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Personnel committee backs Aaron Ragusa Katon for Marlborough city collector; committee approves extra vacation week request
Summary
The Personnel Committee approved the mayor’s nomination of Aaron Ragusa Katon to be city collector and assistant finance director, discussed collections practices and uncollectible taxes, and agreed to include a mayor-requested additional week of vacation before forwarding the appointment to the City Council.
The Marlborough City Personnel Committee on July 14 voted to approve the mayor’s nomination of Aaron Ragusa Katon as the city collector and assistant finance director and agreed to forward the nomination to the full City Council at its next meeting. Committee members also discussed tax-collection procedures and uncollectible balances.
The mayor’s letter described Ragusa Katon’s municipal experience across several towns and noted work managing tax collection, utility billing and transitions to financial systems such as Munis. Council members pressed the candidate on operational scale and customer-facing duties given Marlborough’s larger population and budget.
Council President Michael Ossing noted the city’s approximate scale — ‘‘from 23,000 residents… to 41,000’’ and an increase in budget size to ‘‘a $226,000,000 budget’’ — and asked about challenges. Ragusa Katon said they have worked the counter in smaller offices and described an approach focused on helping frustrated residents understand and correct issues. Ragusa Katon recounted an example of outreach: "I literally just pick up the phone and said, this is what's outstanding… they were down into the office within 5 minutes and paid what they owed," which the candidate offered as an example of effective, low-cost collection work.
Committee members questioned how the office handles uncollectibles and abatement processes; Ragusa Katon described working closely with assessors, using parcel-balance reviews to show residents outstanding items, and leveraging software workflows (examples named during the discussion included OpenGov) and permit/stop-work holds as tools to reduce delinquency.
A motion to approve the appointment — with an added mayoral request to include an additional week of vacation in the appointment package — was moved, seconded and approved. The committee voted to suspend rules to place the nomination on the next City Council agenda for final confirmation.
The committee adjourned at 8:02 p.m.
