Town Moving to Hire Central Facilities Manager

Town offices and the school system will operate under the same facilities manager under a plan developed between Town Administrator William Keegan and Superintendent June Doe.

Dedham Board of Selectmen received a job description of the position – which has not been posted as of yet – that calls for someone well versed in technologies the town has implemented through the multi-million dollar Siemens project.

An open position within the school department, and money from an empty procurement officer position at Town Hall allowed for the creation of the position.

The new hire will oversee facilities management at all town buildings and all school buildings in the district.

When questioned by the board, Keegan said the town would rate the success of the position based on utility costs and the conditions of equipment.

“We’ll be able to build our budget that more matches what our needs are,” said Michael LaFrancesca, assistant to the school superintendent for business affairs. “We’re going to have a better understanding of what our capital needs, we’ll have a better understanding of what our maintenance budget should be, our utility budget should be because we’ll have data.”

Once two separate positions with different capital project agendas, the one person will develop capital requests for all buildings, and build a budget that matches the needs of all town buildings.

“This really introduced the opportunity to collaborate and work together to achieve a capital program that could be done where we work on central priorities together,” Keegan said.

The position would start at around $100,000 and allow the facilities manager to take home the school-owned truck that the district already has.

Selectman Carmen Dello Iacono spoke out against giving vehicles to town employees that live outside of town limits, but endorsed the position.

“This is not a spend, it is a savings,” Dello Iacono said. “Once this thing gets in place, once the data is entered, we will see savings on this.”