Annual Review of Town Manager Under Way as Paicos Details FY13 Accomplishments

The annual review of Foxborough Town Manager Kevin Paicos got under way this week with the town official providing selectmen a self-assessment of his goals and objectives over the past year.

Paicos submitted a five-page document detailing accomplishments he said were the result of a team effort approach at Town Hall.

“It’s very important that everybody understands that I don’t do anything alone,” Paicos told selectmen Tuesday. “Everything that gets accomplished around here is a composite of a whole bunch of people’s work. It’s very hard for me to write a document that says here’s what I did.”

Specifically, Paicos credited the work of the town’s department heads for the result of many of the listed accomplishments.

“I will tell you that we collectively, and when I say 'we' I mean all the department heads … that’s the brain trust that manages the community on the day-to-day basis,” Paicos said. “Everyone contributes and I’m proud in my part of it. I’m proud of what we collectively accomplished. This is much more an indication of what we’ve done collective than what I’ve done personally.”

Those accomplishments, according to Paicos, were in emergency planning, financial stability, regional sewer funding, economic development, personnel management, public safety, regional services, public works and energy efficiency.

In the category of emergency planning, Paicos pointed to the town’s overall success in the past two storms to hit Foxborough and the improved partnership with National Grid.

“[We] put a lot of pressure on National Grid,” Paicos said. “They’ve made a lot of repairs. Success we’ve had in the past two storms, a lot of it is good fortune. Some of that is weather; a lot of it is what we did collectively. National Grid would not have done what they did if it wasn’t for the collective efforts of what we did.”

In terms of financial stability, Paicos said he was “enormously proud of where the community is” financially.

“We were one of 13 communities in the state last year that did not levy the maximum amount of taxes Prop 2 ½ allows us to,” Paicos said. “That is an exceptionally significant accomplishment that is enjoyed by all the department heads.”

Paicos also pointed to the work the town has done with employee health insurance.

“The savings this year for FY14 is over $1 million,” he said.

As for regional sewer funding, Paicos maintained the position that this has long been the single biggest debate in town for years and it is finally a thing of the past.

“For years  [regional sewer funding] has been the single biggest debate in this community … whether or not the Kraft organization owed the town money,” Paicos said. “It was an unfortunate debate but the reality is what we’ve finally accomplished means we don’t need to have that argument anymore because we

A side benefit of that development, according to Paicos, is the town and the Kraft Group can move forward with its business relationship.

“We are not going to them with hat in hand,” Paicos said. “We can now see them as equal partners and a lot of good things are beginning to happen. As the months unfold you are going to start seeing good things happen because we are finally getting back to where we were a few years ago where our relationship was one of mutual benefit as business partners with nobody being the party over-dependent on the other. Those are two separate accomplishments.”

Regarding economic development, Paicos pointed to the town’s recent tax break negotiations with Invensys that would enable the company to invest $33 million in to existing buildings and retain 900 jobs in the community. It would likely also put to rest any concern of the company leaving Foxborough.

“We just did a great thing [Tuesday],” Paicos said, referring to the selectmen’s decision to support Invensys’ TIF proposal at May’s town meeting.

Other economic accomplishments include Kraft development on Route 1, billboard negotiations and effective marketing of the town to attract future business.

In the field of personnel management, Paicos told the board the town has done a lot of work in developing systems.

“We’ve built a non-union pay plan,” Paicos said. “We will be able to announce some things in the area of police department compensation. We’ve got an HR policy book nearing completion. We’ve got our paid benefits system updated.”

Paicos says he’s also effectively held town employees accountable.

“In the past two years, I have engaged in a lot of employee accountability,” Paicos said. “I have had to discipline employees when needed and am happy to report with 200-odd employees it’s only needed to be done seven or eight times. There have been a few employee separations. The impression is government doesn’t hold people accountable, [but the reality is] oh yes we do and we do in a significant way.”

As for public safety, Paicos said the town recently completed its analysis on liquor calls to Patriot Place and the report is being drafted for selectmen.

“Hope to have that done in a week or two,” Paicos said.

Patriot Place representatives presented a performance analysis of the Route 1 complex last month, showing the number of police-related calls and incidents have been much lower than originally estimated in the 2007 KOFF Report.

Paicos also pointed to the compliance check conducted at all the town’s licensed liquor establishments, which yielded in six vilation hearings.

“I hope the board took note of the fact that rather than have extremely lengthy four-hour hearings, you now typically have a half-hour hearing where we already have a plea bargain arranged where there’s significant punishment given out,” Paicos said of the liquor license violation process. “Very balanced restitution offered but we are routinely now having special counsel bills paid and monies for police department training. Bottom line at the end of the day we are hoping it will make the streets safer for people to travel on, particularly when the drinking establishments get out at night. I give the majority of the credit to the chief.”

For regional services, Paicos says Foxborough’s been a leader in the region.

“We obtained a $100,000 grant to do a feasibility study with our partners in Norwood, Medfield and Walpole for regional public safety dispatch,” Paicos said. “That is well underway and will produce a final report some time this summer. Design phase and construction, I’m hoping next year. We funded a regional veteran service organization. This town was in the leadership position. Continue to work on the regional sewer agreement.”

Foxborough Board of Selectmen chair James DeVellis said the board will review Paicos individually over the next two weeks before returning to open session to present its finding in one formal evaluation on April 16.

“Kevin’s contract requires review and it’s tied to goals and objectives,” DeVellis said. “I thought it was important to get his review done before April 30^th because last year what happened was there was an issue with new members coming onto the board and there was an issue that the past member couldn’t speak because he wasn’t on the board and the new member was speaking but didn’t have any basis because she wasn’t on the board last year.”

DeVellis said selectmen will rate Paicos in various categories on a weighted scale of 1-5 and present the town manager with an overall grade on April 16^th.

“It’s almost like he’s going to have an A B C or D [from the board],” DeVellis said.

The board must decide by June 30^th whether or not to offer Paicos a new contract, which requires a one-year notice if it chooses not to extend his contract past the June 30, 2014 expiration date.

Paicos replaced former town manager Andrew Gala in 2010 on a three-year contract.

DeVellis added the town manager’s review must be conducted in public.

“We can’t do this in private,” DeVellis said. “We owe it to the public for them to hear it.”