The Challenges Facing the City Manager in Midsized Municipality

The predicaments the city manager is facing in the management of the midsized municipality are fundamentally due to working with budget overruns, the people of the municipality operating on dilapidated infrastructure, employee unrest, and constant application of a standard line-item budget. In assuming the position of the city manager, I would basically apply the theories, principles, and practice of public administration to provide the city with the approaches to solve the challenges it is currently facing.

Understanding the Cause of the Challenges

Moving forward to find solutions to the challenges that the city is facing, it is imperative to establish related actions that result in the budget overrun. According to Andersen, Samset, and Welde (2016), budget overrun is mostly due to three main reasons. First, there could have been the underestimation of the complexities of the projects and not pay attention to the probable risks that might be involved. Secondly, working with unfeasible cost estimates certainly leads to budget overrun. Thirdly, budget overrun could result from failure of the project supervisors to effectively plan with the resources that are available for the estimated project period. As such, dilapidated infrastructure is the manifestation of substandard completion or incompletion of municipal projects.

In regards to the problem of employee unrest, it is inferred from Frederickson (2015) that workers go to organized strikes when the minimum wage is low with respect to the changing economic determinants including inflation rates. Similarly, poor or ineffective communication by the employer as well as disparities in compensations might prompt the workers to form organized strikes especially when they share common views.

Nevertheless, the municipality has constantly used a standard line-item budget. According to Morgan and Cook (2014), the standard line-item budget has the disadvantage of not being appropriate for projects that require efficiency, effectiveness, and cannot address areas of neglected concerns. The municipality, on the other hand, needs budget formats that exhibit possibilities of being effective and efficient taking into consideration that the taxpayers’ money should be accounted for by initiating quality projects.

Recommended Changes for the Next Fiscal Year

In order to curb the challenge of the budget overrun in the next finical year, I recommend that sanctioning of the projects be done after consultation with project’s experts. In so doing, it would be possible to work with realistic goals as well as feasible estimations to ensure that the initiated project is successfully completed. For the larger and complex projects aiming at infrastructure development, the projects would be divided into phases upon which margins would be created for delays that might arise (Singh, 2011).

To deal with the problem of employee unrest, appropriate motivating factors would be looked into. For example, the employers would be advised to convene meetings with their respective worker, listen to their grievances, and come up with specific solutions to their problems.

Regarding the use of standard line-item budget, it I recommend that the municipality applies flexible formats that can give room for likely changes, fall back to contingency plans and necessary adjustments. For instance, use a hybrid format that combines performance, zero-based, and program budgeting. A combination of the three aspects of budgeting would offer certain advantages including being accountable to the project, evaluating whether the project is meeting its objectives and goals, efficiency and effectiveness of the project, and giving priority to the project by focusing on what needs to be done (Morgan and Cook, 2014).

References

Andersen, B., Samset, K., & Welde, M. (2016). Low estimates–high stakes: Underestimation of costs at the front-end of projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 9(1), 171-193.

Frederickson, H. G. (2015). Social equity and public administration: Origins, developments, and applications. Routledge.

Morgan, D. F., & Cook, B. J. (Eds.). (2014). New public governance: A regime-centered perspective. ME Sharpe.

Singh, H. (2011). Public Administration: Theory and Practice. Pearson.