Mansfield Select Board approves new assistant town manager and finance director position

MANSFIELD -- September 26, 2018, Mansfield Select Board creates assistant town manager post and calls November Special Town Meeting. The board voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a new job description for an assistant town manager/finance director position, ending years of a combined finance director and town accountant role that auditors from two consecutive firms had flagged as understaffed. Town Manager Kevin Dumas said Finance Director John Stanbrook spends an average of 20 to 21 days per month on accounting duties alone, leaving roughly 10 days for strategic finance work, and that new growth revenue came in approximately $96,000 above projections, enough to fund a separate town accountant hire on an ongoing basis. "We've got a finance director and an accountant that doesn't share the same brain," said Select Board member Stephen Schoenfeld. "That's a good thing. Right now we don't have that whatsoever." The board also voted unanimously to call a Special Town Meeting for November 13, with a warrant closing deadline of October 5 at noon, limiting articles to capital improvements, free cash appropriations, a loan order amendment for the high school back-wall project, and master plan funding. In other action, the board unanimously approved the transfer of the all-alcohol package store license at 377 Chauncey Street to R&R Liquors Corporation, with Dashrath Patel as manager, and appointed Christopher McCluskey of East Street to the Open Space and Recreation Committee.