On 7th March Mr Scott Wrighton, City Manager at Lavassa, India and an active member of the ICMA (International City Managers’ Association) for over thirty years, gave a brief lecture on the City Manager’s model of local government in U.S.A.
The ICMA (International City Managers Association) has over nine thousand members but majority of them are from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and only a few are from Europe and other colonial nations.
So why did America adopt City Manager’s model even though it was a British Colony? The British under King George micro-managed matters from London, so after the American Revolution instead of having a tyranny like centralised top-down approach of governance, they decided upon an opposite bottom-top approach partly because of the varying topography and also culture across the country. The Federal government gets its power from the states and each state has its own constitution and lets the locally elected representatives’ mange the cities. This is also known as home rule where the State mostly looks into the matters of law and order and some public infrastructure while local authorities are responsible for majority of services; political self-correction by periodic elections assures responsible governance at local level. Though the state has the rights to suspend or even abolish local government on grounds of mismanagement, it just plays a reactive role and does not intervene except in case of emergency. While in India there is a single constitution for the entire nation and a totally opposite top-down approach where the center gives power to the states and the states give power to the local so the local body needs to seek permission from a state appointed officer (usually District Collector) to execute its policies. In US even after the 20th century centralization, most power still lies with the local bodies and most of the revenue in every jurisdiction is still collected and handled locally.
But Service, Policy and ‘Politics’ have always been an integral part of any government so by the first decade of the nineteenth century, heavy corruption had become persistent thus threatening the US democracy. So to repair the system, in 1908 they introduced a new position: City Manager, like a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in corporations and under him other officials like the COO (Chief Operating Officer), CFO (Chief Finance Officer). The elected representatives were now equivalent to the board of directors in a company responsible for the policies while the City Manager and his staff were responsible for the management and execution as per the Mayor’s agenda. As Mr Wrighton rightly mentioned “ the City Manager’s position is like the neck of an hour-glass ”. He is accountable to the board and at the same time represents the views of the staff and community to the board. From experience Mr Wrighton also suggests that
City Manager has to be politically neutral, possess leadership skills and keep a low profile for not being mistaken as the policy maker.
In India the Municipal Commissioner is similar to the City Manager but the post is subject to election and reports to the IAS (Indian Administrative Service) Officer. In India the elected personnel try micro managing matters instead of getting specialized personnel involved, and this creates some issues.
The home rule model imparts local autonomy while in India due to the top-down approach the local bodies face high interference from the state.
In the early days mostly Engineers with specialization in Civil used to be City Managers but now it is a specialized field and there are many courses in US offering this specialization. In India no such specialization is needed and it is still considered as the bottom rail of the civil service ladder. It is important for City Managers to possess smattering knowledge of many and have in-depth understanding of a few.
ll cities in US follow the home rule but not necessarily with a City Manager, as most cities have either of the two commonly adopted City Management models namely Council Mayor (Adoption: 51%, Cities: Dallas, Santiago, Phoenix, etc.) and Strong Mayor (Adoption: 47%, Cities: New York City, Chicago, Seattle, etc.) and only one model has a City Manager. In the former one the elected Council and the Mayor appoint the City Manager who then appoints the remaining staff thus separating the Legislation and Management functions to preclude any intervention by Elected Members in the execution of public works while in the subsequent one the elected Mayor appoints a deputy Mayor and the staff; thus all power is bestowed with the Mayor.
Lavassa India Township is an experiment of the City Manager’s Model in India and so far it has been quite successful.
In Lavassa the Local Management (not a government as per Section 243Q of the Indian Constitution) is accountable to the state and has jurisdiction apart from the police so it does not need to seek permission from the state to execute policies. With growing urbanization India needs more efficient Local Management models for SMCs (Small and Medium City) to cope up with the demands of increasing population in urban areas.
This article was originally published on CEPT Portfolio.
Header Image: Flickr user Tom
Savvy Munshi 