The Best Response when the Profession Receives a Black-Eye
By Lynn Tipton

By now, most of you have read about the City of Bell, California and the compensation given to its council, manager, assistant manager, and police chief.  The resulting firings, resignations, articles, talk-show discussions and public outcry are understandable - and upsetting, and in some ways, baffling.  How did such a situation get to that stage?  And, more importantly for colleagues within the profession, how should professional associations respond to these types of events? 

That is one difference that should prevent such a situation from arising here – but that doesn’t finish the discussion for conscientious members of the profession who are more deeply concerned with the subject of appropriate compensation for management and senior management positions.  It is an understatement to say this topic will come up a lot over the next few months; I expect it to be the subject of extensive discussion within ICMA’s Committee on the Profession and at the ICMA conference this fall.  I’m also very concerned as to the efforts we have undertaken to attract students and young professionals into our field – the impact of this situation will have a great effect on our recruitment, which carries over to our regular symposium events, and to workshops on ethics.  It also extends to conversations we have with the press/media.  I think we need to talk transparently about it – and to guide our membership through their own discussions of compensation.  You may recall that the FCCMA developed a model employment agreement as the result of committee work and a workshop at the annual conference.  As the national discussion of this issue continues, I will share any information that is gathered. 

For ICMA and the California managers’ association, called Cal-ICMA, the response has been swift and thoughtful, as has the response from ICMA – I’d like to share a few paragraphs that their executive board has shared throughout the ICMA membership: 

On July 29 and 30, the City Managers Department of Cal-ICMA’s Executive Committee met in Sacramento. The Executive Committee is comprised of more than 40 city managers from throughout the state of California.   The leadership of the Department and Executive Committee are put in office after a vote by all its members.  Membership of the Executive Committee represents a diverse group of city managers from all geographical areas throughout the state, representatives from area managers groups, representatives from the League, ICMA, Cal-ICMA, CCMF, County Associations, and both the northern and southern assistants groups.    

 After hours of discussing the various issues resulting from the City of Bell, the Executive Committee unanimously voted to create a task force to work in concert with the League on the necessary response and reforms.  As mentioned in the last email, the task force was assigned to work with the League on proposed legislative reforms, to review and approve a draft set of compensation guidelines to be circulated to all city mangers and assistant city managers, and to work on a salary survey in coordination with ICMA.  Everything that has been done to date has been in coordination with this task force's representatives and in coordination with the League.  To be successful we must act in partnership with each other and be unified in our approach.

 While there has certainly been a diverse set of opinions and positions, the task force recognizes that there are no perfect solutions.  We recognize that each community is unique and we have attempted to respect that principle, while at the same time pushing forward the necessary actions. A draft set of compensation guidelines is being produced, the full membership has been surveyed to gather data and information.  

The City of Bell issue appears to be far from over.  As many of us are aware this has brought negative attention to the profession up and down the state.  As we mentioned in the last email, as city managers we need to act both thoughtfully and assertively to address this issue and ensure the public understands the situation in Bell is not indicative of who we are as dedicated professionals and public servants.   While we all have strong opinions about the current state of affairs and approach, it is strongly recommended that city managers have a unified approach/message.  Having random and disparate positions from varying city managers across the state does not help in attempting to respond and to create measures that can be adopted quickly and with the support of our communities.  

 We are confident that with a unified, transparent, and thoughtful approach we will emerge positioned to continue providing the needed leadership and service to our communities. Signed by the current president of Cal-ICMA, the officers, and the executive director of the California League of Cities. 

There is a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times on page 11.