City Manager Hire Crucial to Moving the City Forward –
City Manager Hire Crucial to Moving the City Forward – The city manager hire is crucial for the future of the city. This individual needs to set the tone for the changes that are going to have to take place.
First, he failed to foresee the economic and budget crises before it was too late. The city was always overly rosy in its economic view, it failed to properly take advantage of the last round of employee negotiations, it overcommitted in the mid-2000s on pensions and salaries, and that is a failure of leadership.
Bill Emlen’s line was always that things were not as bad in Davis and that we could persevere. But it was worse than that. Mr. Emlen reacted, to what would become an ongoing budget crisis, with temporary cuts achieved through attrition and then a clumsy reorganization.
As a manager he was quite poor, promoting many city employees into upper management positions who were, quite simply, well beyond their scope of expertise. It almost appears that his goal was to put people into management positions who could never challenge him.
In short, there is massive realignment needed in City Hall as the round of budget cuts looks more like temporary ones than permanent cuts. There needs to be new leadership within the city. And someone has to have the guts to make difficult and painful choices.
Along these lines, I am increasingly concerned that we will not be able to achieve these goals within the parameters of the current search. I have heard through a variety of sources that the field of applicants has been rather weak to date.
A big unresolved question is whether the current interim City Manager, Paul Navazio, will end up applying for the position. For a variety of mostly personal reasons, he seems genuinely torn.
I would also add that I am uncertain as to whether Mr. Navazio would be the right choice here. Like most people, he has strengths and weaknesses.
Another issue at this point is cost. For all of the hand-wringing about the exploding city salaries, the one area in which this really has not occurred has been at city manager level. The position is advertising for about $170,000 per year. That puts it on the relatively low end for city manager salaries, particularly for the difficulty of this position in a place like Davis.
There are arguments that cut both ways in terms of the idea of raising the advertised salary to $200,000. The downside is that it probably would result in higher salaries for other top positions. The city is in the red in terms of its budget, and that money would have to come from somewhere.
Moreover, we are going to be arguing and trying to convince city employees to take cuts in salaries and pensions, but we hire a new city manager, with a big raise from the previous one? That is going to make things more difficult.
On the other hand, I am told that there are other city manager positions open and that Davis is, indeed, on the low end. And then there is the fact that a good city manager could actually save the city a lot of money in the long run.
We really need to hit a home run with this hire because of what needs to get done in terms of the budget, pensions and reorganization.
I am reminded of the argument made last year when the council eventually gave Police Chief Landy Black a raise. Under Jim Hyde, the city was routinely having to pay out money in the form of claims for complaints about the police department. This was not a small amount of money, on an annual basis.
Since Chief Hyde left and was replaced with Chief Black, the amount of claims against the city has dropped to almost nothing. You could probably find a police chief willing to work for less, but it may be pennywise but pound foolish. You get what you pay for.
That is my concern here. I do not think we have had a good city manager since John Meyer left. We have an organization in desperate need of real leadership.
However, bringing in a city manager at $200,000 would also cause problems.
Hopefully, a lot of these issues get discussed and fleshed out on Tuesday. Aside from the budget itself, this is the most important decision currently facing the council – and maybe even more important, as the two are not unrelated.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Spending more money on salary for a city manager at a time of fiscal crisis sends the wrong signal IMHO. The city just cannnot do it ethically, fiscally or from a prudence point of view. Keeping up with other cities’ salaries is how we got in this financial mess in the first place. I also find it hard to believe the city cannot find someone adequate for $170,000 a year, at a time when jobs are scarce. Paul Navazio would probably do just fine. It is the City Council that gives direction to the City Manager, and the current Counsel seems poised to grapple with the city’s ongoing budget crisis. Why not give Paul Navazio and the current City Council a chance, and stop bleeding city funding for consultant fees for the search? Just my opinion…
[quote]I also find it hard to believe the city cannot find someone adequate for $170,000 a year, [b]at a time when jobs are scarce[/b].[/quote](emphasis mine) That last part of your logic (and you may very well be right in your main point as to what the appropriate salary is) is IMHO, flawed. To take a lower end City Manager position, which at the end of the day is terminable by the CC on any given Tuesday night, one would have to be: 1) unemployed (and if you are a good candidate, why is that?); 2) an in-house candidate who wants to increase their compensation; 3) a up-and comer assist CM who will want the position to add to their resume and move on after a year or two; 4) independently wealthy; or, 5) a City Manager who sees the handwriting on the wall where they are at, about to be dismissed, and is looking for a “lifeboat”. Not sure we’d be well served by anyone in those categories.
