Council-manager Form Research Articles

Institutional arrangements of government and municipal response to the COVID-19 pandemic

This study proposes a research strategy that treats a government form as a specific arrangement of institutional features and conducts the study of government form at the institutional-feature level. Consistently, it examines how the three core features of a government – CEO (chief executive officer) selection by appointment based on managerial expertise, mayoral election by the council among themselves, and at-large council election – affect municipal COVID response, a highly politicized area. These features are theorized to reduce the intensity of politics and create space for the effective working of public administration, and hypothesized to be positively associated with active COVID response. The hypotheses are confirmed on the whole from the analysis of original survey data gathered during the pandemic from municipalities in eleven western U.S. states. The implications of the findings for the council-manager form of government are discussed.

Hot town, corruption in the city: Assessing the impact of form of government on corruption using propensity scores

AbstractThis research explores the relationship between form of government and corruption using national municipal level data (1990–2020) using competing theoretical models; the principal–agent model and the professionalism–performance model. The principal–agent model suggests that the additional scrutiny provided by the electoral process will lead to a lower risk of corruption under the mayor–council form of government. The professionalism–performance model suggests that the professional training and incentives in place in the council–manager form will lead to a lower risk of corruption. However, it is difficult to examine the impact of the form of government on the incidence of corruption because there may be underlying community characteristics, such as population and poverty levels, that drive both the selection of form and corruption. Using propensity score matching and other propensity score methods to reduce the impact of confounding factors, this analysis finds robust evidence that the council–manager form reduces the risk of corruption, supporting the professionalism–performance model.

Examining COVID-19 response among local governments through the political market framework.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought to the forefront the importance of a local government's role during public health emergencies. While cities around the world have led the pandemic response in their communities by extending public health services, providing socioeconomic assistance to constituents and aiding small businesses and jurisdictions in the United States have had varying degrees of success in managing the crisis. As such, this study employs the political market framework to explore the impact of supply-side determinants (form of government, preparedness capabilities, and federal aid) and demand-side determinants (population, socioeconomic factors, and political affiliation) on a local government's COVID-19 response. Given the lack of attention, the emergency management literature has paid on government form, exploring the impact of council-manager vs mayor-council systems on COVID-19 response has been this study's primary focus. Using a logistic regression and survey data across Florida and Pennsylvania local governments, this study finds government form significant for COVID-19 response. Following our findings, local governments with a council-manager form were more likely to adopt public health and socioeconomic strategies in response to the pandemic than were those with other forms. Furthermore, having emergency management plans, receiving public assistance from Federal Emergency Management Agency, community characteristics like the percent of teens and non-White residents, and political affiliation also had a significant impact on the likelihood of response strategies being adopted.

Zoning to enhance local sustainability: why local governments choose to use sustainability-focused land use tools

The use of land use regulations to enhance a city’s sustainability portfolio is not well understood by public administration and policy scholars. Given the positive impact higher-density, environmentally conscious zoning instruments can have on a city’s overall progress toward increased sustainability, we seek to determine why some cities use these sustainability-focused land use regulations and others do not. After developing an explanatory framework emphasizing a city’s population growth and environmental stress, as well as its political institutions and economic conditions, we use an enhanced ICMA’s (International City/County Management Association) Local Government Sustainability Practices survey to test our predictions. We find that cities experiencing greater population growth and environmental stress will be more likely to include land use regulations in their sustainability portfolios. We also find that cities operating under council-manager forms of government and those with greater fiscal resources are more likely to have sustainability-focused zoning regulations in place.

Local Prohibitions on Marijuana: Factors Associated With Bans on Medical and Recreational Businesses

Marijuana legalization in U.S. states has introduced new regulatory processes, which allow for some degree of local authority. A common provision in state laws has provided a local option, which enables municipalities to prohibit commercial cannabis facilities within their borders. This paper examined potential determinants of prohibition decisions, with an emphasis on community and local government characteristics. Using a multivariate logistic regression model, determinants of local decisions to prohibit cannabis businesses in Michigan were analyzed. A unique feature of Michigan’s approach to legalization included separate local options to opt into medical marijuana and opt out of recreational marijuana. The results found that both community and local government characteristics explain variation in prohibitions on marijuana businesses. In general, local governments were more tolerant of marijuana businesses in areas with lower densities of senior citizens and higher densities of Black residents. However, the effects of some determinants varied based on whether the decision was to allow medical or recreational marijuana. Higher income areas were more likely to opt out of recreational marijuana, but they were no different from other areas on the likelihood of opting into medical marijuana. Prohibition decisions also were affected by local government characteristics, such as the number of members on city council, female representation, and having a council-manager form of government.

