SWAMPSCOTT — The Select Board voted unanimously to combine its Building Department with Marblehead’s Building Inspection Department in return for roughly $1,000 a week for the shared services.
Introducing the shared services agreement before the board Wednesday evening, Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said after discussions with Marblehead Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer, it appeared Swampscott’s Building Department would dedicate anywhere from 10 to 16 hours of labor serving the Town of Marblehead.
“We talked a little bit about Marblehead’s efforts to really hire a building commissioner. There’s a real dearth of certified building commissioners throughout the Commonwealth — that’s another pressure point that many municipalities are seeing, and Marblehead has struggled to build that position,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald turned the conversation over to Swampscott Building Commissioner Stephen Cummings, who told the Board that the agreement would serve as a test in order to determine the tenability of a regional building management agreement between the two neighboring towns.
Just as the agreement would help Marblehead fill its building commissioner role, Cummings added that Marblehead’s larger staff would help bolster some of Swampscott’s building inspection and maintenance services, particularly for plumbing and electrical inspection.
“This is a trial basis thing right now. I can’t commit to anything until I see all the dynamics and how they work. It’s got to be give and take. It can’t be just give everything to Marblehead without taking anything for Swampscott,” Cummings said. “If it could work, it could really benefit both towns … We have two very part-time stipend workers — a plumbing inspector and an electrical inspector. It’s always worked out, but it could be very crippling very fast.”
When Select Board member Doug Thompson responded to Cummings, asking whether the town’s Building Department had sufficient staff resources to commit to serving a larger town, Fitzgerald responded that since both town’s departments are relatively small and work on different schedules, the combined effort could ensure more efficient and consistent service for both towns.
Before taking a vote, Select Board Chair David Grishman echoed Fitzgerald’s remark, adding that given Swampscott and Marblehead’s proximity to one another and similar landscapes, the two municipalities should work closely with each other to tackle their shared issues.
“By potentially sharing staff, regionalizing, and considering these types of opportunities, it allows us to do more with less from a budget perspective,” Grishman said. “We are similar communities, we share similar needs, similar wants, and we have similar demographics. We don’t have to be North and South Korea. We can work together for 364 days out of the year, and on Thanksgiving Day, we can still hate Marblehead.”
The board will meet again in March to review the inter-municipal agreement and decide whether it can be become permanent.