I actually could see a very competent individual taking a risk at a position that would pay less than they could make in “boom” times, but not now.
The job pays less than the DJUSD superintendent, but the CM needs to understand not only what the Supt. needs to understand (finance, HR, groundskeeping, facility maintenance, politics), but water supply, sewage treatment, drainage, roadway maintenance, traffic control, street/pathway lighting, OR be in a position to completely trust their staff to take care of the areas they are not familiar with.
[quote]It is the City Council that gives direction to the City Manager, and the current Counsel seems poised to grapple with the city’s ongoing budget crisis.[/quote]
ERM I would say this oversimplifies things. In practice we’ve seen that City staff has an enormous amount f influence.
$170k sounds like a lot but even in this economy it isn’t that much for a really talented person. Do we want to save $20-$30k and then find we have further budget problems?
I honestly don’t think that the total compensation is the problem. John Meyer, who is considered by many to have been an excellent city manager, was paid well below average and stayed over eleven years.
I think that the very best people take a job because it is interesting, challenging and they can make a difference.
I always felt that the problem with recruiting a large pool of superior city manager candidates is that the career path is not on the radar screen of most young people.
If you ask a bright, talented young person what he or she wants to do when they grow up, they will say “doctor”, “lawyer”, “engineer”, “scientist”, “author”, etc. Some of the most talented people from my high school did end up in federal or state level service, but no one even thought about municipal level government as an option. Of course there are great people out there, but I don’t think salary is the issue. I think it takes creative outreach. There are a lot of brilliant, unemployed and underemployed people out there who have steep learning curves.
It is going to send a very bad message to our employees if we ask them to take cuts as we are raising executive salaries, and I have no reason to believe that the results will be that much different in terms of recruitment.
It is also important to remember that the $170,000 is base salary, and that total compensation is far, far higher than that, especially if we were to calculate the true cost of the pension and retirement health benefits. Most attorneys and physicians that I know do not have pensions or retiree health benefits.
The hypothetical new city manager who has worked in any PERS system for most of their career (military service counts towards PERS too), can retire at 55 or 60 with a guaranteed $150K+++ pension plus full retiree health.
Again, I don’t think that compensation is the issue. I think the issue is that I never hear kids saying: “When I grow up, I want to be a municipal public employee”.
One piece of data that I have asked for many times, but have never received, is the actual cost to us when we hire a high paid city manager who works for us at the height of his/her career for 5 or 10 years (the average city manager tenure is about 4 years, no matter how much you pay them), and then retires at 55 or leaves for another job. I don’t know the formula by which our retiree health and pensions are calculated for this individual under this standard scenario (but I am going to keep asking for this data), but given the rate average turnover of city managers state wide, former city managers could eventually end up costing the city a big chunk of our operating budget.
Remember, we are a small town. There will always be bigger cities that can afford to pay a city manager more.
By way of comparison, on a per capita basis, the City of Sacramento could afford to pay a city manager $1.25 million a year in base salary alone to equal our top salary range of $170,000. We can’t compete with larger cities when it comes to recruitment or retention.
[i]”Again, I don’t think that compensation is the issue.”[/i]
I agree with Sue. As long as we are roughly in the total comp range that a city manager for a city the size of Davis generally pays, we should not expect to get better candidates by offering a lot more money. Bad candidates as well as good will be attracted by more money. Yet much larger cities can always pay more than we can.
If someone were to ask me how I would go about recruiting the best new city manager for Davis, this would be my advice:
Find a currently employed city manager in a city which is roughly comparable to Davis who has all or almost all of the qualities we want in our next city manager. (One of those qualities we have not had in a long time, maybe never, is the “sonuvabitch” quality. That is, a person who can say no. A person who can drive a hard bargain. A person who others on city staff have a bit of fear of, as well as great respect for.* We tend to hire city managers who want to be liked.) And then ask that city manager, tell me someone you know who you would hire as your replacement, someone who has the type of qualities in a manager you have.