Understanding the Adoption and Implementation of Body-Worn Cameras among U.S. Local Police Departments

The national debate about police use of force against racial minority residents has led to increased attention to body-worn cameras (BWCs) as tools for increasing police accountability. Although researchers have documented the effectiveness of BWCs, little research has been done to examine why police departments decide to use them in the first place. Based on an innovation framework, the current study aims to explain what factors determine police departments’ decisions to implement BWCs. By examining 139 U.S. police departments using event history analyses, I find that the police departments with a higher severity of police-involved deaths of minority residents and a higher strength of social movements protesting police brutality are more likely to implement BWCs. In addition, some organizational and environmental factors, including the availability of federal grants and the council-manager form of government, have significant associations with BWC implementation. Findings also suggest that different patterns of BWC implementation are demonstrated according to environmental context.

Municipal Government Form and Budget Outcomes: Political Responsiveness, Bureaucratic Insulation, and the Budgetary Solvency of Cities

AbstractOne of the fundamental questions in democratic governance is whether policies are best decided by elected officials or by appointed bureaucrat-experts. The study examines this issue in the context of how municipal government form influences government-wide budgetary solvency. Government form creates distinct incentives for executive action that shape budget outcomes. In mayor–council governments, the elected executive’s desire to be reelected increases responsiveness to voters’ preferences. Vote maximization incentivizes the adoption of policies that are popular among voters but can lead to budgetary imbalance. In contrast, the appointed executive in the council–manager form is interested in career advancement, which she achieves by building a reputation for leading a fiscally sound government. Insulated from the demands of voters, the manager can rely on expert knowledge and professional norms to choose policies that result in balanced budgets. Using data from audited financial reports for 655 mid-sized and large city governments in the United States from fiscal years 2006 to 2013, the econometric analysis shows that council–manager cities have stronger budgetary solvency compared with mayor–council cities.

Institutional Differences and Local Government Performance: Evidence from Property Tax Assessment Quality

This article examines the relationship between institutional differences embedded in local governance structures and government performance in the specific context of property assessment. In order to provide deeper insight into why certain governance structures perform better than others, we focus on the impact of nested levels of institutions—constitutional-level and substantive-level rules of governance—beyond the conventional perspective of the form of government. Based on panel data of cities and towns in New York State between 1993 and 2010, our analysis indicates that, among other institutional arrangements, municipalities employing the council–manager form with appointed assessors are most likely to achieve higher levels of assessment quality (uniformity) of the residential property. This indicates that having politically independent (more career-oriented), low-powered appointed governance structures rather than politically risk-averse (more voter-oriented), high-powered elected counterparts are more likely to be effective at reducing risk in tax equity issues, thus providing better financial performance.

Are Bureaucrats Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?

Traditionally, bureaucrats have been viewed as a stereotypical example of employees with flat pay schedules and low-powered incentive schemes. This paper challenges that view by providing evidence that the wages of a particular group of senior bureaucrats - city managers - are tightly connected to their performance as measured by city growth. Additional tests indicate that these results reflect reward for performance, rather than rent extraction, as exogenous shocks to city growth do not affect city managers’ wage. First, I show that the salaries of city managers do not react to observable exogenous shocks to city performance. Next, I demonstrate that performance affects city managers’ wages not only in the city in which they are currently employed, but also in the city in which they work afterwards. Finally, I find that in cities with council-manager forms of government, the wages of mayors - who do not play important roles in running the cities with council-manager form of government - are not sensitive to city performance.

Explaining the Varying Levels of Adoption of E-government Services in American Municipal Government

Technological innovations offer opportunities for governments to connect with citizens and improve service provision efficiency and effectiveness, but why do some governments adopt these innovations while others do not? Using a mixed methodological approach, including interviews with city officials and multivariate analysis of a novel data set of municipal e-government service offerings, we examine what factors motivate or impede city officials from innovating. Overall, we find that cities with the council–manager form of government, with larger populations, and with more financial resources adopt more e-government services. Specifically, as total revenue per capita increases, cities are more likely to adopt payment-based services and informational services. Increased spending on central staff is associated with higher rates of adoption of interactive services and social media. The results suggest that council–manager governments are more innovative and that local governments consider both the up-front costs and the need for ongoing staff associated with particular innovations.

