City manager position discussed at town hall

Montana State University's Local Government Center Director Dan Clark spoke at a town hall Monday about the possibility of the City of Havre moving to a commission-city manager form of government, which he spoke of positively for the most part.

The audience that evening was primarily made up of city officials, including council members who asked questions about this form of government and how best to educate the public about the change and what it would entail. Only a few members of the public attended the meeting.

Clark said a switch to a commission-manager form of government would involve taking most of the day-to-day responsibilities of the mayor, as well as the city finance director, and putting them in the hands of a city manager.

Under this plan, he said, the manager would conduct the day-to-day business of managing the city, but policy making and "big-picture" decisions would remain in the hands of a city council that would direct the manager.

He said it's one of the most important subjects a city government can contemplate as their communities, and society as a whole, evolves.

He compared it to how Havre Public Schools employs a superintendent while the Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees remains the ultimate authority and policy making body to which the superintendent reports.

Clark said 73 percent of counties and municipalities that have more than 2,500 citizens countrywide use some variation of this model, but Montana is something of an outlier with only 13 of its more than 100 counties and municipalities using the model.

While he spoke positively of the commission-manager form of government in general, he said every community is different and has unique dynamics to take into account when considering this change.

He said Havre would neither be the largest community in Montana to stay with its current form of government, nor would it be the smallest to change.

West Yellowstone, he said, has about an eighth of Havre's population, but because they have millions of tourists going through every year, they opted to adopt a commission-manager model.

On the other side of the spectrum, Clark said, Missoula still has a similar form of government to Havre, but has appointed a chief administrative officer overseen by the mayor instead of the council.

He said communities tend to start considering this change when city management becomes too complex to be handled by a mayor, and starts to require a trained professional rather than a person who got elected who may not have the necessary experience to run a complicated organization effectively.

He said Havre's fortunate to have had 12 years with a mayor who was very competent and knew how to manage the city effectively, just like their current mayor Doug Kaercher, but that may not always be the case, and there's always the possibility that someone without the necessary knowledge to manage the city effectively gets elected.

Clark said there's also the possibility of a mayor being elected who has wildly different political leanings than the council which can lead to friction and unnecessary drama within city government.

He said friction between a mayor and council isn't always a bad thing and can often breed new ideas and necessary conversations, but other times it can lead to incredible dysfunction.

He said a Montana community he's observed had this very thing happen with a mayor and council that was constantly at each other's throats and the community voted to go to a commission-manager government just to end the drama, and while it took a while for things to cool down in their politics it did seem to be for the best.

He said city managers tend to be trained specifically in public administration, often having master's degrees and national-level organizations made up of fellow city managers they can lean on when they need advice or help.

Checks in place on the manager

Clark said this is the main appeal of hiring a city manager, having a trained professional who can do the job while maintaining democratic control of the city through a democratically elected council, one he said the manager reports to and which can fire the manager at any time with a majority vote.

He said this incentive to keep the council happy acts as a check on the manager, who needs to maintain the trust of the people elected by the community.

He said another check on a manager is the International City/County Management Association, an organization of city and county managers from around the U.S. and the world who not only provide support to city managers when they need it, but also hold them to certain ethical standards and can revoke their membership should they fail to uphold those standards.

Clark said the revocation of membership from this organization can be a serious blow to the credibility of any given city manager and that check also serves to keep them honest.

He said organizations like this also help cities like Havre find qualified managers who are compatible with the community should they need to look outside Havre.

He said the standards for a theoretical Havre City Manager, like experience and educational background etc., would ultimately be up to the council, but these organizations can help them through that process and create official comprehensive job descriptions.

This level of control, Clark said, is another big appeal of the commission-manager form of government, with the council able to determine how much responsibility they want the manager to have, what they are and aren't allowed to make decisions about, and what the relationship they will have with city employees and department heads.

He said every community does things a little differently. He handed out the charters of many different cities in Montana to show what responsibilities and limits they've put on their managers and said it's never a bad idea to see what others are doing and borrow the ideas they think will work for Havre.

Can avoid radical change

City council member Andrew Brekke said he feels Havre isn't really looking to change too much and suggested that they base their changes on Belgrade's charter, which is already pretty close to what Havre already has in place.

"Our community is not up for radical change," he said.

Other members of the council appeared to agree.

City council members, as well as city officials, discussed a number of subjects at the meeting with Clark, including what would happen if they go to a commission-manager government and lose a mayor position, one that would be the tiebreaker vote when the council is split four-four on a matter.

Clark said there are two ways to deal with that. The frst is to keep the mayor position but take most of its responsibilities and make it more of a figurehead position, someone who would run meetings, make tiebreaker votes, but for the most part be a dignitary or spokesperson to the community, the public face of Havre, while the manager and the council handle most of the actual governing.

He said the council could also just opt to treat four-four split votes as failed motions and elect a presiding officer from among the council to run meetings.

He said the former option is generally, in his experience, more palatable to communities contemplating the change as few people seem to want to do away with the mayor position in its entirety.

Brekke agreed and said he thinks Havre probably feels the same way.

The cost of changing

Another issue council members brought up was that of cost and how much more it would cost to hire a city manager, but based on what he heard from them, Clark said it would be very little, if anything.

He said city managers are generally paid more than $100,000 a year, but those salaries are negotiable with the council and Kaercher said they are looking at the $90,000 to $120,000 range.

Council members said that potential cost has been a bit of a sticking point with the community in the past when they've put the matter out for a vote, but Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson said those concerns are ultimately misplaced.

He said if they were to hire a city manager, they would be all but eliminating the salaries of not just the mayor but also the city finance clerk, and depending on what they end up paying the manager, they may well save a little money in the end.

Kaercher said it's also worth considering that by eliminating two positions they're getting rid of a position's worth of health insurance benefits as well.

Clark said, even if they pay the manager on the higher end of their range, they'd be looking at something in the low five figures, which is a very small cost within the city's approximately $25 million yearly budget for what they can get in return, a cost that could be solved with a very minor shift in city resources.

"Even if it's $20,000, that's a rounding error from your budget," he said.

Peterson said, even if they do end up paying a bit more, it would never be enough that it would require the people of Havre to pay more taxes, and that's important for people to understand.

Clark said the addition of a city manager can also be a selling point for city employees who would then have a trained professional manager at the city, which will help city operations run more efficiently and guarantee a level of professionalism within the city.

He said professionalism doesn't appear to be much of a problem in Havre's city government at the moment or in the recent past, but that may not always be the case depending on who gets elected mayor.

He said despite the difficulties the city has had getting the public on board with this shift in the past, he feels like the city's recent successful shift to a charter government with self-governing powers, a change he regards as a positive one, they have earned a certain amount of trust from community members, some of whom were very concerned about the change.

"The earth did not crack open and swallow the town of Havre so the worst fears have not been realized," Clark said, " ...There may be a level of trust now."

Brekke and Kaercher said if they want to get this matter on the ballot this year, they will need to start talking about the specifics of the proposal soon, as Clark said people need to know exactly what kind of city manager position they will be voting to implement.

He said the council might consider reaching out to community leaders within the city and forming a committee to make recommendations about what kind of city manager position they would like to see, which may provide valuable insights and build more trust within the city's various communities.