SWAMPSCOTT — Town Hall’s new customer service team captures the “one-stop shopping” experience. Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said that’s what residents deserve when they do town business.
The three-woman office is also an example of how job titles, unchanged for years in Town Hall, are getting redefined or scrapped. It’s about building a more efficient town government, Fitzgerald said.
“Efficiency and resiliency are challenges for every town,” he said.
Former Assistant Town Accountant Crissy Raposo is supervising the customer service team with Elena Berube hired as a customer service representative with Spanish-language fluency and Dianne Folan, whose previous town experience was in the Assessing Department.
“I see this as a really exciting change as once the office is fully activated it will be a one-stop shop for 80 percent of all the customer service needs for our residents,” Fitzgerald said.
Residents walking into Town Hall with property tax and permit questions and other needs can get answers in one office instead of “having to literally go to three or four floors to accomplish that,” Fitzgerald said.
But Fitzgerald, who signed a four-year contract to work in Swampscott in 2017 and received high marks from the Select Board in 2018, acknowledged that reorganization and resulting changes aren’t limited to any single town office.
“Anytime we have a change, we conduct a vacancy review to ensure we are evaluating the job duties and options for greater efficiencies both for operations and for Swampscott’s bottom line,” he said.
Swampscott resident Marzie Galazka is Community and Economic Development director, replacing Peter Kane, a longtime familiar town official now working in Utah.
Senior Planner Molly O’Connell works with Galazka.
“She comes with a great deal of planning experience. I see Marzie and Molly as a dynamic duo,” Fitzgerald said.
Select Board Chair Peter Spellios said Town Hall changes reflect a recognition by the board that “front of the house functions are critical” to serving town residents.
“Sean has made it clear he wants to make it easier for residents to get services,” Spellios said.
Swampscott has 160 town employees and about 30 work in Town Hall with another 450 people employed by the public schools. Fitzgerald said efforts to make town government function more efficiently don’t only include personnel changes.
He said Town Hall’s layout prevented departments for years from working at maximum efficiency. The town accountant’s office was located in one part of the former mansion with the assessor’s office in another corner of the building.
Offices have been moved so that town finance employees work in offices located yards away from one another, and planners and inspectors work in close proximity, creating “nucleus teams” focused on town projects.