The effect of revenue diversification and form of government on public spending

PurposeRevenue diversification interacting with form of government that has different management behaviors may produce a variation in the level of public spending. The purpose of this paper is to understand how revenue diversification interacts with form of government in determining the level of public spending.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional research design with the analysis of interaction effects was employed in order to achieve this research objective. Drawing from the economic and financial management perspectives on revenue diversification, this study proposes the following hypotheses: in the council-manager form, greater revenue diversification leads to less spending; in the mayor-council form, greater revenue diversification leads to more spending; and mayor-council governments with diversified revenues spend more than council-manager governments.FindingsThe regression results support the second and third hypotheses, but not the first hypothesis.Originality/valueThis study offers a robust link between revenue diversification and form of government by examining how their interaction produces a variation in the level of public spending.

Moving Beyond the Influence of Neighbors on Policy Diffusion: Local Influences on Decisions to Conduct Property Tax Reassessment in New York

Over the past few decades, research on policy adoption and diffusion has grown rapidly. Despite the relatively large number of publications, however, little attention has been paid to the important question of why a policy is differently implemented or diffused across governments. To answer this question and improve our understanding of local policy choice beyond widely cited neighboring influences, we closely examine the roles of three main policy actors—internal actors, external actors, and go-betweens—in the local policy diffusion process, drawing particularly upon property tax reassessment scenarios. In addition, we focus on nested institutional arrangements, including form of government and type of property tax assessor, that affect the policy decisions of internal actors. Using data on cities and towns in New York State for 1993-2010, we estimate event history models of property tax reassessment activities. Our findings reveal that regional interactions with neighbors that have already adopted the policy and top-down go-betweens through positive inducements can help facilitate property tax reassessment across municipalities. Reformed municipal governments in the council-manager form, along with appointed assessors, are also most likely to adopt reassessment policy frequently, compared with other institutional arrangements. Overall, this study advances the policy diffusion literature by exploring the roles of different influences through a more detailed, broader approach.

Municipal Government Structure in Wisconsin: Does Form Matter?

This article examines the forms of municipal governments in Wisconsin and their relationship to variables in the areas of socioeconomic, partisanship, election process, decision-making in the governance process, and internal municipal operations. Wisconsin has more mayor-council and mayoral forms with an appointed administrator rather than council-manager forms common in other states. We find that reform in Wisconsin has occurred in all government forms and that most municipalities desiring the managerial results of a professional administration have chosen an adaptation of the mayor-council form. Furthermore, we find that there are few clearly identifiable differences between cities with differing governmental forms.

The Impact of Local Politics on the Principal-Agent Relationship Between Council and Manager in Municipal Government

A majority of U.S. municipalities now operate under the council-manager form of government, an institutional design that creates a principal-agent problem as the elected council and appointed manager have divergent incentives. While current scholarship on the council-manager relationship focuses on ex post municipal level outcomes, this study advances the literature by developing a theory of ex ante contracting between principal and agent at the local level. The theory predicts that increasingly constraining political environments are associated with a greater degree of contractually provided employment protection for incoming city managers. Using unique data on California municipalities and their managers, empirical analysis supports the theory’s predictions. Specifically, as the municipal electorate becomes more cohesive and less moderate and as municipal elections become increasingly competitive, city manager contracts include increasing protection from termination in the form of severance and political protection from termination. The empirical results suggest that employment protection serves an important role in the initial creation of a principal-agent relationship between manager and council by defining the cost council must bear if they terminate the manager and protecting the manager from career risk.

Complex Grant-Contracting and Social Equity: Barriers to Municipal Access in Federal Block Grant Programs

ABSTRACT:Intergovernmental granting involves complex vertical and horizontal contracting problems. The implementation of some federal social equity programs is a function, in part, of the ability of local governments to contract out. Municipalities with less administrative capacity or in high-contracting-cost environments face barriers to funding. We theorize that in some cases these problems affect equitable access to federal funding and apply this framework to the state-administered nonentitlement Community Development Block Grant (NE-CDBG) program. Utilizing a zero-inflated negative binomial regression, we examine 250 small municipal governments to test the relationship between number of NE-CDBGs grants awarded in 2000–2003 and obstacles to contracting out. Our findings suggest that needs-based access to federal funds is distorted when small cities face obstacles to contracting out as a local managerial strategy. Competitive grant processes and the council-manager form of government also influence grant access, but low- to moderate-income populations do not track the number of grants in an expected direction. Our findings highlight concerns about the ability of small municipalities to access intergovernmental grant programs.

