PA 4389 Internship in Public Administration

A municipality is a form of elected local government that helps in the administration and provides facilities as well as services to the citizens. This kind of governance is also active in the keeping of records, collection of license fees and possesses the authority to pass local binding ordinances, which are included among the other responsibilities of the self-sustaining government. This most common governmental structure of most of the towns is the town meetings, while the structure format of other cities is the council manager structure.

This report elaborates on the various and the common forms of the Maine municipal administration and elaborates on the structure, shape, the roles and the responsibilities that is or should be carried out by the municipal Chief executive officer, as well as the common structures that is found within the local governments. This report further elaborates on the expertise responsibilities that can be executed by a municipal administrator in favor of the community development.

The purpose of this report is to help understand and analyze the local governing form and structure of the municipal association in Maine. This report further helps understand an analyze the significance of the local administration for the common social welfare.

Introduction

A municipality is a form of elected local government that helps in the administration and provides facilities as well as services to the citizens. This form of governance is also active in the involvement of keeping records, collection of license fees and possesses the authority to pass local binding ordinances, which are included among the other responsibilities of the self-sustaining government (Henry, 2015). This most common governmental structure of most of the towns is the town meetings, while the structure format of other cities is the council manager structure (Shafritz, Russell & Borick, 2015).

This report elaborates on the various and the common forms of the Maine municipal administration and elaborates on the structure, shape, the roles and the responsibilities that is or should be carried out by the municipal Chief executive officer, as well as the common structures that is found within the local governments. This report further elaborates on the expertise responsibilities that can be executed by a municipal administrator in favor of the community development.

The purpose of this report is to help understand and analyze the local governing form and structure of the municipal association in Maine. This report further helps understand an analyze the significance of the local administration for the common social welfare.

Demographic background of Maine

 Maine is the northern most state in the region of New England of the northeastern part of the United States. It is considerably the 39^th extensive as well as the 9^th least populous state of the United States and its territories. For thousands of years, the inhabitants residing in Maine are indigenous and till the time of the arrival of the Europeans, Algonquian speaking people made up most of the population in the area. Maine’s original capital was Portland, which in turn is the largest city of Maine, till the time it was move to a more central part of Augusta in the year of 1832. However, the primary office of the Maine Supreme Judiciary remains in Portland. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Maine was around 1,329,329 with a meager rise of about 0.08% in comparison to the census of the previous years (Mikesell, 2013). Therefore, it can be assumed that this is one of least populated parts in the United States territory.

Municipalities of Maine

The organized forms of the municipal administration of Maine comprises of around 23 cities, 432 towns as well as 35 plantations. Apparently, these 499 well-structured municipalities cover less than half of the entire state’s territories. Maine also includes three reservations namely the Indian Island, the Indian Township Reservation and the Pleasant Point Indian Reservation (Blom?Hansen, Houlberg & Serritzlew, 2014). However, the largest municipality in Maine can be estimated to be that of Portland’s. The disorganized territories have no local administration or governing body. This account for around 400 townships, whose administration and ordinances are controlled by the State government.

The forms of the Municipal Government in Maine

The municipal governance in Maine exist in six basic forms which includes the annual meeting assessors (for the plantations), the town meeting selection board, the town meeting board manager, town meeting council manager, council manager and the council mayor (Egner, Sweeting & Klok, 2013).

Town Meeting Selection Board

The meeting of the town selection is usually held on one day of every year, which is usually held in the month of March. In this form of governance, the voters usually discuss regarding the concerns and the issues that are confronted by the community by the approval or the disapproval of the articles, which are placed on the warrant announcing assembly. The meeting moderator is usually the chosen pursuant of the first article that is placed and conducts the meeting with compliance to the rules and regulations of the state laws and legislation. The town meeting is the legislative body that is fundamental in passing of local laws and provisions, considerably known as the ordinances (Johnson, 2013). The town meeting is also responsible for the passing of the budget, which is required for the respective year, which also includes the control over the tax and selection of the town officers and the members of the selection board. While charged with the responsibilities of executing the will of the voters, it also has some authoritative control, given by the state government, which can be excised for the arranging of town meeting, holding elections and regulating the finance, also administering human service and finance planning (Thomaston, 2012).

