Katie King has had an eventful few months.
In April, the Select Board voted to approve her hiring to succeed Kate Fitzpatrick as Needham’s second Town Manager. In May, she signed a three-year contract that will pay her a base salary of $238,000 in year one, with up to 3% raises in years two and three.
On June 7, she got married. She celebrated her one-month anniversary on her first official day as Town Manager and said she expects her streak of monthly milestones to come to an end.
“I’m not coming in with a list of major changes that I want to make right off the bat,” she said. “Even though I’ve been here five years, it’s different to be in a new seat.”
Her approach suggests a belief in the ancient dictum of festina lente, to “make haste slowly.” Or as her predecessor Fitzpatrick was fond of saying, “everything takes 18 months.”
“I’m definitely going to spend time just observing, seeing how the processes work from this new perspective.”
“If I think something could be improved, of course, we’ll make those changes,” she said. “The town is really well run, so there’s a lot that’s worth keeping,”
King grew up in Sutton in central Massachusetts. Her father worked in real estate and her mother a special-education teacher. She graduated from Boston University and worked in the nonprofit sector before switching to public service.
She has worked in Needham since 2020 when she was hired as deputy town manager, overseeing town operations while the town’s other longtime deputy, Dave Davison, oversees finance.
One of her first major decisions will be to hire her successor. The town posted the deputy position last month and it has drawn more than 100 applicants.
“The applicant pool has been really strong. I’m so pleased with it,” she said. She expects to have someone in place by early fall.
At the end of this month, the Select Board will hold its annual goals planning session, or possibly sessions, which will guide King’s work for the coming year and beyond. King doesn’t expect any surprises.
“Pollard will definitely be on there,” she said of the process that is well underway for the extensive renovation of the Pollard Middle School and other aspects of the school department’s master plan.
“Then there’s the future of the Stephen Palmer building. That site will be on that (goals) list.”
King also expects the board will continue work on a goal that is not related to a particular project, but involves how the town government handles communications and community engagement.
“As a town, we’ve done a lot of things on that front since I’ve been here over the last five years. So what’s the next thing? What’s the next strategy to make sure people feel like they know when to plug in and how to plug in? And then, when people do engage, how do they feel heard in the process?”
King noted that town governments rely heavily on volunteers who serve in various capacities and collectively play a major role in policy development.
“I wish more people knew how much of the decision-making and direction of the town is set by volunteer residents,” she said. “It’s really astounding. And how much time and energy those volunteers commit to their town work.”
She noted that volunteer participation fell off during COVID but has been steadily rebounding. “We actually now have more people applying to be on boards and committees than we have seats, which is amazing.”
Before coming to Needham, King spent seven years working in Boston, first for Mayor Thomas Menino and then for his successor, Marty Walsh.
She was the city’s director of Intergovernmental Relations and, in that capacity, she represented Boston on the board of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. “That was when I fell in love with local government,” she said.
In 2019, she left her job with Boston to pursue her master’s in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
While at KSG, she planned her next career decision. “I was asking around, ‘What communities are really well run? What bosses would you want to work for?’ And Kate’s (Fitzpatrick) name kept coming up over and over.”
At that same time, Needham’s deputy town manager position was being advertised. King applied and was chosen. In between her accepting the job and starting, COVID happened.
So, by comparison, the challenge of filling the shoes of the iconic Fitzpatrick after her 25 years as the town’s CEO will certainly be less daunting than dealing with a pandemic.
“One of the things I think about most coming into my role now is to really respect what the governance structure is,” she said. “All of us work under the charter and the bylaws that the community has set for themselves.”
“I’m excited to get going.”
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