No Safety Net: How Weak Rules and Poor Training Leave Municipal Administrators in a Tough Spot.

We just got home from the UMAAS conference, and something troubled me on the drive and late into the night. It still bothers me today, and so I write.

I was delighted to see many of the administrators we work with on everything from strategic planning to impromptu phone calls. But I heard a common theme at this conference, that niggles at me.

Being a municipal administrator is one of the most challenging jobs around. Every day, they are in front of the population, expecting to balance community needs, tight budgets, and constant pressure from their Council, who do not understand the difference between their election promises and the legislation. Add in the select few residents who think that paying taxes gives them the right to act like an ass in the municipal office, and you have a lot of pressure on one pair of shoulders.

The legislation and the rules that are supposed to protect the administrators are so weak and vague that they are useless to those who ran for Council based on their egos. When councillors ignore these rules, they make the administrator's job hard. The training administrators get does not equip them to deal with the abuse and harassment that is often viewed as an occupational hazard.

A System That Doesn't Help

A Council can go from a functioning Council to a disaster with one election. All it takes is one loud-mouthed shnook (if you heard that in Foghorn Leghorn's voice, you are my people), and the system goes into chaos. I know of some councils that spend so much time with legal issues that one wonders if they get any actual work done. It costs money, the village knows where its idiot is, and people lose faith in the local government. And when the administrator goes…." hey, waitaminnit…you can't do that!" the Council threatens their jobs, or they are fired.

They reach out for help. They call everyone they can think of, even me. The administrators are told that councils are autonomous and encouraged to get a lawyer at their own expense and to duke it out in the courts. Most often, administrators don't. Because in our small population communities, everyone knows your business, some councillors have no class and blurt only their side of the story on Coffee Row, and lots of those administrators need their jobs. There is nowhere to go because they get the same BS answer everywhere. There is legislation, but little you can do with a Council that won't follow it.

Autonomous Should Not Mean Above the Law

Where did we get the idea that having rules means you cannot be autonomous within your scope? I am autonomous, but I still get a ticket if I speed. (ask me how I know). Yet nobody who writes the legislation is interested in adding enforcement, leaving it up to Councils to police themselves. They all have a Code of Conduct, Ethics policy, and bylaws. They don't care to enforce it. If they don't police themselves, the administrator bears the brunt. (To those councils who follow the rules, your administrator loves you, and I do too.)

Having a standard that doesn't get pitched around every time there is an election means administrators are free to do their jobs.

Oh, But if We Make the Councillors Accountable, They Won't Run Again

Say that again, slowly. Now show me why that is a problem. So what if they don't? Is our only alternative crap leadership over no leadership? How do we know that will happen? A 2022 study from MIT's Sloan School of Management demonstrated that people leave their jobs due to toxic workplace culture. Isn't it possible that if Councils resumed their once prestigious roles, people who care about the community might be interested in running?

Will those people run if we make training mandatory? I'm not saying that all Councillors need it; many are capable, love their community, and do a better job than I ever could. But making training mandatory would weed out the ones whose sole purpose for running for election was to fire the foreman. And who needs him? (or her?).

Better training doesn't hurt anyone. I'll go one step further. Being a Councillor should be a paid position requiring qualifications like those found everywhere in government, except "municipal." At the very least, councillors should understand that their authority comes from the province, not the people who elected them. They can serve those who elected them better if they know and follow the legislation.

Moving Forward

Our communities need better laws that protect administrators and hold councillors accountable. Enforceable laws that don't depend on the person being abused to come up with the funds for the lawyer are needed.

If local governments adopted strong, clear policies and offered the appropriate training, municipal administrators might be easier to find and certainly easier to keep.

Final Thoughts

I would love to hear from anyone with ideas about how we can support the administrators in pushing for change or how we can change this system. Our economic well-being is at stake when small populations are at risk. Their best chance at survival is not to deal with things that could easily be prevented if we just figured it out.