Town staff proposes safety coordinator and IT technician to reduce single-point risks

Town staff presented three positions budgeted in FY27 and asked the board to discuss whether to remove contingency and authorize hiring. Dominic, senior risk and IT manager, argued a safety coordinator would redistribute day-to-day safety work, inspections and training and reduce dependency on a single risk manager supporting more than 200 employees.

Dominic described a telematics pilot (Motive) used to track driving behavior and said reducing preventable workers' compensation exposures has measurable savings: he estimated an average workers' compensation claim at about $60,000 and suggested avoiding a small number of claims could offset staffing costs. On IT, Dominic and staff said the police department's day-to-day needs require an on-site technician to ensure 24/7 public safety support and to provide documentation, basic cybersecurity work and redundancy; he noted municipal benchmarks of roughly one IT person per 40–50 employees and presented a contract-to-hire cost example (~$57,200 for six months) as a comparator to hiring in-house.

Commissioners asked for more precise insurance-claims and rate projections and for a clearer cost/benefit analysis; several members expressed support for moving forward with the two operational positions (safety coordinator and IT technician) sooner than the staff-attorney conversation, while asking staff to bring final numbers and implementation timing to the August meeting.