Town Warns Of Impacts Of Staffing Shortages Ahead Of Summer

“We don’t have the resources to meet all expectations,” Nantucket Town Manager Libby Gibson said at the conclusion of a video released by the town earlier this month.

The “State of the Town” - which was posted to YouTube and checks-in at nearly seven minutes long - is a sobering assessment of municipal operations on the eve of the summer season. Narrated by Gibson, the video was produced by the town to give both residents and visitors a reality check and to set expectations regarding services that may not get delivered this summer with the same efficiency - if at all - as they have been in the past.

“I want to share with you the state of the town in the hopes that we can set expectations for the near future,” Gibson says in the video. “And frankly, ask you to have a little patience and understanding with the realities your town government is facing.”

The town currently has 40 vacancies across all of its departments, and the signs of the staffing challenges are already showing around town with “rash bins overflowing, street lights needing repairs, and limits on size and number of fundraising events,” Gibson said. Like many private sector businesses, the town is struggling to fill vacancies in a challenging labor market, exacerbated by the island’s escalating housing crisis. Municipal leaders are bracing for how that will play out this summer, which many are expecting to exceed last year’s booming season.

Gibson said the idea for the video was conceived in the early spring when she noticed a sign at the Offshore Animal Hospital off Crooked Lane. It read “The Whole World Is Short-Staffed. Please Be Patient.”

The message resonated with her.

“Every organization that has employees is going through the same thing,” Gibson told the Current this week. “We went back and forth between 'let's do it,’ and ‘maybe we shouldn’t because we don't want to upset people.’ But then we said there’s a reality here about what to expect.”

While the town’s initial fears that it would not be able to recruit enough lifeguards and community service officers (summer specials), those concerns were allayed as applicants poured in over the late winter and early spring. But Gibson said other departments - notably the DPW - remain short-staffed. Both residents and visitors will likely notice the impacts, Gibson said, but she is hopeful people will heed the warning and exhibit patience this summer as the crowds arrive.

“We started hearing that this summer is going to be crazy busy and how are we going to keep up?” Gibson said. “ We're concerned with our ability to keep up with the public's demand for town services. We can barely manage what we have. In fact, we can't’ entirely manage what we have. And we can’t manage more. So we came up with doing a state of the town message. We tried to deliver it in a realistic but optimistic way, to say that this summer could be great but adjust your expectations to being patient.”