Assessing Average Tenure Among City Managers
Ammons, David N., and Bosse, Matthew J. “Examining the Dual Meanings of Average Tenure.” State and Government Review. 37(61). April 2005 :61-71.
Question Generally speaking, turnover among city managers occurs at a high frequency with the average tenure for city managers lasting well under a decade. While past research on the topic sought to explain factors such as the causes of city manager turnover, its consequences, and other variables, rarely have systematic studies focused on developing a more precise measurement of the time interval between the appointment and departure of city managers. Despite the annual surveys completed by the ICMA and research conducted by R.J. Stillman, R.C. Feiock and C. Stream, along with other notable political scientists, inconsistencies in the figures on average tenure remain. To be sure, most casual observations of city manager turnover centers on their length of service in a single community from beginning to end. However, others utilize a different approach which entails asking current city managers about the period of time that they have spent in their current position thus far. This is significant because each of the two terms signifies different intervals of time; therefore, this dual meaning introduces the likelihood of misrepresentation. In this article, the authors focus on the common method of gauging the average tenure of city managers, the potential for misrepresentation, the misuse of the “average tenure” statistic derived by this method, and the consequences of misrepresentation or misuse.
Data
This study examines the completed tenures of city managers in 120 U.S. cities from 1980 through 2002. The cities were selected to represent the following population strata: the largest council-manager cities and council-manager cities that had populations, according to the 2000 census, of 200,000, 100,000, 75,000, 50,000 and 25,000. Twenty council-manager cities were identified in the cities with populations close to
Question Generally speaking, turnover among city managers occurs at a high frequency with the average tenure for city managers lasting well under a decade. While past research on the topic sought to explain factors such as the causes of city manager turnover, its consequences, and other variables, rarely have systematic studies focused on developing a more precise measurement of the time interval between the appointment and departure of city managers. Despite the annual surveys completed by the ICMA and research conducted by R.J. Stillman, R.C. Feiock and C. Stream, along with other notable political scientists, inconsistencies in the figures on average tenure remain. To be sure, most casual observations of city manager turnover centers on their length of service in a single community from beginning to end. However, others utilize a different approach which entails asking current city managers about the period of time that they have spent in their current position thus far. This is significant because each of the two terms signifies different intervals of time; therefore, this dual meaning introduces the likelihood of misrepresentation. In this article, the authors focus on the common method of gauging the average tenure of city managers, the potential for misrepresentation, the misuse of the “average tenure” statistic derived by this method, and the consequences of misrepresentation or misuse.
Data
This study examines the completed tenures of city managers in 120 U.S. cities from 1980 through 2002. The cities were selected to represent the following population strata: the largest council-manager cities and council-manager cities that had populations, according to the 2000 census, of 200,000, 100,000, 75,000, 50,000 and 25,000. Twenty council-manager cities were identified in the cities with populations close to