‘To be or not to be’

Thoughts on the Sandpoint city administrator position

By Carrie Logan
Reader Contributor

This Shakespearean quote seems appropriate, given the renewed discussion about whether or not to add a city administrator position to the city payroll. I hope to give you some history regarding the position in Sandpoint and my assessment of how the job was performed and how to go forward and why.

While mayor in 2014-2015, I initiated a conversation about an administrator position, the “why” of adding the position and the “how” of its functioning. I talked with city administrators in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls to get a sense of how they functioned, looked at job descriptions and talked with council in executive session about their willingness to look at adding the position. They were interested.

The city government at the time functioned as a fantastic team with excellent staff. The issue for me was with the upcoming election. Would candidates for mayor have city experience and leadership qualities to make sure it continued to function well? The learning curve for council and mayor is huge. I felt that if a city administrator were in place, deficits in city leadership would be compensated for. A job description was created utilizing information from other cities and input by city staff.

The council discussion in public session focused on whether to have that position or not in terms of tenure, function and salary. The questions from Councilor Deb Ruehle that I recall were about residency, whether the position could pay for itself by grant procurement and efficiencies, and what the turnover rate was for that position. 

In Idaho, there is very little turnover and administrators tend to stay in that position for years. (Pre-city administrator, there was very little turnover in our city government. That changed dramatically after the hire of the city administrator.) Department heads also discussed the new position with two finding it totally unnecessary (Parks and Recreation and Public Works). 

Council ultimately agreed to the position, the job was advertised, and interviews were conducted by former and past councilors along with Coeur d’Alene city administrator, Sandpoint city attorney, myself and several others. The majority vote picked the candidate.

After I left office the administrator and the mayor changed the job description. Restructuring departments, staffing changes and running departments was never an original vision. The position was to facilitate success in each department and the city as a whole. Instead, personnel policies were changed that gutted employee protection and contributed to turnover, more expensive positions were created as a part of the expanded bureaucracy, hiring and firing authority along with large budget authority were given to the administrator and other issues — all with council approval.

I find it interesting to hear the current council speak of guardrails to prevent what happened when the council was complicit in many issues.

Currently we have a mayor who has dragged back the longstanding city structure — functioning department heads, mayor in charge of hiring and firings for a few. From the outside it looks like, historically, business as usual. At the same time, we hear rumblings from the City Council that the mayor is not doing his job or doing it in a way that the council doesn’t like. Sandpoint’s form of government is a strong mayor — the mayor is the CEO and the administrative head with all authorities conferred to him by code. Council is legislative and quasi-judicial; they are not in charge of personnel. They do have budget oversight authority. 

The mayor does not answer to them — he answers to the public at election time. The administrator position only answers to the mayor so if you have an out-of-control administrator and a weak mayor you are in trouble. 

Having been burned once I do not recommend going with a city administrator again. The position is expensive with those dollars needed in other areas of the city. I don’t think there are any kind of guardrails that council could put in place that can envision all of the “what ifs.” Historically the city has done just fine without a city administrator and we can and are again.

Carrie Logan was elected to two terms on the Sandpoint City Council (2008-2014) and served as mayor from 2014-2016. She also previously served five years on the Sandpoint Planning and Zoning Commission.