Mayor Alex Roman announced at Monday night’s Town Council meeting that Verona will be hiring Joseph O. D’Arco to be the new town manager. D’Arco, a Bloomfield resident, has been the borough administrator of Paramus since 2010. He holds a bachelor of science in public safety administration from William Paterson University and a master of public administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Roman said that D’Arco has held administrative positions in many towns over the years, including Kearney, Sayreville, South Orange village, Rockaway and Caldwell. “When we interviewed him, we were really very impressed at the level of creativity and problem-solving that we saw out of him,” Roman said. “Every single scenario that we talked through with him, he had been through most of them before at some point in time or another in his career. And the ideas that he had put on the table for how we solve things were very out of the box thinking, which we liked a lot.” Roman said that D’Arco is a veteran and that he participates in many community service organizations.
Verona’s current township manager, Matthew Cavallo, announced last November that he would be leaving Verona for a new position in Wyckoff. Cavallo’s last day in February 11; D’Arco starts on February 7 so the two men will have a week to work together.
D’Arco’s selection fills one of three high-level vacancies in town. Last August, Superintendent Dr. Rui Dionisio said that he would be leaving Verona for the Ramapo Indian Hills district and in September, Chief Financial Officer Matthew Laracy left to take over the finances of Millburn. The Board of Education hired a search firm to find a new superintendent but has not named a replacement. Roman said this morning that the Town Council had wanted to first find a new town manager before choosing a new CFO.
D’Arco will be paid $180,000 a year for a three-year contract. While that is more than Cavallo had been paid, Councilman Christopher Tamburro noted that Verona will not be paying healthcare or pension premiums for D’Arco, both of which would have added to the cost of hiring him. Roman added that, “the numbers fall into different buckets but should not adversely affect our budget.”
