By James Krizan
We need to be honest with ourselves. Our industry is facing a crisis. No, I’m not talking about the ever-changing demands from our residents and business communities. No, I’m not talking about the constant financial pressures that have been created by our broken municipal finance model.
For years, we’ve talked about the coming “silver tsunami.” Take a minute and do a quick Google search for retiring city managers in Michigan. You’ll see articles about at least a half dozen retiring managers in just the last few months. This is just the beginning.
These retirements do represent wonderful opportunities for our members. Historically, managers often move from smaller communities to larger communities. For example, Don Crawford’s retirement from Owosso earlier this year created an opportunity for Nate Henne to manage his hometown. As these managers move on, they leave voids that have often been filled by first-time manager candidates. Herein lies our crisis.
Our larger communities will continue to draw the exceptional talent that we have here in Michigan (and across the country for that matter) as there are constantly managers who are ready to take their skills and expertise to the next challenge. However, our smaller communities are facing the problems of a baseball team with poor scouting and bad trades – a depleted farm system.
That isn’t to say that we don’t have exceptional young talent. But over the last decade or so, there haven’t been enough entry level positions to keep and develop that talent so that we’d be prepared for the coming retirement crisis. The result is that many young, local government management-oriented people have left the state, left the profession, or focused on a completely different MPA concentration all together.
MME Fellowship Program
In the MME Fellowship program, we’ve directly noticed a lack of interest in becoming city managers from students over the past few years. In 2016, we were unable to offer a fellowship for two reasons. One was a lack of applications and the second was that those applying for the MME City Management Fellowship weren’t interested in being city managers!
In 2017, we changed the program to be open to all participating universities with an MPA program instead of just utilizing two different universities on a rotational basis. We also turned the program into a year-long fellowship instead of a six-month one. The end result was more applications and better quality applicants. We were able to offer two fellowships that year and considered it a success. However, we had difficulty recruiting again this year and were unable to place any fellows in a community.
Community Internships/Fellowships
The more opportunities there are for our future city managers, the more likely students will be interested in pursuing our chosen career path. There are a number of communities who have developed successful internship/fellowship programs that continue to produce talent for our farm teams, including Novi, Sparta, and Grande Ledge. But I’d like to take a minute to acknowledge one that has an impressive track record of success: Grand Haven.
In Grand Haven, Pat McGinnis inherited a successful program that produced future city managers. Soren Wolfe, Doug Thomas, Ben Bifoss, Mark Meyers, and Mitch Deisch were all products of this program. Pat has continued this program and Vester Davis, the latest example, was recently successful in obtaining his first city manager position in Stanton. Prior to Vester, Pat’s program gave North Muskegon City Manager Sam Janson a chance to break into the profession. Pat’s program model provides inexperienced people with high potential a chance to gain experience in a city manager’s office, exposing them to the world we all know and love.
Pat brings them in for a year to give them experience. Provided they are capable and successful, he also provides them with a safe landing spot in an assistant to the city manager role if they are unable to obtain full-time employment elsewhere after that first year. This gives them the opportunity to learn and grow into their role as a future city manager.
Yes, this program requires funding. Yes, it requires taking time to develop and train a new person every year or two. But the increased productivity and new ideas can be enough of a return on investment to make a program like Pat’s worthwhile. It is also important to remember that this isn’t the only program model that works.
So, if you haven’t considered it before, think about developing an internship program or becoming a host community for an MME Fellow next year. Remember, the future of our profession depends on the smart, talented, and ethical people that make up our organization and we need to keep the pipeline of talent flowing.
James Krizan
Chair, NextGen Committee; Assistant to the City Manager, Royal Oak
James Krizan has served as assistant to the city manager in Royal Oak since 2016. Previously, he held the position of village manager in Decatur.