On November 21, longtime Hopkinton resident and retired police lieutenant Chuck Wallace penned a letter to the Select Board expressing his dismay over the recent turnover at Town Hall.
>> RELATED: Town heads into the Holidays with Serious Gaps in Leadership
Mr. Wallace suggested that the Select Board should take an an active role in attempting to determine the root cause of the “exodus” , and stated that in his 30 years as a town resident he had “never seen Hopkinton experience the loss of so many talented employees“.
The Select Board will discuss Mr. Wallace’s letter at their meeting on Tuesday, December 5. The full text is reprinted from the Select Board agenda packet.
November 21, 2023, via email
Subject: Employee Loss Concerns
Good afternoon Select Board members, Norman and Elaine,
I hope my email finds you all well and wish you a Happy Thanksgiving holiday. I am writing to express my concerns about the vast number of department heads and town employees who have severed their employment with the Town of Hopkinton this week, as well as those over the last few months, some after just a short employment period. I am saddened to hear that Liz Rourke Senior Accounting Manager / Town Accountant, Maria Casey HR Director and Mary Shirley Payroll Manager have all resigned this week. These three great employees join the vast list of department heads or employees that have also chosen to parts ways with the Town of Hopkinton. This list includes:
- Chief Financial Officer – Currently Unfilled
- Grant and Procurement Manager – Currently Unfilled
- Fire Chief – Currently Unfilled – Interim Chief
- Facilities Manager – Currently Unfilled
- DPW Director – Filled
I am wondering why the CFO position and Grant and Procurement Manager positions still remain unfilled as the Town of Hopkinton faces major financial impacts in the upcoming years and how many key financial department employees, including the CFO and Accountant, have actually come and gone from Hopkinton over the last several years and the reason why? Unfortunately, I have heard that other town employees will also be leaving soon.
With the expedited resignation of HR Director Casey, I am curious how this will impact the interviewing and or hiring of the many open positions in the police department, the selection process of the new Fire Chief and any other future department or town hall employees.
As a retired Hopkinton employee of 30 years and town resident, I have never seen Hopkinton experience the loss of so many talented employees, especially those as Department Heads or in key Town Administrative positions. There is not one town department that has not recently experienced the loss of employees and unfortunately the exodus of talent seems to be continuing at an unrealistic pace than we have ever experienced and at a pace we obviously cannot keep up with. The reason or reasons for this need to be looked into and corrected immediately before we are unable to fill these key positions due to the reputation Hopkinton may be labeled with, actual or perceived, regarding the continual loss of employees.
On March 15, 2022, I drafted and sent an email to all members of the Select Board, Town Manager and Assistant Town Manager about my concerns with the loss of town employees at that time. I respectfully requested an acknowledgment to my email. I received only one response of the seven people it was sent to. The one response was that “the Select Board is aware of the issue and is looking into it”. I did speak with a Town official shortly afterwards and addressed my concerns to them. The response I received was “The Select Board does not get involved with a person’s personal choice to leave Hopkinton if they so choose.” As a resident, I truly believe that we as a Town are well beyond seeing this past and current employee exodus from Hopkinton as a “Personal Choice” and should be looking at the reason for it as a priority that needs to be addressed expeditiously to determine the true reason(s) behind it and correct whatever deficiencies are found in order to maintain the healthy employee / town relationship we once had that made Hopkinton the place you were happy and proud to work for.
Respectfully submitted,
Chuck Wallace, Hopkinton, MA
P.S. I respectfully request acknowledgment of this email.
It is sad so many great careers were had, but now no one wants stay. 7 Jobs open in the past 3 months. A dishwasher job has been open for over 5 months, Police, Dispatchers and DPW jobs have been for a year and a half. SOURCE: https://groups.google.com/a/hopkintonma.gov/g/jobs?pli=1
Maybe it was a “personal choice” why people left, but it looks like people are choosing not to work in Hopkinton.
A very tough read.
