[MassHistPres] Staffing questions

[p schneider]

Worcester has one staff individual who offers us administrative support. 
I don't know just how much time he spends on Historical Commission 
matters. He is a member of the Office of Planning and Regulatory 
Services which also supports the Planning Board and Zoning Board of 
Appeals and handles, as the name implies, many city planning functions.

Worcester has 2 local historical districts which don't require much of 
our efforts. But we do have a local demolition delay ordinance which 
covers very many properties in the city and takes up most of our time. 
We get about 4 to 10 applications per month for a demolition delay 
waiver and our staff handles the paper work and coordination with other 
city agencies such as code.

Worcester has been quite generous in staffing various commissions and 
boards but I don't know of any metrics which justify a particular 
activity. However, many developers have to go through demolition delay 
waivers and so staff support is certainly justified as part of the 
city's basic development functions.

Peter Schneider
Worcester Historical Commission

slater at alum.rpi.edu wrote:
> Hi, I'm wondering if other cities and towns could give me an idea of
> roughly how much municipal staff is devoted to your historical
> commission or historic matters? 
> 
> The city of Springfield currently has zero staff members devoted to the
> historical commission, we only get occasional support in photocopying
> property-owner petitions. We have six districts with about 1,500
> properties in total, as well as a significant number of National
> Register properties. I'm suspecting that zero resources is less than
> what we need to operate, and I'm curious as to how other cities and
> towns do things.
> 
> Also, do other cities and towns do performance-based budgeting which
> provide metrics on how to track "usage and performance" of the historic
> commission staff? Springfield's sole metric is "number of certificates
> issued (we did 140 in FY2006, 95 in FY2007), but the staff doesn't issue
> the certificates so it's really a bogus metric.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ralph Slate
> Springfield Historical Commission 
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