Ask Eric: What type of government does Simsbury have?

Eric Wellman is a former two-term First Selectman, one-term Simsbury Selectman, happy husband and dad, and enthusiastic cheerleader for all things Simsbury! Keep up to date with what’s happening in Simsbury on his popular Facebook page, Eric’s Best of the ‘Bury.

The single most important decision I was part of in my six years on the Board of Selectmen took place three days after I was elected and three weeks before I was sworn in. Members of the current and future Board of Selectmen gathered in Town Hall to interview the three finalists applying to be Simsbury’s first Town Manager.

The year prior, in 2016, Simsbury voters elected to amend the Town charter in favor of a Board of Selectmen / Town Manager form of government. Out of nearly 12 thousand votes cast, nearly 54% favored this change. I was not one of them. I voted against this significant change in our charter. Little did I know at the time that 12 months later, I would be elected to lead Simsbury through this historic transition.

I left that long day of Town Manager interviews with the overwhelming feeling that Simsbury voters had made the right decision in moving to this new form of government; one in which the voters elect a Board of Selectmen, which then appoints a Town Manager to run the day-to-day operations of the town. I voted against this form of government because I believed that we should be electing our leaders directly. I still hold that to be true today. However, I’ve come to understand the significant benefits of professional management, and now believe those benefits greatly outweigh the drawbacks.

How CT Cities and Towns Organize Themselves

In Connecticut, local government comes in three basic flavors.

1) Selectmen – Town Meeting: This form of government, while highly unusual outside of New England, is the most common form of local government in Connecticut (about 60% of Connecticut towns still use this structure). In this type of government, the department heads report to the chief elected official, often referred to as the First Selectman. Under this form of government, decision-making is highly decentralized, and power is shared among multiple elected and appointed boards and commissions. Since 2017, Simsbury has moved away from this form of government in the purest sense but maintains many of the vestiges. It’s up for debate whether those vestiges are a feature or a bug of our new form of government. More on that to come.

2) Mayor – City Council: This form of government is present in about 30 Connecticut municipalities, often found in cities. Here you have an elected mayor and an elected council. The department heads may either report directly to the mayor (strong mayor) or to the city council (weak mayor).

3) Council – Manager: This form of government is found in about 3-dozen Connecticut towns and is becoming increasingly common. This is where a council or board appoints a professional manager to run the day-to-day of the town. The manager often has a Masters of Public Administration (MPA) degree along with 10 or more years of experience at the municipal level.

Within these three kinds of local government are countless nuances that make each community different. For example, Simsbury and Avon both have town managers. But Avon elects a 5-member council which then elects its own chairperson. In Simsbury, the First Selectman is a member of the town’s legislative body but is separately elected by the voters.

As mentioned earlier, Simsbury did not completely move away from the Selectmen – Town Meeting form of government. This is the most participatory of the three forms of government and it’s marked by numerous boards and commissions that sometimes have overlapping responsibilities.

Here are a couple of examples:

Police Commission:

The role of the Police Commission is enshrined in Simsbury’s Town Charter. Its five members are appointed by the Board of Selectmen and are responsible for a wide range of activities from budget-making, to investigating citizen complaints, to establishing police department policies, and even weighing in on certain personnel matters and collective bargaining decisions.

While Police Commissions are not uncommon in Connecticut, they are a rarity in Town Manager governments. About 5 years ago, this led to some challenges in delineating some of the roles and responsibilities between the Police Commission and our Town Manager and ultimately led to the creation of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to provide clarity to the situation.

Board of Finance:

Like the Police Commission, the Board of Finance is also part of our Town Charter. The Board of Finance is elected and I sometimes say that it’s the most powerful board in Simsbury that no one understands. The Board of Finance has a wide range of responsibilities during the budget process and beyond. The Board of Finance approves the Board of Selectmen and Board of Education budgets before they go to referendum, and has a significant amount of power over the Board of Selectmen budget where it holds line item veto power.

My intent in highlighting the Board of Finance and the Police Commission is to provide a couple of specific examples of how Simsbury moved to a new form of government but chose to keep some of the building blocks of the previous form of government. This should not be taken as a criticism of either of those groups, which consist of volunteers carrying out their duties in accordance with our Town Charter. The next time we open up our Town Charter for revision, there should be thoughtful discussion about the role these boards play. At the very least, better delineation of roles and responsibilities is needed. Greater clarity would be beneficial to both our staff and the volunteers who make up these boards, so everyone understands their lane.

Which Form of Government is Better?

There isn’t a clear answer to this question because it depends in part on what you value. A person who places a greater emphasis on citizen participation may favor the Selectmen – Town Meeting form of government where the person running the day-to-day of the town is elected and there are numerous boards and commissions that hold significant power.

Council – Manager forms of government have a reputation for greater efficiency because decision-making is more centralized among the manager and legislative body, and not spread out among numerous boards. The downside, according to some, is there is less citizen participation and more power in the hands of an unelected individual.

During my six years on the Board of Selectmen, I have seen these competing tensions play out. I also believe the benefits of professional management outweigh the downsides.

Here are some examples of what professional management has meant to Simsbury:

· Enables the town to attract a higher level of talent, especially at the department head level.

· Prior to professional management, town staff were not routinely receiving performance evaluations, limiting opportunities for feedback and growth.

· Investments in basic record-keeping – the tools the town uses to track employee work hours and time off.

· Improved collaboration between the Town and Board of Education (a couple of years ago we merged the two finance departments – an outcome that would have been possible but less likely under the previous form of government).

· Professional management helps ensure all people are treated equally regardless of political connections.

· The Town Manager reduces the political temperature of the Board of Selectmen (recommendations that come from a nonpartisan Town Manager are often received differently than recommendations that come from the chief elected official).

The above list should not be viewed as a criticism of any individual or administration. Under the old form of government, Simsbury is fortunate to have had strong, competent leadership from both sides of the political aisle.

My critique about the previous form of government is less about any individual and it’s more about the system itself. Managing a town in the 21st century is an increasingly complex undertaking. Simsbury is a $118 million enterprise. Our new form of government helps ensure that the people leading Simsbury have the appropriate education and experience for the job. Further, in this time of hyper partisanship, it ensures the person running our town comes from a nonpartisan place – free to follow industry best practices rather than the dogma of one of the two political parties.

I expect that within the next couple of years, Simsbury will form a new Charter Revision Commission to consider possible changes to our Town’s charter. I have no specific insight into what changes we can expect. I do expect there will be a healthy tension between people who support our Town Manager form of government vs. those who preferred the previous system. That’s a good thing. I don’t expect we will go all the way back to our previous form of government. I do expect there will be conversation about whether we remove some of the vestiges that anchor us in the previous way of doing business or whether we simply provide clarity to better mark the lanes.

I hope you stay tuned and get involved. I don’t know what the right answer is, but I have a lot of faith in the collective wisdom of this community.