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Finance committee refuses midyear approval for three Water & Sewer positions amid concerns about timing and leadership
Summary
After extended questioning about vacancies, cross-training, and whether a new department director should set staffing priorities, Somerville’s finance committee voted to recommend against three midyear Water & Sewer staffing requests and asked staff to return with the requests in the FY26 budget.
Kelly Hebert, director for finance and administration for the Water & Sewer Department, asked the Finance Committee on March 11 for authorization to use available Water Enterprise Fund wages to fund three positions: a utility billing manager, a service operations manager and a reclassified billing analyst. Hebert said those roles were intended to address workload and cross‑training needs in a department that “produces or generates at least 51,000 billable invoices every year.”
Hebert and other staff described the request as urgent because of high billing volumes, recent turnover in senior Water & Sewer leadership and a series of vacancies that department leaders said were hampering customer service and bill‑run operations. City budget and HR staff supported the request as part of a short list of…
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