Wayland Attempts To Get Rid Of 'Flat' Town Government

WAYLAND, MA — For the third time since 1989, Wayland this year will attempt to change the structure of town government, moving toward a strong town manager system with departments arranged in a hierarchy. The change would leave town volunteer boards and committees intact, according to officials.

The Board of Selectmen is finalizing language for a Town Meeting article to be voted on in the spring. The change is needed, Selectmen say, to modernize town government, and to get rid of the "flat" structure.

"I use this example: imagine if the schools were run with one school reporting to a committee or a PTO, let's say, and the other school reported up through the superintendent. It would be chaos," Selectman Lea Anderson told Patch this week.

The proposal has been in the works since around 2017, following a report from the Collins Center for Public Management about how the town's structure compares to other communities. The report found that Wayland is fragmented, with departments operating in silos and deferring to volunteer-led boards and committees.

A strong town manager government would allow the town to consolidate departments, and then have them report up a chain to a chief administrator. The Board of Selectmen would continue to set town policy, and Wayland Public Schools would remain independent.

If approved at Town Meeting, the "Select Board-Town Manager Act" would be implemented in phases, Anderson said. The first piece would be consolidating the town's financial structure — a second Collins report published in 2018 found that neither the town administrator nor the finance director has "sufficient authority to truly manage the overall financial operations of the Town."

According to the latest draft of the act from the Board of Selectmen, the town manager would be placed in charge of all finances of every department except schools. The finance director and finance committee would still assist with developing budgets. The committee would remain independent, but the finance director would report to the town manager.

The town has edged toward a stronger structure before. After a 2002 report from Maximus that pointed out weaknesses in the town's structure, Wayland changed from an executive secretary to a town administrator form of government. In 1989, the town tried to adopt an entirely new charter, but that was defeated at a 1990 Town Meeting.

On Thursday morning, the Board of Selectmen will meet to finalize the article language. The article will then go to the Finance Committee for comment ahead of the April 5 Town Meeting.

Anderson stressed that volunteer boards and committees would not be eliminated in the process. The 1989 charter re-write and the 2002 Maximus report did recommend reducing some of those bodies, a sticking point for many in town.

"Our focus is on the management structure of the staff, the paid people who do the work of keeping town government working every day," she said. "But we need to get with the times in terms of our management of the town. We want to make sure we're not doing things three times when we only need to do them once."

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect the proposed reporting structure for the finance director and finance committee.