Wrangling continues over mayor’s staff.
Finance Committee approves $14.2M administrative budget
City budget hearings Wednesday again hung up on Mayor Alan Webber’s plan to expand his office, with officials taking on for a second consecutive day the question of the division of managerial and oversight responsibilities among the mayor, city manager and City Council.
For more than 90 minutes on the final day of department budget presentations, city councilors picked at Webber’s proposed expansion of constituent services, questioned whether he has the authority to create new positions in his own office or elsewhere and offered a different arrangement of new positions, some of whom would report to the council, not the mayor.
Ultimately councilors on the city Finance Committee advanced the administration’s proposed $14.2 million proposed budget for the general government department, which includes the Mayor’s Office, the council, the city manager’s office and several other divisions, including economic development.
And by early afternoon, the committee budget hearings were through, with most departments’ spending plans approved pending minor changes.
The full City Council will take up the proposed $335 million city budget next month.
But the hearings didn’t end before another lengthy talk that began with Webber’s proposed new positions — a chief of staff, a “neighborhood engagement” director, a council liaison and two new constituent services workers — and quickly developed into a broader debate about how the city’s governing body should function.
Councilors first summoned acting City Attorney Geno Zamora to clarify the extent of the now full-time mayor’s jobcreating authority under the city charter.
Zamora, striking an appropriate note in what would become, at times, a circular discussion, began with a sort of riddle: “The answer is not necessarily in the question.”
The mayor, in the city’s new governance structure, may unilaterally fire the city manager, attorney and city clerk. But it is the city manager who has the authority to hire and fire all other municipal employees.
That could lead to the “tension” of a situation, Zamora said, in which the mayor wants to hire a chief of staff for himself but is rebuffed by the city manager.
“The buck stops with the city manager,” Zamora said.
Of course, the mayor’s recourse then would be to fire such a city manager. In short, Zamora said, the mayor has the authority to propose staff positions for his own office, as Webber has done, but they will be subject to the hiring and firing authority of the city manager.
“It’s sort of a parade of horrors in some ways,” Zamora said. “But that’s how this charter gets implemented.”
Councilor Chris Rivera asked whether Zamora felt the city charter needed amending to sort out the balance of power.
Not immediately, Zamora said, though he suggested councilors and the mayor keep track of matters they would ask a charter commission to take up eventually.
“You’re going to find bumps in the road,” he said.
Webber said his impression of the stillfluid system was that a city manager would execute the “agreed-upon agenda” of the mayor, all with the legislative oversight of the eight city councilors.
But he was quick to add that the stickiest part of his proposal — to move an expanded constituent services office under the mayor’s direct authority — was less important than his request to expand the office in the first place.
“This is not a constitutional crisis,” Webber said.
Councilor Signe Lindell, echoing some of her council colleagues, said she felt councilors could use more staff support but was cautious about hastily setting precedent for future governing bodies.
She added, “My inclination is to go ahead and pass a budget that funds these positions and to have a much longer conversation about how, organizationally, these fit in and where they go.”
Councilors did eventually do just that — after being cautioned by Zamora, who recommended they not vote on the proposed new positions line by line, as some seemed ready to do.
“I believe we really have a great group here,” said Councilor Mike Harris, referring to the nine-member city governing body of the mayor and councilors. “But nothing lasts forever. And not necessarily in this group but the next group — because there will be changes.
“But we do have a good working group, and we can take advantage and continue to discuss how to balance this out,” he said.