Tisbury town administrator John (Jay) Grande will not be seeking reappointment to a fourth term when his contract is up next March.

After more than a decade in town hall, Mr. Grande said he advised the select board last month that this would be his last year on the job, giving the town a long runway to find a replacement.

“I wanted to give them ample time to make a succession plan … but they also have a little sense of urgency,” he said.

“I haven’t crossed, mentally, [into] the retirement zone, [but] I have no doubt that the recruitment and hiring process will generate some very fine candidates,” Mr. Grande said, in a telephone conversation with the Gazette following Wednesday’s select board meeting.

“In the interim, I’ll be working diligently through March 12, 2025,” he said.

Before taking the Tisbury job in 2013, Mr. Grande was a longtime town employee in Framingham, where he headed the planning department, he told the Gazette.

He has been appointed unanimously three times by Tisbury select boards, Mr. Grande said.

“I guess that’s kind of unique,” he said. “I don’t want to break that trend.”

Gearing up to search for Mr. Grande’s successor, the select board this week appointed a three-member task force to study his current job description and town bylaws governing the position.

“The purpose of the task force is to draft a job description of the town administrator’s position and delineate its role, responsibility, and authority relative to the town’s boards and commissions and other town entities,” select board member John Cahill said at Wednesday afternoon’s meeting.

To form the task force, the board appointed former town moderator Deborah Medders, past select board member Jeffrey Kristal and Rick Homans, who serves on the Tisbury zoning board of appeals, and the nonprofit Tisbury Waterways, Inc., board.

Mr. Homans, who also was a member of Tisbury’s master plan advisory committee, said the town administrator’s job description is at odds with town bylaws in multiple instances.

“Just as one example, the finance director and the finance team are hired by and report to the select board. But in the job description, the town administrator is responsible for the financial affairs of the town itself,” Mr. Homans said.

The task force will engage a consultant for the study and report its results, with recommendations, to the select board in August, Mr. Homans said.

Once approved by the board, the job description would be presented in the form of a bylaw in a warrant article for the special town meeting planned for October, he said.

“There would likely be amendments to the bylaws at that time to make the other references to finance and information technology, et cetera, consistent with the job description,” Mr. Homans said.

Tisbury voters may also decide to change the position from administrator to town manager, as recommended in the new master plan being presented to the public Monday at 5 p.m.