A good example of what we need, in my opinion, is the personality type of the current city manager in Palo Alto, James Keene ([url]http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_17755678?nclick_check=1[/url]). Mr. Keene is not afraid of the unions. He is not afraid to fight on behalf of the taxpayers of Palo Alto. At every step since our economy went in the tank, Keene has been strong and forthright. I would imagine if our CC talked with James Keene, he could suggest a very good candidate for the City of Davis to hire.
One thing which does not work is to find a currently employed city manager and ask the people who he works for about him. They will lie. If he is a louse, they will say he is great. Why? Because they are perfectly happy to get rid of him. A big problem in our system, due to the d-bag lawyers who file nuissance suits, is they will sue any town which tells the full truth about one of their employees, if any of that truth is negative. So asking those folks will get us nowhere.
—————–
*My uncle, Fred Davis, was the city manager of Chico for almost 40 years. Uncle Fred is a very tough, smart guy. He is also the most incorruptibly honest person you will ever meet. He was 18 years old when he left Cal-Berkeley to join the Army Air Corps in 1942. He served in a bomber crew until after V-E day as a navigator, dropping bombs on Germans from a base in England most of that time. His war experience helped shape his authoritarian nature and his great self discipline. He used that (and his education as a civil engineer) to guide Chico. He was never afraid of having to make hard decisions. It was never a question whether Fred would do the right thing.
I agree w both Sue and Rich. We CANNOT “keep up w the Jones” in terms of paying more salary to a city manager – which in turn leads to salary increases for all upper mgt – or we will end up bankrupt like Vallejo, and very well may not get any better in a City Mgr than we already have had. It would be nice if we could find someone like “Uncle Fred Davis” who apparently ran the city of Chico very well, but ultimately the City Manager takes his/her marching orders from the City Council. In the past, some in City Staff have been very powerful, bc it suited the needs of the Gang of Three. We don’t have that dynamic (Gang of Three) anymore on the City Council that I can perceive. I suspect that the current City Council can give adequate direction to the City Mgr in terms of fiscal responsibility. Already interim City Mgr Paul Navazio is grappling better w the budget than former City Mgr Bill Emlen ever did. At least it appears that way to me at first blush. I admit when contract negotiations come up will be the more determinant factor… but then I would like to see an independent negotiator involved…
Many smaller cities our size have tried to keep up with the bigger cities in terms of total compensation. They will be in trouble in the future.
The “superman” city manager that you want does exist, but there are only a few, in very high demand, and executive recruitment firms can tell you who and where they are. Existing employers will fight to keep them, if necessary.
Superman or woman wants at least a competitive salary. Bluntly stated, we are not competitive with the California city manager labor market. With scores of cities and counties pleading for the services of the same few “stars” in these difficult times, don’t delude yourself that salary in not a major consideration. Do not forget our high housing market. The exceptional city managers we are looking are far smarter and do their homework far more than we apparently think, judging by the disturbing naivete of the preceding posts.
Davis has a well deserved reputation for making extraordinary, conflicting, and unattainable demands on its city managers. Ambitious city manager prospects have an unparalleled social network of information exchanges among themselves. Sorry folks, Davis is not a highly desirable spot for the perfect manager you’re seeking. The city manager elite look for political stability in a prospective community. Do we have that to offer? Our quirky political pedigree really hurts us in executive recruitment efforts.
For a city manager to be able to make the “tough decisions” that some people covet, remember this, the strength of a city manager is directly proportional to the amount of independence and authority a city council is willing to delegate to the city manager. The relevant question here is, how much power will our council delegate to the new manager to make these difficult calls in the years ahead? You can bet that a competent city manager candidate will ask the same question of the council.
John Meyer was a superb manager, but he was an aberration whom we were lucky enough to have already living in Davis. We grabbed one brass ring; don’t expect another.
