Blue Hill’s town administrator job, its top municipal management position, has been empty for more than a year and isn’t publicly posted — but the town is still looking for candidates.
After hiring three administrators in four years since it created the job, Blue Hill still needs the role filled but is instead trying to find a lasting candidate locally in a “more low-key way,” according to Select Board Chair Ellen Best.
“We don’t feel like it’s probably going to work well for somebody to move here to take over,” she said Friday, noting housing costs as one challenge.
Towns across Maine have had increasing trouble recruiting and retaining managers to run their daily operations in recent years, often meaning key positions are unfilled for months as municipalities look for applicants and face high turnover. Blue Hill’s approach shows a different way one town is trying to meet that statewide challenge, though it hasn’t yet filled the job.
Maine is already an older state and existing managers are nearing retirement age, experts previously told the BDN. Housing is also expensive, and smaller towns often can’t compete with cities or other states on salaries for the complex, often demanding roles.
The state’s university system no longer offers a pipeline for municipal leaders, either, and increasing public vitriol is often directed at managers, the Maine Monitor reported this summer.
Blue Hill residents voted to create the position in 2019.
The part-time Select Board had directly supervised town employees before, a system that officials said at the time grew antiquated as management became more complex with factors like new technology, increased expectations for government services, town growth and Blue Hill’s position as a service center for the surrounding peninsula.
The first administrator, Shawna Ambrose, was promoted from within the town office that fall and resigned in early 2022 to spend more time with family.
The position was vacant for months until Nicholas Nadeau was hired from Vermont in August 2022. He left a year later, partway through his contract. Julie Atwell, who moved from New Hampshire to take the position after Nadeau in September 2023, left last June to work as a business manager for local School Union 93.
The town didn’t have immediate plans to try to rehire then, Best told the Weekly Packet newspaper at the time.
The job opening still isn’t publicly posted, but the select board “definitely” knows the town needs a person to manage its affairs on an ongoing basis, she said Friday.
Town hall staff and the Select Board are sharing responsibilities as they wait to find someone through local connections to take on the role. Town office hours were reduced last summer amid other staff departures, she said, but are close to full capacity again.
The interim plan has created more work for both groups, according to Best.
Having an administrator would help board members focus more on long-term planning and the bigger-picture issues that may have motivated them to run for office, rather than administrative details, she previously said.
