Mayor and City Manager

Da:

Yes, I can…and I will! At least I can tell you how is supposed to work, by law, and why we are supposed to need both, by law.

Middletown, by charter, operates under the Commission/manager form of municipal government, one of only a few forms of municipal government allowable under Ohio state law.

Under this form of government, a “city commission” or “city council” is the “legislative authority” for the “municipal corporation” (in our case, a “city”, the term I will use from here on). This body has the authority to hire a “city manager”. The city manager IS (in our case is supposed to be) the chief administrator of and for the city, more or less the “chief executive” and is responsible for all operations of the city. The city manager serves “at the pleasure” of the City Council.

Basically, the city manager is supposed to “manage the city”, thus the name! One of the many duties is to prepare a BUDGET for the city and to present to council for “approval” (or rejection). The city council has no authority to prepare a budget or to interact with any member of the city staff other than the city manager.

The city council is a “legislative” or “lawmaking” body with very few other powers. In a nutshell, the city council is allowed to:

The last item, requiring two members of council, essentially gives council members a certain ability to “set the agenda” for the city council meetings. (The city manager has the basic right and duty to set the agenda.) Since either the mayor alone, or any other two council members together, can force a “special meeting” of council for any single subject, it is prudent for the city manager to accept agenda items for regularly scheduled meetings rather than to be “special-meeting-ed” to death (and risk being fired) by refusing to add any item to the agenda that a council member requests.

Under this system, unlike the so-called “strong mayor” form of government (wherein the “mayor“ is the chief executive of the city--usually a full-time job--and no city manager is required), the “mayor" has very few other powers than any other council member. Those differences are that the “mayor”:

For these extra duties, our mayor receives an extra $4,000.00 per year above the $5,000.00 per year paid to other council members.

Now, I am not an attorney, and this is a very short description that anyone can nit pick with just a little effort, but I believe that it is a reasonably accurate synopsis-type answer to your question, and probably more than you wanted to know.

I hope that this helps you understand our method of city government.