I agree Chuck- if the leadership knows the answers it would be good to hear it and get things surfaced and corrected.Or Maybe The town needs some outside neutral professional assistance in this area if that exists. I think that assistance should prepare an assessment / investigation for root causes. But It is all personal information protected so we’ll never probably get to find out what the main issues are. PlusNo one likes to say anything about a past employer that can have future impact to them personally unless it can be given anonymously. I wonder if there is a state agency that helps towns with these issues besides the Secretary or AG that could serve as the lead and report back to the town?
Often times the reason for turnover is due to upper management. Unfortunately the TM and BOS aren’t going to look at the issue and realize this, but rather find ways of gaslighting the residents into blaming others for the problem. Finger pointing, blame, and sweeping it under the rug is a normal course of action that I will expect to see. Cleaning house is the only way to improve a problem sometimes.
I think it may be an elaborate scheme to save the town money to pay for the 100+ Million dollar school project, even though the town has already maxed out it’s line of credit… the town could’ve started by taking the 13+ thousand dollars get give to Norman on top of his 240k dollar salary. LOL
In reality the town is all too content to watch the whole place burn. As any attempt to fix this mess would entail them having to take some level of personal accountability for their utter failure of leadership.
Sounds like this commenter is sippin on some cold bitter beer
The problem is obvious: leadership. We aren’t receiving satisfactory answers because that would require town management looking in the mirror and realizing that they, themselves, are the problem.
I agree with what someone else said: CLEAN HOUSE!!! Vote out the entire BOS. Fire the Town Manager. Only way this gets fixed
I am submitting my comments in support of the concerns expressed by Lt. Wallace (ret.). Although separated from my nearly 32 to years as an employee of the Town of Hopkinton by more than thirteen years and more than 100 miles I still feel a strong connection to your community, and I follow your news regularly. I have read with concern about resignation after resignation from Town departments in general and from the Police Department in particular. I experienced nothing close to it during my time with Hopkinton. I can recall only 3 Officers during my 32 years leaving our department for another police agency. During my 11 years as Chief of Police we had one officer resign for other employment and that was a move to the private sector not another police department. Enough history, what prompted me to comment was the quote from a member of the Selectboard. “The Select Board does not get involved with a person’s personal choice to leave Hopkinton if they so choose.” It has been my experience that what the Selectboard says and the actions the Selectboard takes have a very significant influence on the personal choices an employee makes regarding their continued employment. I would go so far as to say all the Town’s Managers and Supervisors play a similar role in employee morale and the pride that they take in their work. I hope The Selectboard takes their role in employee retention seriously and demands the same from their direct reports. I wish you success in those efforts and continue to wish only the best for the community of Hopkinton. Thomas R. Irvin Chief of Police (Ret.) Hopkinton Police Department.
– People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.
“The Select Board does not get involved with a person’s personal choice to leave Hopkinton if they so choose.”
If the Town doesn’t attempt an exit interview with *every* departing employee, they are missing out on an opportunity to learn anything useful.
The cause of the exodus likely resides in the Town Hall – either with the BoS or TM, or some combination thereof – and even if they held up a mirror to themselves, denial would surely follow.
Are we going to continue to ignore the elephant in the room? Really? I recall several years ago Mr. Tedstone, when he was running for the Select board for the 1st time, ran on a campaign of promising to get to the bottom of this issue. And that was almost 10 years ago. He knew at the time what the cause was. But as soon as he got in not a peep.
Let’s see how long this continues to persist until someone finally states the obvious.
Thought of the day!!!!
A person who feels appreciated will always do more than is expected…!
Mr. Wallace’s letter along with the points made by retired Police Chief Irvin are right on point. Rather than ignoring the issue, our leaders/selectmen need to have a dialog with the town employees who are leaving to better understand the retention problem facing the Town. This is only common sense and should be a standard practice.
Rather than “blowing it off” with comments related to peoples “personal decisions” THEY NEED TO BE LEADERS. If they can’t or won’t lead THEY NEED TO RESIGN.
As another writer pointed out, people most often change jobs for reasons beyond money and most often due to management.