GUYSBOROUGH — Paraphrasing a famous quip about premature death notices in newspapers, the Municipality of the District of Guysborough (MODG’s) Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Barry Carroll – who also enjoys a good joke, from time to time – might say: “The rumours of my retirement are greatly exaggerated.”
That’s not to say there isn’t a major transition in the works for the senior manager, who has held the municipality’s top staff job for the past 16 years. “We are starting the phase towards me retiring, effective now and through 2025,” he told The Journal last week. “Council and I have come to an arrangement.”
That arrangement involves Carroll working remotely from his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) – where he and his wife have a house in Paradise, near St. John’s – every other month. “So, this month [November], I’ll be in the office in Guysborough,” he explained. “In December, I’ll be working remotely. Then, in January, I’ll back here again. It’ll work that way until the end of next year.”
As for finding his replacement, he said: “You will see council, probably in the second half of 2025, look at all the options. And those options include everything from hiring a recruitment firm to looking at internal candidates and promoting from within.”
He added: “I don’t really have any say in it, [but] over the years, I’ve helped other area communities recruit their CAOs. You generally see that 90 per cent of the candidates come from Canada. If you look at Guysborough, and what’s been happening here, we’re kind of now building for the next generation, and that’s what council has to think about.”
There is indeed much for council to think about. Carroll, 64, who was CAO of Sackville, New Brunswick, and both Portugal Cove and St. Anthony’s, NL, before being recruited to Guysborough – has a broad scope of work in his MODG role.
“In this role, you are the chief advisor to council. You oversee all the operations of the municipality on a day-to-day basis. Council is responsible for making policy and adopting budgets. And, it’s the CAO’s job to carry out council’s wishes... Population wise, we are a smaller municipality, but we are an interesting workplace because we are involved in some huge projects. In a lot of municipalities, the CAO’s role focuses on municipal government responsibilities only. Here, it’s a much broader job.”
Over the past decade-and-a-half, the career public servant has been at the table, front and centre, for every major economic and community development issue and decision in the MODG, including significant public infrastructure projects, emergency management enhancements, recreation program and building expansions, and at least three large onshore wind projects now in development. He’s also spearheaded efforts to improve MODG’s understanding of the offshore wind possibilities that are likely to emerge within the next four or five years, calling the area, on more than one occasion, “the centre of Canada’s wind universe.”
While operating at the right hand of three different council wardens since 2009, he’s seen the municipality’s fiscal fortunes evolve substantially.
“Back in the 1990s, councils saw that our tax rates were high and that Guysborough had to find a way to attract more businesses and more industry,” he said, noting that “…the offshore Sable energy project changed everything and really allowed us to... reduce taxes... and make investments over the years. Today, taxes are really only a third of our budget... because of our business activities. The deals we do with the other companies enable us to augment our budgets, so we don’t have to have high tax rates to provide the high level of public service that we do.”
Not that he’s going too far anytime soon.
“I’ve been a guy that’s been available 24/7 to council. I don’t take many days off. I don’t turn off my phone ever. So I’m always available.”
