Posted on May 18, 2020
At their regular meeting on Wednesday, May 13, the Barnstable County Commissioners discussed creating a new position to manage the county’s municipal dredge program.
The county dredge provides dredging services to municipalities throughout the region. This year an outside consultant was brought in to help chart the future of the program, which has at times struggled with staffing as well as balancing the program’s revenues with expenses.
Christine Player, the consultant who is leading the development of a five-year business plan for the dredge, said she has been working with County Administrator John Yunits Jr. to develop a job description for a position that would administrate the dredge activities and manage the finances of the program.
“It would not be a field person,” she said. “It would be exclusively a person solely dedicated to running the program.”
The responsibilities of the position, Ms. Player said, would be similar to those of someone who is running a contracting business.
She said the person who would ideally suit the position would be somebody who understands dredge engineering and construction management.
“Those people aren’t a dime a dozen, I can assure you,” Ms. Player said. “This no doubt is a full-time position that we believe is needed to really move forward with this program successfully.”
Ms. Player said the position would likely require “a six figure” salary in order to attract applicants with the necessary credentials to do the job.
The new position would be paid for out of the dredge operating budget, an enterprise account, funded by municipalities that purchase the dredge program’s services. Ms. Player said she hasn’t been able to work out exactly how much room exists within the dredge fund’s budget to support the new position, as her strategic planning process has been delayed by the pandemic.
The discussion came a week after the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates narrowly passed appropriations to fund the operating budget for the dredge program at its regular meeting on May 6. The assembly passed the budget with 52 percent voting in favor.
The dredge program came under fire during the assembly’s discussion before the vote. Mashpee delegate Thomas O’Hara, Dennis delegate John Ohman and Orleans delegate Christopher Kanaga all expressed discontent with the management of the dredge program. All three voted against the appropriation of the program’s budget.
At Wednesday’s commissioners meeting, Commissioner Ronald J. Beaty noted that the narrow passage of the dredge program’s budget signaled the necessity of the new position.
“Getting down to brass tacks,” he said, “based upon the issues that have been arising with the county dredge program and feedback I’ve seen from the Assembly of Delegates, including some even voting against the dredge’s budget, it’s pretty clear that we need this position.”
Board of commissioners chairman Ronald Bergstrom said that questions still remain concerning the scope of the new position, which will depend on how much dredge work will be contracted in the coming year, but that he supports moving forward with creating the new position “as quickly as possible.”
Source: capenews
