Our View: Create a city manager to save Havre money

We know lots of people who would make excellent mayors of Havre.

People who have a real feel for the community.

People from all political persuasions and parties who have a sense of where the city should be headed.

People who are leaders in education, business, social organizations or non-profit groups who have worked with many people in the community.

People with leadership skills who work with various political and social factions to keep the city moving in the right direction.

The unfortunate thing is that very few, if any, of these people know how to negotiate a contract with a municipal union, know how to deal with a union grievance, can work out the details of municipal bonds to pay for a new city project, know details of state and federal environmental regulations or can drop their business, social or family obligations to spend time leading city hall through the pounds of legal paperwork the city must deal with every day.

The solution to this dilemma is simple to us.

Create a part-time mayor’s position so we can elect a person who can work with City Council in determining the direction of the city, and then pass off to a paid professional the details of coming up with a plan to creatively and inexpensively as possible carry out the orders of the mayor and City Council.

In short, Havre needs a city-manager form of government.

To us, it is the perfect system needed to harness the creativity and energy of the city’s political leaders and combine them with people who have the expertise needed to implement the ideas.

The city’s Study Commission is reviewing the city’s form of government now. We hope the members decide to the take the bold, courageous and perhaps controversial step of creating a city manager form of government.

The plan is the best to help the city deal with its cash-strapped fiscal situation and help put the city of the road to the bright future we see for it.

It may seem that since the city is in such tight financial circumstances that this is not the time to hire a city manager. It certainly won’t be a minimum-wage job.

But we would offer the idea that the city government is in such dire straits that it can’t afford not to have a city manager.

We need someone with the expertise to figure out how the city can continue to improve services to the public and take part in vibrant expansion we see for the city while stretching the present budget as far as we can. In other words, we need a creative, free-thinking penny-pincher.

The present system was designed decades ago when the mayor‘s job involved popping into city hall every once in a while to see how things were going. The job today is vastly more complex than that.

Mayor Tim Solomon makes the grand sum of $22,000 a year for what is technically a part-time job. Hourly, he’s probably one of the lowest-paid city employees for what is the most responsible of all the city positions. How long the city will have someone like this available is a good question.

The mayor has experience in government finance from his years as Hill County sheriff, but it’s very difficult to keep up with the pounds of paperwork in the form of new regulations and mandates that come down from Washington, D.C., and Helena every week.

Should someone who has a love of Havre and a feel for its people be ineligible for mayor because they don’t have knowledge of municipal finance and labor law? To us, that would be a terrible waste of talent.

The Study Commission will soon be holding public hearings on the matter. We hope they take a strong stand in favor the city-manager form of government and launch a full-fledged effort to overcome the understandable doubts many people will have given the present fiscal state of affairs.

City Council was unable raise more than a pittance to help support the regional bus system that everyone agrees is vital to the city’s future. So the obvious question is “how can the city afford a city manager?”

The city’s manager’s marching orders will be to find money to pay his or her salary several times over. The new manager should seek out ways to save money, latch onto grants, find new possibilities of providing services cheaper and help out city employees do their jobs better and faster.

We hope the city isn’t penny-wise and pound-foolish. Spending a few extra pennies now will save lots of pounds later.

The Study Commission should send to the voters a city manager proposal and then launch a massive voter education effort to show the value of the position to the public.