MADISON — Denise Ducharme is out as town manager, after 2 1/2 years in the town’s top administrative job.

The town said in a brief statement issued Tuesday night that the Select Board did not renew Ducharme’s contract. The three-year contract was set to expire June 30.

The statement, which did not name Ducharme, said she is no longer “actively working” in the town manager role, effective immediately.

“The Town will make arrangements for interim leadership and will provide updates regarding next steps, including the process for appointing a successor as soon as information is available,” the town’s statement said.

While elected officials have given no reason for the move, there have been tensions between Ducharme and some Select Board members, town officials and residents at recent meetings over several issues, including town spending.

The announcement followed a special Select Board meeting Monday evening, the agenda for which was two closed-doors executive sessions to discuss personnel matters.

Select Board Chair Sally Dwyer shared the statement about Ducharme’s termination shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday. On Wednesday, Dwyer said in a phone call she could not comment on what led to the board’s decision.

Board member Kathy Estes confirmed Tuesday that the board unanimously voted against renewing the contract at the Monday meeting. She referred all other questions to Dwyer.

The other three board members — Shawn Bean, John Martins and Michael Pike — did not return phone calls and emails Tuesday. Pike and Martins, reached via email Wednesday, referred inquiries to Dwyer.

“I’m disappointed in their decision,” Ducharme wrote in a text message Wednesday morning, “but grateful for the opportunity they gave me to serve my community.”

She declined to answer further questions about the board’s decision.

Ducharme, 66, said she is unsure at this point if she will look for other employment or if the termination is effectively her retirement.

“I will always have a heart for public service, so I’ll look for other opportunities to serve,” she wrote.

The Select Board, meanwhile, is working on appointing interim leadership, Dwyer said. She said she has contacted the Maine Municipal Association, which maintains a list of interim municipal managers, many of whom are not available due to high demand across the state. Town staff has been working hard during the sudden transition, Dwyer said.

Ducharme, who was hired in August 2023, took over as town manager after Tim Curtis left the town after eight years to become Somerset County’s administrator.

Ducharme was hired on a three-year contract. Her annual salary was initially set at $81,500, with periodic increases to $90,500 by July 2025, pending performance reviews. It was later amended to reflect increases would be in line with the raises given each year to town office staff and the town librarian, estimated at the time to be lower than the original wage increases.

The town is honoring the contract through the end of its term, Dwyer said, meaning Ducharme will be paid full wages and benefits.

Her contract stipulates that if the Select Board terminates her for cause, Ducharme is entitled to a six-week buyout at her current salary as well as paid out unused vacation time at 100% and paid out sick time per the town personnel policy. The contract requires the Select Board to provide a 30-day notice for termination, but the board can request Ducharme not report to work during that time, provided the town continues to compensate her and provide benefits.

Ducharme, a Madison resident of several decades, had worked as an auditor for the state for 20 years and unclaimed property manager. Before coming to Madison, Ducharme had worked in software consulting and was laid off a few months before applying for the Madison position.

Becoming a town manager was not her original plan, Ducharme said at the time. And although her background was not in municipal government, she comes from a family of public servants and politicians. 

Ducharme is daughter of Richard “Spike” Carey, who was Waterville’s longest serving mayor, a Democrat who was elected to the Maine House and Senate and a town manager and selectman in Belgrade. Her mother, Helen Carey, was a Waterville city clerk and deputy register of deeds in Kennebec County.

Ducharme’s husband is John “Jack” Ducharme III, a Republican state representative who represents Madison, Norridgewock and Cornville.

In recent weeks, Martins and others took issue with Ducharme’s purchase of mugs as staff appreciation gifts and a proposal to spend thousands on a professional development speaker, both of which Ducharme told the board were from budgeted funds.

At a March 9 Select Board meeting, resident Lisa Wright called out Ducharme for months of missing financial reconciliations. At the next meeting March 23, Ducharme said she worked with town office staff to develop better financial processes and was expecting the town would be caught up by mid-April. 

Dwyer said at the meeting that part of the issue was due to staff turnover, and the town was prioritizing fixing the problems with its books.

The town dealt with its fair share of public controversy during Ducharme’s tenure, although some appeared to be shaped by developments beyond her control.

Town officials and residents wrestled for nearly two years over plans for an addiction clinic offering methadone and other treatments, originally proposed in the center of town. The company behind the clinic, Acadia Healthcare, eventually moved its plans to the Madison Business Gateway business park, and the select board approved its license last month after struggling to even take a proper vote on the application.

There was significant turnover in town personnel. Voters overwhelmingly recalled the town’s elected road commissioner in September 2024. The town’s full-time recreation director, a position created recently, quit earlier this year. And the town’s code enforcement officer was hired away by the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments for a new regional position.

Madison’s annual policing contract with the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office remains a topic of constant debate during each budget cycle.

The local economy — and tax base — remains precarious, too, a decade after the paper mill that defined the town closed for good. TimberHP, the wood fiber insulation manufacturer that revitalized the mill, worked through Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2025. Backyard Farms, the tomato greenhouses that once promised hundreds of local jobs, under its current ownership has had its migrant workers apparently targeted in recent federal immigration enforcement raids and some local leaders have expressed doubts about the company’s future plans.