As they plan their agenda for the year, the Town Council is confident that Town Manager Michael Borg can make their vision a reality.
During their August 14 meeting, council members said that Borg received a “solid” rating in his annual review and was meeting expectations as town manager.
Council President Justin Pare said the review by the council rated Borg’s performance a two-point one on a scale of zero to three, with zero being the lowest score and three being the highest.
“His performance review reflected that, with all scores for every metric being above “meeting expectations. That is very good,” Pare said. “There is always room for improvement, for all of us, including myself- but overall, I think Town Manager Borg has done a tremendous job, and his review, taken in totality, was very positive.
According to the review, the council unanimously agreed that Borg’s greatest strength was his ability to manage budgets and funding and his innovative planning of repurposing the Fisher College into a senior center and food distribution center.
The review also highlighted his continued work with the school department on the MSBA school project and initiative to change the town’s trash program to bring new containers.
Council Vice President John Simmons praised Borg for his work negotiating union contracts and changing the town’s health insurance to save money for future projects to maintain operations.
“For me, I chose to rate Mr. Borg based on the big picture,” Simmons said. “Solid, fiscally sane, balanced budgets being his highlight and strongest part of his job performance.”
The review then states that communication between Borg’s administration and the council is an area for improvement.
The council expressed in the review that there could be better responsiveness from the town manager’s office and more ways to create better relationships between them and department heads for collaboration.
“At the end of the day, Mr. Borg takes feedback into account on big-ticket items, and the final product always reflects compromises,” Simmons said. “I believe if the council saw earlier buy-in on feedback, his rating would be even higher.”
Pare went on to add that despite Borg not receiving the highest score, the town is still very much grateful for his work and he would continue in his role as town manager after the council unanimously voted to extend his contract for four years with the mutual option for a fifth year.
“In addition to the strong overall review, the fact that we signed a long-term extension shows the support Town Manager Borg has for the long-term from the North Attleboro Town Council,” Pare said. “He got a solid review across all of the performance metrics.”
As for Borg himself, he said he’s preparing to do more work for the upcoming year.
“Some things we fell short on, some things we succeeded,” Borg said. “It’s been a very busy year coming out of post-COVID. I think we set out to accomplish a lot of things, and some things we hit right on the sweet spot.”
