HARTFORD — The Selectboard has interviews scheduled this week with finalists for the permanent town manager position, which has been filled on an interim basis for 10 months.

The interviews, scheduled to take place in executive sessions on Wednesday and Friday, come after a town manager search committee comprising community members, non-voting town employees and a Selectboard member forwarded four names to the board.

“I’m excited about the process that the Selectboard is going to go through to, in essence, find our new town manager,” Joe Major, vice chairman of the search committee, said in a Monday phone interview. “... Our job ... hopefully is over.”

Kim Souza, the Selectboard’s representative on the search committee, said she expects the Selectboard will be able to make an offer after it goes through the interviews this week. She also said she thinks the town is in a better place than in previous periods of leadership transition. Souza credited acting Town Manager Gail Ostrout, normally the town’s finance director, and acting Assistant Town Manager Paula Nulty with leading the community well on an interim basis.

“They’ve done a great job in a difficult time,” Souza said.

Souza also said police chief, Gregory Sheldon, who started in February, has provided stability in that department.

Major acknowledged there is no guarantee the town will hire one of the four finalists. The committee could need to do further work should Selectboard members be unable to settle on a candidate, or if the person selected doesn’t take the job.

“That is a possibility,” he said.

The Selectboard placed Tracy Yarlott-Davis on administrative leave last October, after less than two years on the job. A separation agreement was finalized in December.

The committee formed in March and conducted five public forums in order to collect input into the qualities community members would like to see in the town’s next leader. The committee also sought input through two online surveys, one for community members and another for employees.

The committee was aided in its work by St. Albans City Manager Dominic Cloud, who provided assistance through the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. The Selectboard approved spending up to $15,000 for the service in March.

“Hartford’s been a real pleasure to work on,” Cloud said in a Monday interview. “...It’s got so much going for it.”

The committee, with Cloud’s assistance, developed a brochure for recruiting candidates. It was based on the input the committee gathered through the forums and surveys. It describes the town of nearly 11,000 as “a center of commerce and culture in the Upper Valley, a two-state region long known for combining high-quality jobs with a high-quality lifestyle.”

The manager will be responsible for leading 105 full-time employees with an annual operating budget of $24 million.

The description of the position explains that it is “fundamentally a people-centered position. The Manager must be able to inspire confidence from the elected officials and the general public; must be able to lead the staff and align them with the Selectboard’s policy objectives; and must be comfortable in a highly visible role where the ability to connect with others is an essential function.”

The advertised salary range is between $130,000 and $160,000, and benefits include participation in the Vermont Municipal Employees Retirement System. The town pays 85% of health insurance premiums and contributes to a health reimbursement arrangement. The manager also will receive either a town car or a mileage stipend.

The new manager will not be required to live in Hartford, although, the brochure notes, proximity to town is important. A relocation stipend of as much as $7,500 is available.

The committee was looking for someone with managerial experience within a municipality who could point to some successes within that position, Major said. They also wanted someone who was a “great communicator” and a “team builder.”

Given Hartford’s recent challenges with finding the right fit in its town manager, the committee also looked at how long the candidates had been in their current positions.

Major noted that the committee’s efforts do not guarantee success.

“There may not be right fits,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that the last two choices that the town has made weren’t permanent fits but you go back to the drawing board and try to learn from the mistakes you made previously.”

The town hired Yarlott-Davis, previously an auditor for the city of Oakland, Calif., in December 2020. Her arrival followed the departure of former Town Manager Brannon Godfrey, who announced his resignation in the spring of that year after a little more than a year on the job. Preceding Godfrey in the position was Leo Pullar, a retired Army colonel, who arrived in 2016, but left in 2018 after being diagnosed with cancer.

Major, who served on the Selectboard when Yarlott-Davis was hired, said he thought the COVID-19 pandemic and associated travel restrictions may have affected that process.

“This was a little better process, I believe,” Major said. “I’m excited that I believe that all of the (candidates) — even the candidate from out of state — will be in person.”

The job opening netted about 55 applicants, about two dozen of which were qualified, Cloud said. From there, the committee interviewed eight candidates before selecting the top four, whose names he declined to provide.

“We get better candidates by offering a confidential process,” he said.

The committee had some diversity of opinions in terms of how to rank the different qualities they were looking for in the candidates, Major said, but the members were able to have a respectful back and forth, and ultimately reached consensus on the names it forwarded to the board.

“Now it’s a question of who’s the best fit at this time; who’s got the energy for it,” Cloud said. “It’s a big job.”

Major acknowledged that the Selectboard has seen some internal “strife,” but he said he believes the board members will be able to put that aside when picking the next manager.

“I really do believe that they will come together and do a great job of hiring the right person,” he said.

Though the Selectboard has at times struggled to communicate internally, Souza said the board has participated in trainings to help it work together more collaboratively.

Souza said she’s been on a bit of a “roller coaster of optimism and despair” in terms of the town’s leadership. But now, she said she feels: “We’re in the optimism homestretch.”

Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.