McInerney out as Town Administrator, receives $147,500 buyout
Tim McInerney has stepped down as Grafton town administrator after coming to an agreement with the Select Board, according to a statement released by the board Friday.
The statement:
After some discussion, Town Administrator Timothy McInerney and the Select Board have mutually agreed to part company, effective today, July 31, 2020. The Select Board thanks Mr. McInerney for his years of service and wishes him well in his future
endeavors. The parties have entered into a mutually agreeable separation agreement that is based on the previously negotiated severance provision in his employment agreement with the Town. The separation agreement is a public record, and available
upon request.
As this is a personnel matter, neither the Board nor its individual members will be commenting further.
Under the separation agreement, which takes effect immediately, McInerney will be receiving $147,500 in severance pay, equal to a full year’s salary, in accordance with the contract he negotiated with the Select Board in the spring. In addition, he will also receive $20,664.32, the balance of his 252 hours of untaken vacation leave.
McInerney, who previously served as town administrator in Seekonk, was appointed acting town administrator in April 2008 following the departure of former Town Administrator Natalie Lashmit. He became Grafton’s full-time town administrator the following year and moved to Grafton in 2013.
McInerney is out of town and unavailable for comment.
The move comes after a tense period in town government marked by squabbling during Select Board meetings, the COVID-19 pandemic, an election which voted out two board incumbents and passed a $4 million Proposition 2 1/2 override, and the unexpected early retirement announcement of Fire Chief Micky Gauthier.
Gauthier rescinded his retirement after meeting with the Select Board while McInerney was on vacation a week later. He said McInerney had not met with him since Dec. 30, 2019, when they discussed the planned Fire Department overhaul that including the hiring of a full-time fire chief. Gauthier, who has worked on-call with the department for 47.5 years and as chief for about 17 years, was taken aback by the lack of communication, despite the assumption that he would be around to train his replacement.
The Select Board will meet Tuesday to appoint an interim town administrator.
[kofi] Support Grafton Common and local, independent journalism!
I want to express my sincere appreciation to Tim McInerney for his dedicated years of service to the Town. Grafton will benefit for many years to come from his wise financial leadership, recently garnering an SP+1 rating for short-term borrowing and an AA+ long-term bond rating from Standard & Poor’s for the Town’s “strong” management. I’m a newbie and only have called Grafton home for 28 years, but I doubt there has been or will be another town administrator who has had as significant an impact on construction or renovation of Grafton’s municipally-owned buildings and facilities (new and historic) and roads, on laying the groundwork for economic revitalization of abandoned and underused commercial parcels of land, and improvement of Town services. Thank you for a job well-done.
Another “Newbie” here, I have also only called Grafton home for 28 years. I think that a lot of people don’t realize what it was like Pre-Tim. Roads were a mess (with no plan), town owned buildings were crumbling, schools were overcrowded, ADA issues with the Library/Town House, calls for overrides every year, and low bond ratings are just a few of the many problems we faced. Getting these things under control saved us all a ton of money. Big ups to Tim for guiding us through these critical times, and saving us that money. The current board with their minimal collective experience are on the hook. If bond ratings go down, taxes go up, and planning is abandoned we will know where to look.