Douglas J. Watson

Long-Serving City Managers: Practical Application of the Academic Literature

The authors identified 146 city managers who have served in the same city for the past 20 years and asked them to complete a survey to determine the factors leading to their long service. As a part of the survey, the city managers were invited to express, in their own words, the reasons they had stayed in the same city for such an extended time compared to the average tenure for city managers. In the article that follows, the authors quote from the academic literature statements pertaining to practical issues of concern to city managers and the elected officials for whom they work, giving credence to the applicability of the academic literature to todays city management profession. Following the quotations from the literature, the authors present the heartfelt reflections of these senior city managers on their long careers in public service.

Long–Serving City Managers: Why Do They Stay?

The literature on council–manager government often mentions the political difficulties that city managers face with their elected officials and constituent groups. In addition, the generally accepted route to success for city managers is to move to larger and better–paying cities. As a result of these push–and–pull factors, the average tenure of city managers is short. There are, however, a relatively small number of city managers who enjoy long tenure in single cities. The authors identified the 146 city managers who are serving and have served for at least 20 years the same city and sought to determine the factors leading to their long service. The survey indicates that long–serving city managers are more likely to be found in smaller cities that are homogeneous and politically stable. The majority of these city managers are white males with above–average educational levels, strong support from elected officials, and personal commitments to the cities they serve.

CITIZEN SURVEYS: A COMPONENT OF THE BUDGETARY PROCESS

An annual citizen survey can be a valuable component of the municipal budgeting process for cities that elect to institutionalize the process as a way to translate citizen feedback into budgetary priorities. This article explores uses of citizen surveys in identifying latent needs of the community that may not be detected through public hearings or other citizen participation methods. The authors suggest that properly developed and conducted citizen surveys can provide decision-makers with research data that will lead to more responsive public spending and debt financing decisions. The article concludes with a case study of Auburn, Alabama, a city that has successfully used citizen surveys in its budgeting system for the past seventeen years.

Capital-Intensive Privatization Returning to Public Ownership

The City of Auburn, Alabama, a university city of 45,000, privatized its wastewater treatment facilities in the early 1980s. At the time, the city was faced with outdated wastewater facilities that were built in the 1950s. Overflows from the many pump stations into local creeks were common occurrences. Federal financial assistance was several years away because of Auburn’s lower priority on the funding list, and interest rates were very high for municipal bond issues. Federal tax law favored private investment in public facilities so the city choose a private company to build, own, and operate two new treatment plants. In 2001, the city purchased the treatment facilities from the private owner because it needed to expand treatment capacity and build a major new sewer line. This article presents the case study of the privatization and subsequent return to public ownership of a capital-intensive privatization project of the early 1980s.

Capitalizing on Student Workers: The City of Auburn’s Student Employment Programs

For more than a decade, the City of Auburn, Alabama, has employed university students as part-time firefighters, police aides, and 911 communicators. The most fully developed program allows students to be trained and work as state-certified firefighters. Newly constructed fire stations have separate dormitory-style rooms for the students. Tuition is paid by the city as long as the students earn at least a 2.5 grade point average. This program has been cost effective for the city and the source of tuition assistance for hundreds of college students. Furthermore, it has created a talented pool of candidates for regular city employment.

Use of Industrial Engineering in Measuring Police Manpower:: A Small City Case Study

One of the most common challenges facing municipal governments is the balance of manpower and service levels with budgetary constraints and community desires. Although it has been historically underused in the public sector, industrial engineering can offer local administrators a variety of analytical and objective measures that can be used to justify organizational decisions that directly affect the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of governmental operations. Using a case study involving the analysis of police manpower, this article suggests that industrial engineering techniques can be applied effectively to public sector operations leading to better decision making by elected officials and administrators.

Introduction: Special Issue on Natural Disasters and Public Works Management and Policy

This article serves as the introduction to a special issue on natural disasters and public works management and policy. The authors note that large-scale natural disasters provide the occasion for public attention turning to the public works infrastructure, as basic necessities for living in a modern society are threatened or interrupted. The recent experience with Hurricane Katrina in the southern United States showed that without the critical infrastructure of water, electricity, and roadways, the most technologically advanced nation can quickly appear to be little different than the least developed countries in the world. The authors consider the concept of resilience as it applies to public works management and policies, then discuss the idea of infrastructure as it refers to not only the physical plant but also the human systems that are required to support the communication, coordination, and cooperation required to handle a disaster. This introductory article concludes with a brief description of each of the five related articles presented in the special issue. They note that the five articles contained in this issue stress the importance of a well-maintained and adequate infrastructure, whether it is the levee system, the communications system, or buildings. Careful planning for disasters and effective leadership during and after them are essential for localities to recover as quickly as possible.