Determinants of a City Manager’s Tenure in Office

Appointed officials in municipalities influence policy decisions and the distribution of services that affect everyday life. So stability or turnover of appointed officials is likely to affect efficiency and effectiveness of critical services like police protection, fire fighting and prevention, land use regulation, and public utilities. Seeking to explain the relationship between four groups of variables and appointed officials’ long or short terms in office, quantitative data collected from a random sample of appointed municipal officials in North Carolina were analyzed using hierarchical logistic regression. Tenure in office divided at median years in office was the dichotomous dependent variable. Four groups of independent variables related to the person, the job, the city, and election systems were entered hierarchically in four logistic regression models. Qualitative data collected from the same appointed officials further explain the results of the quantitative analysis. Results show that competence in formulating and implementing budgets and city government experience lead to longer terms in office, higher education leads to shorter terms in office, and political variables have no significant effect on appointed officials’ job security in North Carolina. This is useful information for city managers setting long-term career goals, citizens judging local governments’ service delivery, and elected officials making decisions about appointments and terminations.