ROCKLAND — Oct. 20, 2026 — Rockland’s town administrator last Tuesday proposed folding highway, sewer, stormwater, cemetery, tree and recycling center operations into a new Department of Public Works and recommended the current elected highway superintendent as its director, but the Select Board took no vote, with members divided over whether to act under the new charter or first ask town meeting about the elected post.
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Town Administrator Doug Lapp presented the plan under Section C-2.02 of the updated town charter, which the administrator said authorizes the Select Board to reorganize, consolidate or establish departments without returning to town meeting. Lapp described the current departments as separate and uncoordinated and said the purpose is not to cut headcount.
In a first phase, a new DPW director reporting to the town administrator would oversee highway, cemetery, tree, streetlights and traffic, and stormwater divisions. The sewer department would become a division, with the elected sewer commissioners keeping their policy role and the sewer superintendent continuing to run the plant. A facilities function would be added with no new staff, and responsibility for the recycling center, where two employees work, would shift from the Board of Health to the DPW.
Later phases could add an office manager, a laborer serving stormwater and sewer, facilities and fleet maintenance staff, and engineering and GIS functions, and could eventually move the curbside trash and recycling contract from the Board of Health into a sanitation division, which the administrator said could later support a trash enterprise fund. The Abington-Rockland Joint Water Works and the park department are not part of the proposal.
Lapp asked the board to approve, in order, an updated hiring policy, the reorganization and the administrator’s appointment of a DPW director, and suggested Jan. 1 as a start date. The hiring policy would let the administrator appoint an incumbent directly, without an external search, when a reorganization creates a position and that person already does more than half the work, subject to the board’s approval or veto under the charter.
I’m not recommending an external search, and I am recommending that our current highway superintendent be appointed the DPW director.
— Town Administrator Doug Lapp 39:38
The elected highway superintendent’s post would remain. Lapp said the current term ends in April 2028, that nothing requires the position to carry a salary, and that the recommendation is to zero out the salary next fiscal year and revise its duties ahead of a possible charter amendment to eliminate it. No current appropriations would change mid-year, the town administrator said. The town’s attorney, John Clifford, told members that the base salary budgeted for the highway superintendent should not change this year, and that the position has no control over staff or budget under the existing statutes and charter.
John Ellard said a DPW is needed but objected to the path, was not ready to vote, and would rather put the question of the elected post to town meeting, which he said has rejected eliminating it two or three times.
Clifford said the earlier question before voters was whether to replace the elected highway superintendent with an appointed one, which the attorney called a very different question.
Steven O’Donnell urged moving faster than July 1, saying residents did not fully understand the charter they adopted and the board has a fiduciary duty to keep the role from being held hostage, as he said the Board of Health had been. Lori Childs said the elected post should stay indefinitely, perhaps in an advisory role, and backed the recommended appointee. Tiffanie Needham asked for estimates of savings; in reply, the board was told a DPW would require ramping up staffing and would not produce the immediate savings of a treasurer-collector merger.
