That hot summer prompted Butsch to go into management. He went back to school, earning a bachelors and master’s in engineering and public administration from Northern Kentucky University, respectively. And leading a public works department was his highest career aspiration, Butsch said.
Butsch, 57, will retire from Fairfield at the end of May after meeting that goal.
“I had no intention of being city manager,” he said. “I like to be closer to the action, and the city manager is overseeing the various departments. I like to be more focused in a smaller environment.”
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Fairfield City Manager Mark Wendling said Butsch is “very passionate about the city’s infrastructure, particularly the roads. It’s something he’s made sure we’ve kept up with, and it’s something he takes very, very seriously. It’s almost personal to him.”
Butsch has been working in city government at some level for 38 years and has been consistently working a job since he was 16. So when he retires at the end of the month, it will be the first time since he was a teenager he’ll be without a job.
“I’ve been blessed. I’ve never been unemployed,” he said. “I want to be without a job for once in my life.”
Butsch got into the public works field, which handles a community’s infrastructure, as a teenager. He first started with the city of Forest Park.
“I liked it, and I liked the construction side of it,” he said.
Butsch started with the city of Fairfield in May 2008, leaving a similar position in the city of Springdale after 18 years. Because he was in the same job for so long, it became too routine, he said.
“When you make a change to another city, there is a whole another set of challenges, and so you get reinvigorated a little bit,” he said. “I wanted one more challenge before I retired and ended my career.”
That challenge lasted 12 years.
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Some changes he made were subtle, and others are big. He hopes his proposed streets sustainability plan will be a lasting change. He presented the plan to City Council last week and hopes the board will adopt it as it would ensure the success of the city’s roads system.
He called that “vitally important to the success of our roads system.” He said many communities allocate a certain amount of money and tell the public works departments to “go do the best you can with it,” which isn’t the best approach.
“By doing the sustainability plan, it puts us on track and every three years we have to adjust to make sure we pave enough roads to keep it up so they will never get behind,” Butsch said. “That way in 20 years, we can say, ‘We’re paving the roads at the same level we did 20 years ago.’”
Butsch developed the plan starting in 2016 as he reviewed the city’s historical data on redevelopment. He internally enacted his plan in 2017, but any internal policy or director’s directive could change with new leadership.
“With the council’s approval, however, there’s continuity in the future,” he said.
Wendling said the roads program was scaled back following the downturn in the economy a decade ago, “but we’ve been investing in them heavily over the last four years,” and the city’s keeping up with their maintenance at this point.
“I certainly think Dave’s done things to ensure that it stays better than when he found it,” he said.
Wendling anticipates an announcement on the process to name a successor “soon.”
At the May 26 City Council meeting, Butsch was awarded a key to the city for his 12 years of service to the city.
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