Hingham town administrator retires to care for elderly father

Aug. 09--HINGHAM -- Ted Alexiades has been a guiding hand for the town's finances for 23 years, from school project interest rates to affordable housing developments. And now he's leaving.

Hingham's town administrator and former finance director confirmed Wednesday that he'll retire as of Dec. 31, 2017. He's 53 and has been the town's chief executive since 2011.

He told The Patriot Ledger that he's retiring early to help take care of his 85-year-old father, who lives in California and has Alzheimer's disease.

"It got to a point where if I stay another couple of years, I'll have a better pension, but I'll enjoy that at his grave site," he said.

He'll be on the job at town hall through September. His assistant Thomas Mayo will likely be appointed interim administrator while selectmen conduct a search for Alexiades's permanent successor.

"It's a huge job in our town, so we want to be sure we get it right," Selectman Paul Healey said. "I've seen Ted's financial acumen on full display, and that's going to be a void."

Healey, Selectmen Chairman Mary Power and Selectman Karen Johnson all praised Alexiades's role in keeping town finances on solid footing. Power said he's been "instrumental" in Hingham's maintaining a triple-A bond ratings for most of the past decade.

He has also weathered criticism from some former selectmen, who accused him of taking too powerful a role in town management. Healey and others rejected that claim.

Alexiades likes to say he's the manager of "a $100 million company" --Hingham's municipal budget is now $105 million --and he said he's especially proud that he saved taxpayers millions of dollars, through timely reductions to bond-issue interest rates and town employees' health insurance premiums. (He negotiated Hingham's move to the state's Group Insurance Commission.)

He's also proud of his role in helping the town reach the state's 10 percent threshold for affordable housing, so Hingham won't be forced to accept Chapter 40B "anti-snob" residential developments.

Alexiades is a native of Santa Barbara, Calif., but he's lived in Massachusetts since he moved east to attend Boston University in 1982. He and his wife Angela and their college-age daughter are longtime Kingston residents.

He was Dartmouth's town accountant from 1990 to 1994. Hingham hired him as accountant in 1994, and he held that position and then was finance director until 2011. Meanwhile, he served one term as a Kingston selectman, from 1995 to 1998.

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