E-Procurement Implementation in the United States: Understanding Progress in Local Government

E-procurement is a rapidly growing area of e-government implementation. Nevertheless, scholarly research on e-procurement implementation is limited, especially at the municipal level. This study presents empirical evidence on city level e-procurement in the United States, based on a data set of the 191 largest cities. This study focuses on two research questions – 1) Does e-procurement progress in a staged manner as suggested about e-government by the stages theory? 2) What factors contribute to the progression of e-procurement systems through the stages? We find not only that e-procurement is more prevalent in the information or cataloging stage than in the transaction stage but that cities with both IT capacity and a council-manager form of government are more likely to be in an advanced stage of e-procurement development. By providing both descriptive statistics along with statistical analysis, this study helps to explain the current status of e-procurement implementation along with the factors that might lead to further implementation.

The Effects of Recessions on Contracting Moderated by Institutional Arrangements of Government: Evidence From California Cities, 1993–2009

This study aims to uncover the different effects of economic recessions on city contracting, which vary with institutional characteristics. Drawing on the literatures of public finance and management, it is hypothesized that recessions have a positive relationship with contracting and this relationship will be stronger in governments with the council–manager form or the charter status than in those with the mayor–council form or the general‐law status, respectively. The hypotheses are tested on all available California cities over 17 years, from 1993 to 2009. Interestingly, the results indicate that recessions actually decrease contracting in governments with both the mayor–council form and the general‐law status, but the extent of the decrease is moderated if they adopt either the council–manager form or the charter status. For cities with these two institutional characteristics, finally, it turns out that recessions increase contracting. These uneven effects of recessions imply that governments experience environmental shock very differently one from another because they differ in institutional characteristics.

Determinants of Internet-enabled Transparency at the Local Level

The purpose of this study is to examine the premise that increased Internet access leads to higher levels of governmental transparency. In so doing, we assess the impact of geographic, demographic, socioeconomic, and institutional factors on governmental transparency in 816 out of 1055 counties in the twelve Midwestern states. The findings from the most extensive ordered logistic model show that total land area, population density, percentage of minority population, educational attainment, and the council–manager form of government are statistically associated with higher levels of government transparency at the county level via the Internet.

Metropolitan Governance: How Regional Organizations Influence Interlocal Land Use Coordination

ABSTRACT:By focusing on Regional Planning Councils and metropolitan municipalities in Florida, this study addresses a gap in the literature concerning the role of regional organizations in metropolitan governance research. This study investigates two competing visions of the influence of regional organizations on interlocal coordination in land use decision making. The results show that regional organizations’ substitutive effects on self-organizing interlocal cooperation are salient, while their complementary influence is not observed in regard to land use. Moreover, this research posits that municipalities with a higher level of need for coordination due to population stress and a council–manager form of government are more likely to coordinate land use decisions with other local governments.

Understanding CEO Role Perception and Time Usage: Are New Municipal Typologies Useful?

In recent years local government scholars have sought to more explicitly describe the diverse structures that exist within municipalities by developing typologies that extend beyond the traditional mayor-council versus council-manager form definitions. This research explores the value of these new typologies in helping scholars explain differences among chief executive officers (mayors and city managers) in municipalities. Using information obtained from a national random survey of municipalities, this study evaluates two of the most developed new typologies along with the traditional mayor-council versus council-manager classification in terms of how officials allocate their work time and how municipal mayors and city managers perceive both their own and their city councils role in the council/executive relationship. Using the percentage of work time allocated to the “Policy”, “Politics”, and “Management” activities as describe by Ammons and Newell in their 1987 Public Administration Review study (Role Emphases of City Managers and Other Municipal Executives) and the role perceptions of mayors and city managers using the four role dimensions of “Mission”, “Policy”, “Administration”, and “Management” described in the Dichotomy/Duality model developed by James Svara in his 1985 Public Administration Review article “Dichotomy and Duality: Reconceptualizing the Relationship Between Policy and Administration in Council-Manager Cities”, the differences between and among chief executive officers (CEO) are exaimined. We find that differences do exist between mayor and city manager CEOs and that by using new typologies, differences within mayors in mayor-council cities exist but do not exist among city managers in council-manager cities.