By RON MOORE
Guest Columnist
Editor’s note: This column is the third in a series of four addressing the issue of whether Westfield should change its status from a class 3 to a class 2 city. The Westfield City Council is set to have that discussion at its June 13 meeting. All four columns from Mr. Moore will appear in the pages of The Reporter prior to the meeting.
As mentioned in my first column, moving to a class 2 city status would require changes in the roles of some of the elected officials. Under this form of governance, three specific changes will be required. These changes involve the City Mayor, Clerk-Treasurer, and the creation of a new position for the Fiscal Officer.
Under the class 2 structure, the mayor will lose any of the legislative powers he previously had. He will no longer preside as city council president and vote in the case of any tie votes of the council. The City Council will elect their own president to preside over the city council activity. This allows the council to be completely independent of the administration, which provides better oversight and stronger checks and balances for the operation of the city and its governance. It makes the mayor and the administration of city affairs more accountable to those individuals we have elected to represent us on the City Council.
The elected position of City Clerk-Treasurer will change to an elected City Clerk position and a new position of the Fiscal Officer (City Controller) will be created under the class 2 structure. The new position will be an appointed position through the office of the mayor. This change requires further review to better judge the value of such a change in our governance structure.
To begin, statute does not define the qualifications for either of these positions. Let’s say, for the sake of comparing checks and balances, the financial responsibilities between the old treasurer and the new city controller are similar in basic job function. One position is elected and the other is appointed. For accountability, the Clerk-Treasurer is accountable only to the voting public and would require a recall vote or a criminal action to remove them from office. Since they are elected, they are at a peer level with both the Mayor and City Council. Therefore, neither the mayor’s office nor the city council have any checks and balances beyond that which is prescribed by statute.
The appointed position will come with a higher level of prescribed job performance by statue and most likely a job description that requires education and experience in public finance, auditing, and accounting. Since it will be within the administration, the position will be directly accountable to the mayor’s office and to city council by statute. Now that the city council is independent, it can and probably will write ordinances to require additional reporting and oversight as it deems necessary to manage the city.
So, we have different levels of checks and balances either imposed or implied by statue that will maintain control of city finances. It now comes down to the performance of the controller and the success of the city moving forward.
So, the elected official has no educational or financial experience requires to be elected. After election, there are statute requirements for 36 hours of training over the next three years. The appointed position, education and experience will be specified and meet. For a city where budget totals are approaching $100 million level; increasing employment levels to meet community service needs; complex financing for both capital expense and operating cash flow requirements make it easy to understand the need to put a financial professional into the City Controller position. Therefore, I ask why would you not want to be a class 2 city?
So, why would we choose to make this move? It appears to be quite excessive. Afterall, the Clerk-Treasurer has worked for a long time, right? Let’s look at these two more closely in my final column.