Does St. Louis Need a City Manager?
A version of this commentary appeared in the St. Louis Business Journal.
Back in 2022, in response to the seemingly endless parade of scandals and mismanagement coming from City Hall downtown and the county offices in Clayton, several city managers in the area circulated an op-ed arguing that both the City of St. Louis city and St. Louis County should adopt a city/county manager system of government. Are they correct? Would the City of St. Louis benefit from professional, nonpartisan city management? (We will save the county discussion for later.)
As part of my new paper on municipal government in Missouri, just released by the Show-Me Institute, I reviewed the research and evidence on the use of city managers in local government. It is certainly an idea worth considering. Four of the five largest cities in Missouri use a city manager system, as do nearly all the larger suburbs in St. Louis County (if you count the closely related city administrator form).
The authors advocating for adoption of professional management argued that the change would, among other things, reduce corruption and improve the quality of public services. Based on the research I reviewed, the first point is likely; the second is possible but by no means certain.
Overall, the academic evidence suggests that adopting a city manager would reduce corruption, improve financial reporting, lead to more broadly focused legislation (and fewer narrowly targeted measures), reduce political conflict, and increase innovative policy thinking (in ways good and bad). St. Louis may not reap all of these benefits, but it should get some of them, especially reduced corruption.
On the other hand, there is not enough evidence to state that professional management would significantly affect taxes and spending, city employee pay levels, or the quality of city services.
The last claim by proponents of a city manager is key. Would the adoption of a city manager improve the quality of basic governmental services? (For example, would the potholes get filled faster under a city manager?) The presumption of better service quality with professional management is common, and it may be correct. But the evidence is not as clear as its supporters would suggest. Professional management might well perform better than management by elected officials. But as one academic stated, “For decades, analysts have presumed this performance gap exists, but they have yet to empirically demonstrate that any differences actually exist.”
Discussing change in St. Louis without considering the crime problem would be an enormous omission. The prevailing assumption is that police are more insulated from public pressure (for better or worse) in cities with a city manager. But even assuming that this presumption is true, does it lead to higher or lower crime rates? Another economist researched that question and found that there was no evidence that the presence (or absence) of professional management has any effect on municipal crime rates.
Professional city management may be what St. Louis needs, and it deserves careful consideration, but it is unlikely to provide dramatic or easy solutions to the city’s many problems.
