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By Barbara Thomas and Bob Turner
In the commission form of government work, the executive power is divided among the mayor and commissioners of public works, finance, public safety and accounts. There is no single person in charge. The need for cooperation among commissioners’ departments in administering the day to day operations of city government is the one of defining feature of the commission form of government.
The commission form of government is unique in municipal governance in the extent of collaboration that is required between each commissioners’ office. Cooperation among commissioners is required for all steps, small and large. If the mayor or public works department wants to hire a consultant, it requires significant cooperation from the accounts and finance departments in processing and monitoring the contract. If the recreation department wants the rec center bathrooms cleaned or fields mowed, they have to ask the Department of Public Works. A new traffic intersection requires the cooperation among the public safety, the public works, and the mayor’s offices on everything from sidewalks, paving, lights, striping, and planning.
We surveyed Saratoga Springs City Hall employees and asked them, “How often do you have to work with employees outside of your department to perform your job?” Approximately 50 percent said “several times a day.” Clearly, cooperation is required to do the day to day operation of the city under the commission form of government. Does it happen? When the Charter Review Commission interviewed the directors and department heads of a number of city offices, they said collaboration between departments is essential. However, they also said that if a commissioner had political conflicts with another commissioner, it negatively affected their departments’ ability to work together. When commissioners have poflitical disagreements in their legislative capacity, the conflict affects the daily administration of city services. The officials we interviewed emphasized that they were speaking about political conflict among commissioners in general and not the current city council. Their observations were echoed by the responses of the workers in City Hall to our survey. One replied: “We are one entity “City Hall” no matter what department we work in. However we are treated like completely separate entities. We all need to work together because all departments are intertwined. When Commissioners are having disagreements the employees are the ones who feel the brunt of that conflict.” Another said, “Functions that require interdepartmental work tend to suffer depending on who is in office, (We need) to also buffer political aspects of the commissioners from making things difficult and keep a more cohesive attitude that we all are here to help the City function for the taxpayers not for “our” department.”
To assess how political conflict affected the day to day operations of the city, we surveyed city hall employees and asked them, “How often does political conflict or tensions between your department’s commissioner and another department’s commissioner affect your ability to do your job?”
The graphic shown here shows the results of that survey. Bob Turner is chairman of the Saratoga Springs Charter Review Commission. Barbara Thomas is a member of the commission.