City manager

A city manager is an official appointed as the administrative manager of a city, in a council–manager form of city government. Local officials serving in this position are sometimes referred to as the chief executive officer (CEO) or chief administrative officer (CAO) in some municipalities.

Description

Dayton, Ohio suffered a great flood in 1913, and responded with the innovation of a paid, non-political city manager, hired by the commissioners to run the bureaucracy; civil engineers were especially preferred. Other small or middle sized American cities, especially in the West, adopted the idea.

In Europe, smaller cities in the Netherlands were specially attracted by the plan.

By 1940 there were city managers in small cities that grew enormously by the end of the century: Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; Rochester, New York; and San Diego, California.

In a technical sense, the term "city manager," as opposed to CAO, implies more discretion and independent authority that is set forth in a charter or some other body of codified law, as opposed to duties being assigned on a varying basis by a single superior such as a mayor.