Clinton’s Charter Revision Commission (CRC) held a public hearing Sept. 7 to gather input and share information about potentially moving to a town manager form of government.

Since it first began meeting this spring, the nine-member commission has weighed a number of recommendations from the town’s residents and elected officials for improving local governance. The most significant of these is a proposal to hire a professional town manager.

The three basic types of municipal government in Connecticut are selectman–town meeting, mayor–council, and manager–council, with some towns adopting variations of these. Like Clinton, the majority of Connecticut towns—108 out of 169—are governed by a first selectman.

CRC members researched 11 Connecticut towns with professional town managers (or a hybrid form of government) and presented some of their findings at the public hearing. Simsbury, Bloomfield, Tolland, Avon, West Hartford, East Hampton, Killingly, and Canton were among the towns in which the CRC interviewed new and veteran town managers, town clerks, and members of town councils. Cheshire Town Manager Mike Milone and Woodbridge Town Administrator Anthony Genovese were brought in as guest speakers.

Town Manager vs. First Selectman

In a town manager–council form of government, a town council generally makes policy, sets a budget, and appoints a professional town manager to carry out the day-to-day administrative functions. The town manager, in turn, oversees all department heads. He or she typically prepares the budget for the council’s consideration, serves as the council’s chief advisor, and recruits, hires, terminates, and supervises government staff. The town council, whose members are elected and serve as the town’s policymaking body, focuses on the community’s goals, major projects, and long-term considerations, including economic growth, land use development, capital improvement, and financing and strategic planning. The town manager carries out those goals.

A town manager is usually a long-term, salaried position held by someone with a master’s degree in public administration. To ensure that their leaders are fully vested in the community, many towns have residency requirements for their town managers—a policy favored by Clinton’s CRC.

In towns governed by a first selectman, a board of selectmen is elected by voters, and the first selectman—the chief elected official—runs the day-to-day operations of the town. He or she appoints and removes department managers, handles human resources, negotiates contracts, maintains town buildings, and oversees all boards, commissions, and committees. Town meetings are held on specific issues, and those in attendance serve as the town’s legislative body. The office of first selectman in Clinton is a two-year term with no term limits.

‘You Can Modify This System’

Questions at the public hearing centered on issues of cost (the average starting salary for a manager in a town the size of Clinton is $130,000, with benefits and a retirement package) and control over the town budget. Some residents expressed concern about a town manager form of government taking away their power to vote on a town budget; the town charter, however, can be modified to include a provision for a budget referendum, leaving control over the budget in voters’ hands.

The CRC has noted one of the biggest benefits to having a town manager is that long-range projects—from brownfields remediation to economic development—gain traction, consistency, and continuity. Because town managers are hired, not elected and possibly unseated every two years, projects started under their leadership are more likely to be completed rather than abandoned or stalled from one election cycle to the next. Town managers are also specially trained for the job of running a municipality; among candidates for first selectman, skills and experience vary widely.

Milone, who was Cheshire’s finance director for 10 years prior to serving as town manager for the past 16, is under contract to the town. The town council decides every three years whether to renew or terminate his contract based on whether or not he has met certain goals and objectives in an action plan that he describes as his blueprint for the fiscal year. Those goals and objectives, in turn, filter down to the town’s department heads, a system that Milone says bring integration and continuity to the town’s various activities.

“The situation you have here with a first selectman and board of selectmen is that the first selectman has both legislative and executive responsibilities. In a town manager form of government, there is clear delineation between the two. The council is the legislative body, and the manager is the chief executive.”

In Cheshire, he noted, issues are put to a vote by the town only if they involve a major expenditure.

“We have thresholds for referendum triggering, and it’s primarily for financial issues…capital appropriations that exceed $400,000,” he said.

Those types of votes take place at election time, in November, in order to limit the frequency of referendums and to ensure better turnout and participation in spending decisions.

When asked why only 35 towns in the state have a town manager or hybrid model of government, Milone said it usually “takes a serious crisis for people to wake up to the fact that it’s their form of government, and not the individual” that’s the problem.

He added, “[I]f it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. You have a lot of towns in Connecticut that, whatever form of government they have has worked well for them for a long time, and they just don’t see the need to change it. Things aren’t so bad that they feel they need to go to a different form of government. That’s one of the reasons.

“I think the other reason is that, quite simply, people don’t realize that this is a home rule state, and our parochial interests aren’t going to change whether you have a mayor or a town manager or a first selectman, and I do think there is a fear that that will happen if a manager takes over control of a town,” he said. “And so I think it’s a combination of people just being generally satisfied with their form of government, not knowing enough about this form of government to feel comfortable with it, and also feeling that it’s one size fits all and that when the manager comes in, they lose their democratic rights and their ability to impact policy, and they feel that they’re disenfranchised. I think that that’s a lot of it.”

Addressing residents’ concerns about relinquishing control over the town’s budget, Milone assured them, “You can modify this system in a way that satisfies the needs of the community without stripping away a lot of things simply because you’re hiring a manager.”

‘We Should Have a Professional Administrator’

In a Sept. 6 letter to the CRC read into the public hearing, John Allen, chairman of Clinton’s Economic Development Commission, wrote, in part, “Over the last two years, I have spent a lot of time visiting with executives of many towns in Connecticut; towns that we compete with for residents, businesses, developers, grants etc. The overriding takeaway is that we need to not just improve our effectiveness in economic development, but in our town overall.

“In addition, every discussion aimed at identifying Clinton’s overall needs includes a need for better communication across departments, i.e., departments operating independently in silos, a growing need for a professionally led and sustained economic development effort, better accountability (i.e., ‘Who’s responsible for this?’), greater transparency, and less party partisanship,” Allen wrote. “We would benefit by hiring a properly vetted person with the actual training and job experience to know what to do and how to do it.

“We professionally recruit, interview, and extensively vet the folks who manage our police department and school system, selecting only professional, experienced people who have the skills to effectively manage. We hire the best, and they are accountable to the town to perform. Yet as regards the town’s chief executive, the town’s two main political committees select two well-meaning and civic-minded candidates. One will be elected and, in effect, become the town’s CEO. It is unreasonable and unfair to expect that any elected first selectman, no matter how well-intentioned—without a strong background in town government, with strong, pre-existing relationships with Hartford, federal agencies, other towns, consultants, developers, civic associations, etc.—can as effectively and efficiently manage Clinton as a [town manager]. We should have a professional administrator, responsible for the daily management of the town, executing the plans and objectives set by our elected officials and fully accountable to Clinton and its residents.”

The nine-member Charter Revision Commission—consisting of Chairman James Staunton (R), Vice Chair Karen Marsden (U), Eric Bergman (U), Gary Bousquet (R), Dennis Donovan (R), Lynn Hidek (D), Art Kuever (D), Peter Nye (R), and Bradford Sullivan (D)—will review comments from the public hearing and make a recommendation to the board of selectmen.

The group meets twice a month, and meetings are open to the public. Questions and suggestions for the group may be emailed to charterrevision@clintonct.org.