By james art On Nov. 5, East Baton Rouge Parish voters will decide the fate of a set of sweeping changes to the city-parish governing plan.
Among the most significant changes is the proposal to abolish the position of chief administrative officer and replace it with the positions of chief of staff and mayor.
But what would these changes actually look like in practice, and how have comparable cities adopted similar models?
HOW IT WILL WORK
According to District 3 Metro Council member Rowdy Gaudet, the proposal aims to create a clear separation between management and policy duties within City Hall. Under the government’s current plan, the CAO is tasked with a wide range of responsibilities, from managing department heads to maintaining political connections.
Gaudet says this model can often place a huge burden on CAOs, and that separating these duties would increase both efficiency and responsiveness to residents’ needs.
“The CAO’s current job covers effectively all things related to the service of a mayor. … Having one person in that leadership role is an outdated model,” Godet says.
If voters approve the management change plan, the city-parish manager would focus solely on running the department and providing services — “managing the day-to-day operations of city-parish government,” as Gaudet puts it — while removing politics from an equation. Meanwhile, the chief of staff will be responsible for policy development, community engagement and liaison with Metro Council members.
The City and Parish Manager will be appointed by the Mayor, but this appointment will be subject to confirmation by the Metro Council. Council members currently have no say in who is hired as CAO. The mayor will be able to remove the city and parish manager at any time without the approval of the Metro Council.
In particular, future urban parish managers will need to meet a set of education and experience requirements: the position will require a bachelor’s or master’s degree “preferably in business administration, finance, public administration or a related field of management, or a degree in the law”, as well as at least five years of experience in an administrative position in a municipal or state government or in a managerial position. There are currently no such requirements for CAOs.
“To me, that’s what the legislative branch should be doing,” Gaudet says. “We must continually look for areas where we need to make improvements in our form of government.”
As for what the city manager’s salary would look like, Gaudet says only that compensation would be decided through a discussion between City Hall and the Metro Council as part of standard budget negotiations.
District 5 Metro Council member Daryl Hurst says he supports introducing the city manager position largely because of the aforementioned hiring criteria.
“When a new administration comes in — whether after this election or in the future — I want to know that the person [with these duties] is qualified,” Hurst says.
Another benefit of the proposal, Hurst said, would be the Metro Council’s ability to decide who the mayor appoints to the position. That, he says, would allow council members to ensure the mayor’s appointee has the city’s best interests at heart.
“I want to know that the Parish City Manager is willing to listen to us and work with us to make sure all of Baton Rouge is taken care of, but especially North Baton Rouge, where a lot of the challenges in our city come from,” says Hurst. “My goal is to make sure the next 10 years don’t look like the last 40.”
HOW OTHER CITIES DO IT
The management model in question is not new and has in fact been adopted by many local authorities across the country. The model may date as far back as 1908, and since then a number of once small but now prominent cities have appointed their own managers, including Austin, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; and Phoenix.
According to the 2018 International Association of City/County Government Municipal Government Survey, 40% of local governments with at least 2,500 residents use a council-manager form of government and 38% use a mayor-council form of government.
In the council-manager form of government, a chief elected official (eg mayor) and an elected council are responsible for developing policy, while a professional manager directs day-to-day operations. In a mayor-council form of government, a chief elected official serves as the head of government and wields significant administrative power, while the elected council serves as the legislative body. Baton Rouge currently uses a “strong mayor” mayor-council form of government.
According to Jason Grant, ICMA’s director of advocacy, the council-manager model is designed to minimize political corruption by ensuring that the person responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of government is a professional and not a political appointee. The idea is that such appointees are less likely to be driven by the short-term political goals that might drive elected officials, meaning they are able to focus exclusively on long-term planning and operational efficiency.
“You’re 60 percent less likely to see corruption convictions under a council-manager form of government versus a mayor-council form of government,” says Grant, citing data compiled by ICMA.
Council-governing cities, Grant says, also tend to enjoy higher bond ratings and have greater success implementing cost-saving measures. The model may even have its advantages when it comes to economic development.
“Council-run cities are more likely to implement incentives that increase jobs and stabilize their local economies,” says Grant. “Cities with a mayoral council are less likely to implement these types of incentives.”
State Rep. Dixon McMackin, R-Baton Rouge, fully supports the government’s change plan and points to the recent CAO turnover as a prime example of the current model’s flaws. Current CEO Dante Bidwell is the fifth person to hold the position since Mayor Sharon Weston Broome took office in 2017.
“This [turnover] is unacceptable for a city that is the capital of its state with a leading leading university and top industry,” says McMackin. “You can’t have people coming here who can’t do their jobs.”
According to McMakin, the introduction of the city-parish manager position would go a long way toward “bringing Baton Rouge into the 21st century.” The current management plan was adopted in 1947 and has since been amended 17 times.
“Putting in someone who has the right credentials will help Baton Rouge become the city it needs to be,” McMackin says. “This will put us on track to compete with other leading cities that have this structure.”
THE OPPOSITION
Not every major player in Baton Rouge supports the proposal.
While a majority of Metro Council members voted to approve the ballot item at the March 27 council meeting, two council members – Chauna Banks (District 2) and Carolyn Coleman (District 10) – voted against it. Cleve Dunn Jr. (District 6) and then-Mayor Pro Tempore Lamont Cole abstained from voting.
At that meeting, Banks said he harbored concerns about how much the government’s change plan would cost the city. If voters approve the proposed changes, the position of executive councilor would be introduced at City Hall along with the positions of chief of staff and city-parish manager, while the position of CAO would be eliminated.
“What it looks like to me is we’re going to be top heavy,” Banks said. “It doesn’t look like there are going to be eliminations of a lot of those positions, but there are additions to positions. What comes with it are wages and benefits. We have this problem of not being able to provide our workforce with a reasonable wage, yet most of these positions probably are [going to be making] six figures.”
Coleman, meanwhile, said she is primarily concerned about the city-parish position, which takes power away from the mayor.
“I went to [Conference of Mayors] and there were some mayors there who had the city manager position, and from what I understand, it was a hard place to find,” Coleman said. “That’s because all the mayor will be doing is kissing babies and cutting ribbons, and the manager will be running the city.”
In September, two leading Democratic mayoral candidates — Broome and former state Rep. Ted James — both criticized the proposal in separate interviews with Business report.
Broome said he believes the Metro Council’s motivation is “certainly to move our system of government forward,” but also that Baton Rouge’s current strong mayoral system is “essential in our consolidated government.”
“The city-parish manager proposal really gives me pause,” Broome said. “I’ve always said the issue … is more about the salary than the need for change. I have made a commitment to build a leadership staff around me that will ultimately help me achieve results and win. I encourage voters to really consider the proposal and its impact.”
It’s worth noting that Broome voiced his support for the proposal on March 27 following the aforementioned Metro Council vote.
James said his concern about the proposal is twofold.
“First, there are some plans for government changes that I would like to propose,” James said. “I would like the new administration and the new council to have an opportunity to look at the management plan and not want the people of the parish to accept changes this year and again next year. Second, I don’t need a government change plan to tell me we need an accredited minister to help me fulfill my vision for the parish. I have already committed to doing this.
Read more about the proposed changes to the Baton Rouge Management Plan.