Needham retirement board empowers hiring subcommittee to negotiate with finalist Katina

The Town of Needham Retirement Board voted to empower its hiring subcommittee to begin negotiations with Katina, a finalist for the retirement administrator position who currently works in inspection services for the Town of Milton.

Katina told the board she previously worked as a retirement counselor for the state and has experience calculating pensions, counseling members, and handling paperwork and payroll in a municipal inspection office. "So my name is Katina, and currently, I work for the Town of Milton as a, senior, senior administrative clerk," she said, describing a background that includes retirement counseling experience and a degree in healthcare administration.

Board members focused questions on the candidate’s experience supporting a board and handling payroll and reconciliations. Katina said she has scheduled and gathered information for a building commissioner, handled subpoenas and appeals processes, and trained staff through shadowing and "cheat sheets." On the scope of payroll she said: "the payroll I do now is for about 20 people ... I know in the 1st interview, you said there's times where there's 500 people," and she acknowledged that moving to a larger payroll load would be a learning curve she expects to manage.

After the interview, board members discussed cross-training, the need for clean reconciliations during transition, and hearing references before making a formal offer. The motion to authorize the hiring subcommittee to negotiate with Katina passed by roll call; each present board member voted yes.

The board instructed the subcommittee to call Katina’s references and then confer to produce an offer. The chair said the board expects to make a decision by Friday and noted that, if selected, Katina could begin during the last week of July to allow overlap training with the outgoing administrator.