The Dukes County commission launched a search for a new county manager this week.

At a special meeting Wednesday morning the county commissioners decided to advertise for a full-time position and said they will look for someone with strong leadership and communication skills, grant writing abilities and financial management skills.

“We need someone who can foster an atmosphere of trust between the community and county, be a proponent of inclusion, who can [demonstrate to people] that this is their government, not a foreign government,” said county commissioner Leonard Jason Jr.

Board chairman Melinda Loberg added that budgeting skills are a high priority.

“This is probably one of most important [requirements] of this person’s job I would think,” she said.

County manager Russell Smith announced his resignation earlier this month, after four years on the job. Mr. Smith will step down on May 1.

The county manager principally oversees the integrated pest management program, the veterans agent and the Vineyard Health Care Access program.

Commissioner Tom Hallahan, speaking via video conference call, said he wanted to make sure the job description was clear “to avoid power struggles for anyone who’s coming in [to the position] in the future.”

“The job summary itself, the way it’s worded, makes it sound that the county manger has jurisdiction over all the agencies associated within the departments in the county and we know that’s not the case,” he said. “It’s been a chronic issue because it is not clearly defined.”

Commissioner Tristan Israel questioned whether the new manager position should be full or part-time. “I think the part-time model could work at this point in time,” Mr. Israel said. “We have an administrative assistant position that can and does accomplish quite a lot.”

Mr. Israel also questioned the salary, budgeted at $63,500. “We only have so much money allocated for our administration and it ain’t a lot,” he said.

But Mr. Jason and county treasurer Noreen Mavro Flanders both said the demands of the job require that it be full-time.

“If you’re asking this person to be the liaison between the towns and county that requires time,” Mrs. Flanders said. “If you’re asking the person to understand grant writing . . . while overseeing the maintenance of buildings . . . this all requires time.”

Mr. Jason agreed.

“I was the first county manager we ever had here and unless you’ve held that position you have no idea how time consuming it could be,” he said. “It’s those things you don’t see that just take place and it’s very time consuming. And the people that criticize have never experienced that.”

In other business, commissioners voted to reduce the annual assessment for the six Island towns in the fiscal year 2013 budget. Thanks to a $205,000 surplus, town assessments will total $665,490 down from $870,650.

The surplus is due largely to a decrease in a liability fund for the county sheriff’s office, which is no longer needed now that the sheriff’s department is administered by the state.

The county advisory board will meet on March 7 to vote on the $5.8 million 2013 operating budget.