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Panel weighs proposal to remove department heads from civil service and add noninterference language
Summary
Staff recommended moving department heads to at-will executive status to give the city manager more administrative flexibility; committee members, staff and union representatives debated the trade-offs between managerial agility and protections against political interference and asked staff to draft noninterference language and performance standards for follow-up in January.
Staff presented Item 6b, a proposal to convert department heads from classified civil-service positions to at-will executive appointments reporting to the city manager.
City counsel and staff said many peer cities treat department heads as at-will executives, and argued the change would allow the city manager to "make course corrections" more quickly when a department head's performance or alignment with administrative goals is deficient. The staff memo recommended that, if adopted, any change apply prospectively (not to current incumbents) and include charter language clarifying the split between council policy-setting and city-manager…
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