SWAMPSCOTT — Despite reports to the contrary, Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said Wednesday that the town and school’s shared human resources director, Julie DeLillo is still on staff.
Fitzgerald said DeLillo, who was hired two years ago and served as acting town administrator this past July, is on paid leave, effective last Friday.
How long she will be out on leave is undetermined, he said.
“Ms. DeLillo is an employee of the town and the school district,” said Fitzgerald, who said he was reading a joint statement he had prepared with School Superintendent Pamela Angelakis.
“She is currently on leave. All HR issues of the town and school district are being appropriately handled and addressed during her absence. As with any of these personnel issues related to any employee, we can’t comment further at this point.”
The joint announcement from Fitzgerald and Angelakis comes after days of speculation about DeLillo’s employment status, and less than two months after DeLillo served as acting town administrator during Fitzgerald’s extended leave in July.
Multiple sources told The Item that DeLillo was no longer employed by the town of Swampscott and her LinkedIn profile shows that she is “open to human resources director roles.”
DeLillo did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the town website, DeLillo heads an HR department that includes two other employees, Deanna McLoughlin, who works as a school employee HR coordinator and Jeremy Lejeune, an HR/benefits administrator.
“We have staff working the office and both the town and school have individuals that are responding to HR needs,” said Fitzgerald.
DeLillo, a Melrose native, was hired by the town in the summer of 2018 and was later appointed as the town’s first disabilities coordinator.
Before joining the town, DeLillo spent six and a half years as the HR director for the Perkins School for the Blind. Before that, she worked a stint as director of HR for Vinfen Corporation in Cambridge, a human services agency for adults with psychological and developmental disabilities.
Her career started in finance, which included a stint at Filene’s where she was later promoted to her first position in human resources.
Three months after DeLillo was hired as Swampscott’s HR director, she told The Item her main goal was to bring in a new perspective that bridges the gap between the school and the town and makes them into one entity.
“In any town, taxpayer dollars are critical and we have to show efficiencies in how we use those dollars,” she said at the time. “If we can show that through a combined position, then we can gain those efficiencies. It’s not the town versus the schools; it’s one budget, one town.”