To Phil Coleman: Very thoughtful comments. I largely agree, but upping the City Mgr’s salary to unsustainable levels will not solve the problems you allude to. Nor can this city afford to do that. So we will have to accept less than perfect, and work w it. But it will be incumbent on the City Council to give strong direction on fiscal responsibility to whatever City Mgr is chosen…
Phil makes good points, particularly the power dynamic with the council in relation to the city manager. That said, most of Phil’s post appears to presume that the person we would be hiring ALREADY is a star city manager somewhere else whom we have to attract away:
[i]”… there are only a few, in very high demand, and executive recruitment firms can tell you who and where they are.”[/i]
My thought is we should be looking for someone who is looking to become a city manager, someone who now is in a subordinate position but has the qualities we need. Our police chief, Landy Black, who had never been a chief anywhere before, was that sort of candidate.
[i]”Do not forget our high housing market.”[/i]
Keep in mind that compared with the Bay Area, most central coast cities from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara, much of Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange and San Diego counties, Davis is a bargain.
If we hire someone who is a talented department head from say Goleta or Del Mar or Aptos, she will be shocked at how much less a house costs in Davis.
Rifkin
I agree with you about the benefits of seeking someone who is energetic, talented, and looking to “move up” professionally.
And, only partially with tongue in cheek because of Measure A, having lived in Orange County, Los Angeles, Goleta, and Santa Barbara,
I can attest to the merits of our public schools as comparable or superior to theirs,which might be an added attraction to a potential manager with a young family.
Phil is spot on as is normally the case. Just as the university faces stiff competition for high performing faculty, hence West Village, the hiring of our own Johm Meyer! Affordable housing in Davis is a JOKE for potential municipal applicants! Ask Landy Black where he lives? Where did Emlen live? How about paying the executive branch of city government enough money to LIVE in our royal township!
If the present council members have a good rapport with Paul Navazio, I think they would do well to give him the job if he wants it. I think the trust level between the council and staff is probably as important as other hiring criteria. Maybe even more important.
[i]How about paying the executive branch of city government enough money to LIVE in our royal township?[/i]
It would probably be cheaper for the city to just buy a house for the city manager. There are some good deals out there right now.
I completely agree with Don Shor:
As a policy the city should buy a home to house the City Manager. If they don’t want to live there they can buy another home. If the home is not being lived in then the City rents it out to someone else. However, in the long term, given as Sue says, the short four year term, it does not make sense for a new City Manager to buy a home in the community anyhow.
So City Council, buy a home, and take the cost of housing out of the equation and bump up the number of potential applicants.
[quote]The “superman” city manager that you want does exist, but there are only a few, in very high demand, and executive recruitment firms can tell you who and where they are.[/quote]It is not clear to me that the citizens of Davis would be happy with what might be conventionally called a “superman” city manager. IMHO, we need a city manager who is a competent manager and who understands Davis and what is unique about Davis. I suspect that we have managed to create a better quality of life in Davis than exists in most of the cities in which your “superman” city managers have developed their reputations.
[quote]The city manager elite look for political stability in a prospective community.[/quote]Again, I don’t think that the citizens of Davis would be happy with a city manager who comes from a city with “political stability”, whatever that means. Does Vacaville have political stability? Perhaps Fairfield? Davis citizens are actively involved in their government and care passionately about it. A city manager who is a good fit for Davis has to be comfortable with that.[quote]For a city manager to be able to make the “tough decisions” that some people covet, remember this, the strength of a city manager is directly proportional to the amount of independence and authority a city council is willing to delegate to the city manager.[/quote]The city council is supposed to set policy and make decisions, and the city manager is supposed to carry out those policies effectively.
As to house prices, most city manager applicants are mature individuals with equity in their current homes. Most people these days have spouses with jobs. Under these typical circumstances, such a city manager could buy a good home in Davis. $160,000 or $170,000 a year for one person is a very good income by Davis standards.
Bill Emlen lived in Vacaville because he wanted to, not because he had to. He told me that he liked living in the neighborhood in Vacaville where he had lived so many years and raised his children. His wife worked in Vacaville. He might have been concerned that if he moved to Davis, he would have lost his prop. 13 tax advantage. I had no problem with him living in Vacaville. Many, many city managers in California do not live in the towns where they work.
Again, I think we need a city manager that we can afford, and a city manager with a bit of idealism who appreciates what is special about Davis. I don’t think this would be your standard, ambitious, high-priced applicant.