Basic information of city manager system

The main feature of the city manager system is that the city Council appoints a city manager and gives administrative power to the city manager, who will professionally manage the municipal government and the city. Some medium-sized cities and most small cities in the United States implement this municipal system.

The advantage of city manager system is that it is conducive to introducing market competition mechanism in a wider scope and recruiting urban management professionals; It is conducive to the professional management of the municipal government and the city and improves the efficiency of urban management; Conducive to the relative separation of political contradictions and urban management. City Council is responsible for dealing with political contradictions, while city managers concentrate on solving professional and technical problems. Its disadvantage is that when the market is difficult to deal with political contradictions and intertwined with urban management, urban managers are often powerless.

City manager system is a municipal organization system adopted by small and medium-sized cities in many European and American countries. It first appeared in Stormtown, Virginia, USA. At the beginning of 1908, the city Council passed a proposal to add a general manager, giving the general manager full control over the administrative affairs of various bureaus in the city. 19 12 In September, a five-member committee in Dayton, Ohio, which was facing reconstruction after severe floods, came forward to amend the city constitution and decided to adopt the city manager system. The new constitution was adopted by the citizens of the whole city in April of 19 13 and came into effect in April of 19 14. After the city adopted a relatively novel municipal government system, the institutional reform of the municipal government has achieved great success because of the selection of suitable competent talents. Since then, some small and medium-sized cities in the United States and cities in Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, Ireland, Finland, Norway and Sweden have successively adopted this municipal government system. Urban managers are generally professional, non-political and professionally trained municipal experts. He is appointed by a majority of the members of the city council for an indefinite term. The candidate for city manager is mainly determined by his administrative experience, ability and training. Not necessarily residents of this city. During his term of office, he was the chief executive of the city and was responsible to the city council or municipal committee. Although its scope of responsibilities varies from city to city, it can generally be summarized as seven aspects: (1) supervising the implementation of laws and regulations; (two) responsible for the preparation of the city's annual budget, and put forward to the Municipal Council; (3) Attend the city council as nonvoting delegates, put forward necessary and beneficial policies on municipal management to the city council, and be responsible for providing all materials needed to discuss these policies, and can participate in the discussion on their own without voting rights; (four) the implementation of laws and resolutions adopted by the city council; (five) to guide and supervise the work of various administrative departments; (six) in accordance with the provisions of the Personnel Law, the appointment and removal of the person in charge of the administrative department and other officials; (seven) to perform other functions and powers of the city manager as stipulated by laws and regulations. Cities that implement the city manager system generally set up the post of mayor. But mainly as the chairman of the city Council and etiquette and ritual work.