuccessful. But the Selectboard is next scheduled to discuss town manager goals at its May 27 meeting, Chairman Kimo Griggs said Wednesday.
The lists of goals Selectboard members compiled ahead of an April 8 meeting included greater transparency; having information on hand to address board members’ questions; improved availability while working remotely; a regular presence in the office; and more engagement with residents.
As of October 2024, Duffy was permitted to continue working remotely two days a week, but his presence in the office remains a sticking point for some board members.
In his list of town manager goals, Classon defined meeting attendance expectations as being in the town manager’s Tracy Hall office three days a week with an open-door policy aside from confidential meetings.
Classon also asked that Duffy accept in-person meetings at the request of residents.
Some board members included specific priorities, such as fossil fuel data reporting, website upgrades, Tracy Hall renovation planning, reformatting the presentation of budget information and improvements to the evaluation process for department heads.
At the April 8 meeting, Griggs asked Duffy for his own list of goals, adding that he mentioned it to him several days prior to the meeting.
But Duffy, who had not prepared a list, said he had missed the memo.
“I was hoping for a little more active engagement,” Griggs said in the meeting recording.
“The communication must have been lacking there,” Duffy, who attended remotely, responded over Zoom.
At the same meeting, Griggs also noted that a performance evaluation document for the town manager that Duffy began referencing during the meeting was not included in the Selectboard packet.
The Selectboard evaluates Duffy’s performance on an annual basis, with his next evaluation coming up in the fall. One expectation included in the town manager’s contract involves setting concrete goals with the help of the Selectboard, which guides sections of the evaluation process each year around the anniversary of his hiring, Griggs said during the April 8 meeting.
Resident Kris Clement requested that Duffy put more materials in meeting packets for the public to review moving forward. She also suggested that instead of discussing efforts by different departments at Selectboard meetings, he should be sharing progress of his own initiatives.
“It’s a little disappointing to hear our town manager say, ‘Sorry I’m not prepared’,” Clement, who previously sued the town claiming an open meeting law violation in 2024, said in her comment.
At the following meeting on April 22, Duffy did provide his own list of goals that included improvements to Tracy Hall, a hazardous roadside ash tree removal initiative and public works facility improvement planning.
But two items on Duffy’s list appeared to focus on how the Selectboard would treat him rather than his own efforts.
Specifically, Duffy wrote: “Selectboard is supportive of the Town Manager’s autonomy to do the job in the way he best sees fit without attempting to control day-to-day functions,” and “Selectboard values the efforts of the Town Manager and supports and defends the Town Manager from unfounded public attacks and/or attempts to disparage his work and reputation.”
That prompted a response from Griggs: “Are there specific experiences that would suggest you don’t have the autonomy you desire? Or too much autonomy? Or you think things are OK?”
Duffy responded that he felt the Selectboard’s suggested goals from the previous meeting were “controlling of the town manager.”
Duffy suggested at the April 8 meeting that perhaps board members were confused about the differences between a town manager and a town administrator.
“I thought, in reading over what was in the packet, that there may be a misunderstanding,” Duffy said.
While a town administrator has little autonomy, a town manager needs the space to work and to be free from political influence, Duffy said, referring to Title 24 of the Vermont Statutes Annotated, which outlines the roles of municipal governance in the state.
In recent years, the board has set goals for the town manager in the spring, which has created difficulties in completing them in time for a fall evaluation. Duffy suggested establishing goals in October moving forward so that he and future town managers have more time to complete them.
While Duffy didn’t particularly agree with goals from the Selectboard, he did not specify which ones were of concern.
“I didn’t think it was appropriate to go through one by one and say, ‘This is smart. This is nonsense. This is insulting’,” Duffy said at the April 22 meeting.
Classon said that the Selectboard needs to help devise granular achievable goals to set the town manager up for success. Otherwise, the evaluation would be too subjective.
“It’s not fair on the employee if it’s not specific and measurable,” Classon said at the April 8 meeting.
CORRECTION: The Selectboard is next scheduled to discuss the town manager’s goals at its May 27 meeting. A previous version of this story included an incorrect date for the next discussion.
