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On an annual basis, StrategyCorp conducts a survey of Ontario Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) and produces a report that offers insights into leadership challenges from the perspective of the CAO within the communities they serve.
As with previous editions of the survey, CAOs continue to be challenged by pressures of growth and the need for their communities to be financially sustainable. This has been an ongoing theme across many municipalities that continue to face immense financial pressures, and struggle with recruiting and retaining local government talent to build strong organizational cultures. The report also reveals trends that have emerged in the past few years — CAOs and their communities continue to be challenged when it comes to managing emergency preparedness and response, and managing difficult relationships with members of the public. The report is an important read for current and aspiring municipal leaders and provides great insights into the challenges of effective municipal administration.
For AMCTO, the sections on council-staff relations and strong mayor powers are of note for considering the long-term sustainability of professional local government administration. As our members know, we have been on the forefront of this issue, identifying impacts to municipal administration and to municipal leaders and staff in this new environment. We want to ensure a strong, stable, and sustainable municipal administration for many years to come yet, we are already seeing fraying relationships and organizational repercussions in communities that have implemented strong mayor powers. We need a mechanism to protect the impartial, unbiased, professional role that municipal staff and municipal leaders play in local government.
Most relationships between council and staff or mayor and staff are cordial based on mutual respect. However, the overall relationship between elected officials and professional municipal staff is increasingly more confrontational, inside and outside of formal council meetings. This is why we participated in the 2021 consultation on strengthening codes of conduct for members of council.
In the current system, municipal staff, particularly senior municipal leaders, have nowhere to turn except council and/or the mayor, who they are accountable to and may be unable to seek the remedy required in these situations. Municipal staff require a place to turn to for advice and support when it comes to problematic or troublesome interactions with members of council. This has been exacerbated by the strong mayor system which puts CAOs and senior leaders in tenuous positions.
At the 2024 AMO Conference, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing acknowledged during the Ministers’ Forum that the framework must work to protect members of council and staff. We have spoken for the need to improve council-staff relations for years and have advocated for a mechanism that protects the impartial, professional municipal public servants from politicization.
We have also called for the roles of Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and head of council to be clarified to distinguish between administrative and political responsibilities. This remains an outstanding issue within a strong mayor environment. Similarly, the roles and responsibilities of staff and council should be clarified to distinguish between providing strategic oversight and implementing administration/operations.
This is why we continue to support our members who are in those strong mayor municipalities with opportunities for discussion, and by conducting research and analysis on opportunities to strengthen the role of professional and impartial CAOs and municipal professionals in local government administration. Stay tuned for more on this to be announced in the coming weeks.