Administrator hire/fire authority supported by two Fort Smith city directors

At least two Fort Smith city directors agree with City Administrator Dennis Kelly’s assertion he should have hire/fire authority over department heads.

(The City Wire requested comment about Kelly’s proposed changes from Fort Smith’s seven city directors and Fort Smith Mayor Ray Baker. As of Sunday evening, only City Directors Gary Campbell and Cole Goodman responded with comments.)

Kelly reiterated this request in a 300-plus page Organization Analysis he released Friday (July 10). Several members of the Fort Smith Board of Directors opposed this idea at a May 12, 2009 study session.

City Director Cole Goodman said the city board hired a professional to run the city, and the board should not micro-manage the city administrator.

“We have in my opinion the most professional and most well-trained city administrator in the past 20 years. We need to let him do his job. We hired him to manage the city … we shouldn’t be telling him how to do his job each day. … It’s not our job to micro-manage city government,” Goodman said.

City Director Gary Campbell listed three reasons he supports giving a city administrator the hire/fire authority.
• “The Board holds the Administrator totally responsible for achieving its policies and goals. If the wrong people are hired or fired, the Board has only one person to deal with.

• “It removes politics from hiring/firing decisions and stresses qualifications, experience and results.

• “The City is like a big business with 900 employees and a $260M budget. Most of the citizen comments I have received, (they) expect it to be run like an efficient business.”

Goodman and Campbell were pleased to learn from Kelly’s analysis that Fort Smith is in the statistical middle in terms of the number of employees compared to 15 cities with similar geographic and political realities. Fort Smith has 11.25 employees per 1,000 citizens. Clarksville, Tenn. (pop., 103,455) has 7.14 employees per 1,000 citizens, while Macon, Ga. (pop., 97,255) has 17.76 employees per 1,000 citizens.

Kelly’s proposal to combine economic development duties within the job of a second deputy city administrator drew positive, but mixed reviews from Campbell and Goodman.

Goodman suggested maybe the city have a full-time economic development director, separate from a deputy city administrator.

“It’s just an important thing, especially in these times … that we have a full time-person, somebody that really knows what they are doing. But that’s not my place to make that decision,” Goodman said.

Campbell said the city needs to do a better job of pulling its various economic development functions under one umbrella. He cited as as example the dual management structure of the Fort Smith Convention Center and the Fort Smith Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“A combination of state statutes and local decisions have created the problem of multiple independent silos for downtown development, tourism, etc. (e.g. Convention Center and the Convention & Visitors Bureau),” Campbell noted in an e-mail to The City Wire. “When each organization is focusing entirely on its specific agenda, but not pulling on the same handle, the wagon doesn’t move forward. Work needs to be done to combine, coordinate or re-align these organizations.”

Goodman said it’s long past the time Fort Smith should create a convention center and tourism management structure similar to that in Hot Springs, Little Rock and Pine Bluff.

However, and despite previous requests from city directors to do so, Kelly did not specifically address the looming financial problems with the convention center and/or the city’s tourism management structure.

Kelly also is proposing drastic staffing changes to the city’s budgeting and finance operations. Campbell indicated he would like to understand more about why such changes are necessary.

“The Analysis does not elaborate on what benefits would result from the expenditure of staff time and expense to reorganize,” Campbell noted.

Also, Finance Director Kara Bushkuhl noted problems with the staffing allocations in a Saturday e-mail she sent to Kelly, the city directors, city department heads and the media. For example, Bushkuhl said Kelly’s analysis suggests there are 41 employees in budget in finance, when there are only 33 in those functions.

Kelly has requested a special board meeting be called to go through the analysis. He recommends the meeting coincide with a planned Aug. 15 retreat originally called to address the 2010 city budget.