The Relative Efficiency of City Manager and Mayor-Council Forms of Government

Abstract

Most city governments are either of the strong mayor-council (MC) form or of the councilmanager (CM) type. A 1986 survey, as reported in the 1988 issue of the Municipal Year Book [14,8], indicates that 43.5 percent of cities had a mayor-council form, 53.5 percent had a city manager form, and the remaining 3 percent had a commission form of government. The government structure of MC cities consists of (1) an executive branch with a popularly elected mayor who has the authority to hire and fire other city officials outside the merit system, and (2) a legislative branch in a relatively small city council with 5 to 9 members. The government structure of CM cities is similar to private businesses in that voters, council, and the city manager play the roles of stockholders, board of directors, and chief executive officer, respectively. CM cities also maintain relatively small councils which hire and fire the city manager who is professionally trained and has direct authority over other city employees. The mayor in CM cities is selected either by the council or directly by voters to serve only as a ceremonial officer. The CM form is an institutional guarantee against a possible stalemate between the executive and legislative branches of government. In this paper we study whether or not the CM form is more efficient than the MC form of government in formulating and implementing public policies. The literature on the relative superiority of a city manager form of government is inconclusive. One might hypothesize that a city manager has incentives similar to those of the manager of a profit maximizing firm and this should lead to higher relative efficiency and lower costs than a mayor-council form of government. The city manager has an incentive to lower costs and increase productivity to ensure his job security. Although the mayor under the MC form of government also has an incentive to reduce costs and increase productivity, the mayor is accountable directly to the public unlike the city manager who is accountable to the city council. The city council as