SAUGUS — If the Saugus Board of Selectmen wants to retain Scott Crabtree as Town Manager, it will have to let him know by next August.
Selectman Jeff Cicolini has already got the ball rolling on the subject, requesting a meeting to discuss an extension of the contract that will expire in August 2022.
However, Selectwoman Debra Panetta said Thursday that it is written in Crabtree’s contract that he must be informed by August of 2021 whether the board wants to retain him
“We need to let him know,” Panetta said Thursday. “He has a family. It can be difficult when you have a job that ends at a certain time.”
Broaching the subject at last week’s Board of Selectmen meeting, Cicolini said he thought Crabtree had so far done a good job of tying up “loose ends” in the community during his three-year tenure.
“He’s got less than two years on his current contract,” Cicolini said. “I, for one, wouldn’t want that uncertainty. I think he’s done a nice job wrapping up some loose ends with our existing contracts around town.
“I think we can at least begin the dialogue of what that looks like and start the ball rolling on that.”
The previous Board voted unanimously in 2017 to approve a five-year contract for Crabtree that is now set to end on August 24, 2022.
Panetta and Cicolini, are the lone holdovers on the board that negotiated Crabtree’s current contract. It is written into Crabtree’s contract that the board must let him know a year prior to the expiration date whether it is going to retain him, Panetta said.
“This should be settled within the next year,” she said. “I think Scott has done an excellent job as town manager.”
Panetta is firmly in Crabtree’s corner.
“He has done a good job working on our finances,” she said. “The only time we had to go out and ask for money was for the middle/high school. I don’t think we’d have the middle/high school without his efforts. We worked hand-in-hand on it.”
Presuming Crabtree finishes out this current contract, he would be the longest-serving Town Manager in Saugus history.
Crabtree was appointed to the position in 2012, succeeding Andrew Bisignati who is, currently, the longest-serving Town Manager in history. But a new board that took office in 2014 voted, 4-1, to fire him after a series of clashes. Panetta was the lone dissenting vote.
That board was recalled in an overwhelming vote in early 2015, and among the first things that new board — which included both Panetta and Cicolini — did was rehire Crabtree. And he has served ever since.
Elyse Carmosino can be reached at [email protected]. Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].