Photo: Patrice Garvin, Belmont Town Administrator

Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs (and, yes, Jackson Browne for all you Boomers) asked the question: “Oh, won’t you stay/Just a little bit longer?” You can now add the trio known as the Belmont Select Board with their own version of the classic doo-wop song. Will you stay Patrice?

A day after it was revealed that Town Administrator Patrice Garvin was a finalist for a similar position in Danvers, the Select Board approved a significant pay increase to convince Garvin to continue her tenure in Belmont for the next five years.

Using a hastily added item snuck into the board’s Wednesday meeting agenda – inserted just within the two-day notification requirement for public meetings – the board voted unanimously to increase Garvin’s salary from $216,800 (OK’d in September) to $229,500 per annum as of Jan. 15.

The salary includes a compensation package in which Garvin will receive a 2 percent annual pay increase over her contract and a $5,000 retention bonus paid out at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Garvin’s new pay package came about as the town administrator’s future in the “Town of Homes” was suddenly viewed as tenative as she perpared for her interview in Danvers.

“This was not welcome news,” said Board Chair Elizabeth Dionne of Garvin’s possible departure, noting the town is facing many “mission critical” issues such as major zoning bylaw reform and a possible 2007 budget override. With the pool of qualified town administrators “vanishingly small” and with the knowledge it would likely take anyone hired at least two years to get up to speed, “I asked Ms Garvin a key question, would she consider an improved employment contract from Belmont?” said Dionne. While surprised by the offer, Garvin “agreed to talk.”

With time of the essence, the board acted quickly to keep the town administrator that one board member recently described as “spectacular.” First, it revised the board’s meeting agenda before Monday’s Special Town Meeting (whose members approved the town’s new Accessory Dwelling Unit bylaw) to add an executive session that was later reveiled to knock out the details of Garvin’s new salary contract.

The board had scheduled a Wednesday meeting to prepare for a second night of Town Meeting if it had run long on Monday. Usually, this “extra” board meeting is cancelled. But late Monday, the board hastily added to the board’s Wednesday meeting agenda an item on the “Discussion and Possible Vote to Ratify Amendment to Contract for Town Administrator (Item Added)” just within the two-day notification requirement for public meetings. At Wednesday’s meeting that lasted 13 minutes and no public discussion, the board reupped Garvin contract for five additional years.

Some citizens – while expressing support to retain Garvin’s services, where less than thrilled by the board’s transparency. “It was like they wanted to keep this quiet,” said one resident who viewed the meeting on her smart phone while attending the Belmont vs. Hingham Girls Hockey state quarter-finals in Stoneham.

For other residents, the cost of keeping Garvin is an issue. According to World at Work, a global advisory company, the 5.9 percent jump in her annual paycheck is a step up from the average pay increase of 3.6 to 4 percent in the US last year. At her new salary, Garvin earns more than Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy, who takes home about $222,000.

However, according to Dionne, the board’s action is to bring Garvin’s pay and compensation package to a comparable level to her peers, an issue Dionne said was not fully addressed in September when the board supported a merit increase for Garvin.

“Her current compensation package is not competitive,” Dionne said. “We have looked at all-in compensation comparisons for other town managers and administrators, and Garvin is near the bottom of the list despite having significant experience.” The Select Board knew this when we conducted her annual review last fall.”

While noting the subject of Garvin’s salary has been a topic of “enduring interest” to many Belmont residents, Board member Roy Epstein said her salary is based on the town’s assessment of the market, with a reasonable set of benchmarks for town administrator, police chief and fire chief, and the salary is completely in line with those competitive benchmarks.

“Retaining [Garvin] is something of great importance. I don’t think we have any reasonable alternative but to pay a market based salary. It’s not at the top of the scale, but it’s certainly not at the bottom. It’s in the middle, and that’s where I think we ought to be,” he said.

A comparison to eastern Massachusetts municipalities of similar size to Belmont shows that Garvin will just above the mid-line of the salary conversation:

• Arlington’s Sanford Pooler received $188,583 in 2022; 
• Lexington’s James Malloy took home $238,142 in 2023;
• Winchester’s Beth Rudolph made $215,995 when she was hired in 2023.
• Concord’s Kerry Lafleur received $246,671 in 2023.
• Burlington’s Paul Sagarino Jr. received $243,834 in 2023.
• Needham’s Kate Fitzpatrick made $234,008 before performance reviews in 2024.

For Garvin, returning to her office on the second floor of Town Hall is gratifying as it provides her the opportunity to continue the work she and her team have begun.

“You could start to see how all the work was starting to kind of intertwine with each other, and all the small decisions that we made years ago really coming to fruition now, and how it impacts other departments,” she said.

“So it’s really exciting to see all those things come together, and I appreciate the board’s willingness and opportunity to be in town to really to just keep going and then continue to build off of everything that we’ve done, and be able to do that with the team that’s in place,” Garvin said.