Exploratory Committee Recommends Town Manager To Replace Mayor

The Town Manager Exploratory Committee gave its final report to the Town Council Wednesday, which recommended that the Town of Ledyard convert to a Town Manager style of government.

Committee members Mimi Peck-Llewellyn and Jeffrey Kulo explained that the move would be more cost efficient, could run more smoothly and that towns the size of Ledyard usually use a Selectman or Town Manger style of government.

“The manager system has one branch of government and its simpler,” said Kulo. “Both centers (council and Town Manager) can focus on what works.”

The committee’s report says that “most Mayor towns have large populations (51,582 average) and population densities (2,617 average).” The report goes on to say that most towns with similar demographics to Ledyard utilize a Selectman or Town Manager style of government.

They said that instead of having a Mayor who wins the popular vote, a Town Manger is pre-qualified professional appointed to the position, very much like a superintendent of schools. The average Town Manager salary in Connecticut is $128,000.

They used numbers from the Connecticut Office of Policy Management’s 2009 data and said that the Town of Ledyard spent 10.7 percent more than the median for 169 Connecticut towns. And contrasted those numbers against those of the Board of Education which spent 5.2 percent less per capita.

They also said that “expenditures seem to have been 15 percent too high (FY2009 OPM data) based on comparison with the other towns and other forms of government.”

Councilors were skeptical that a Town Manager could spend town money more efficiently than they do.

According to the report, a Town Manager would have “increased knowledge of how to deal with specific issues such as collective bargaining, obtaining grants, economic development and an efficient operation of town functions in general.

Also, it is easier to fire a Town Manger and politics would be removed from the administration of town government.

The committee was formed in 2010 to address the increased pressure “to do more with less” with regard of providing services and fulfilling federal and state mandates. According to the report, 28 towns in the state use the Mayor-Council style like Ledyard’s.

The Town Council said they would consider the recommendation and discuss them at a later meeting.