Town Meeting Selection Board Town Administrative Assistant

In case some of the town which are not willing or ready to have a manager, have set up the position of an Administrative Assistant in the board. Therefore, this helps in providing assistance for the routine supervision. However, this position does not have the authority that is provided to the managers under the Maine Law (Levy, 2016).

Town Meeting Selection Board Town Administrator

This position of authority is quite similar to that of the Administrative Assistant, except for the fact that the Town administrator’s power and role is quite similar to that of the role of a Town Manager. Yet, the final decision rest upon the Selection Board (Perry & Christensen, 2015).

Town Meeting Selection Board Manager 

Based on the position of the Town Manager, a new element of authority has been introduced in the administration apart from the traditional authority of the town meeting selection board. The manager has the authority to appoint certain town employees and is liable for structuring the budget for the selection boards to present in the town meeting (Rubin, 2016).

Town Meeting Council Manager

This form of governance retains the roles of the manager, yet given more authoritative control to the council than the board. This signifies that the voters have a lesser amount of legislative persuasion. However, they have the right to approve and raise the stakes in the revenue.

Council Manager or Council Mayor Manager

Considering the fact that while some of the town meeting protocols may be adopted under the general laws of the state, it can be assumed that the others are adopted through some local charter. The Council Manager system is presumably one of them. The council plays the roles in both the town meeting and the Selection board (Cronkhite, 2012). For as such case, the manager prepares the budget for the council, under purpose of consideration, modification and adoption and is usually functional in the appointment of the departmental head (Helpap, 2012).

Council Mayor Administrator

Based on the existing application in the cities, the council mayor administrator form should be adopted under the influence of a charter that denotes the duties of the council and the mayor. However, the mayor has much of the authoritative control in the budget drafting and the personnel management, which is granted to the managers. In addition, they have a special power of veto or negative voting over any unlikely decision by the council (Fried & Shaw, 2012). A council mayor administrator is usually elected at the same time as the members of the council, where the mayor is presumed to have more eminence since he or she is the representative of the entire city, whereas the councilors typically represents the districts or the wards.

Assessor’s Annual Meeting

 The plantations are considerably the simplest form localized governance in Maine. This has typically three assessors, who simultaneously functions like that of the selection board, with few other authorities, if there is any. The plantations are generally remote or forest areas where most of the real estate is considerably owned by the commercial companies or other owners. The annual town meeting is the primary authoritative body, which is governing over the local concerns. The plantations typically elect their clerks, treasurers, tax collectors and the school board assessors (Willoughby, 2014).

Roles and responsibilities

Based on the roles and the responsibilities of the Chief Administrative Officer, it can be assumed that the CAO is one of the significant members of the municipal management system and the team. However, it can be considered that the administrative function of the municipality as well as the reporting functions of the CAO is set by the council, which usually reflects and size of the municipality along with its services and concerns. The CAO is liable to produce some of the concerns to the Council, directly. The other subsidiary members are considered to report to the CAO, who would in turn pass on the information to the higher authorities (Fish, 2015).

With consideration to the duties of the Chief Administrative Officer, it can be expected that the CAO would sincerely and dedicatedly look after the policies and the functionalities of the municipality. The CAO should carefully calculate the time duration of the meeting, in order to meet the individual concerns. The CAO should do this, so that the time is completely utilized in an effective and timely manner. The CAO is likely to understand and impart professional advice to the consideration and the decisions that has been taken by the council. The CAO also hold the responsibility to manage the budgeting and the finance of the municipality, for the respective year (Ryu, 2015). It is the duty of the CAO to keep the council informed about the operations as well as the internal affairs of the municipality. A CAO is likely to manage, inform and lead the fellow employees and the rest of the municipality workforce, until and unless the council decides otherwise. Apart from the responsibilities, which the CAO must execute sincerely, there are certain duties that the council expects the CAO to take into account. The CAO is expected to prepare and distribute the agendas of the council meeting and keep the supporting documents updated and revised, in an organized and well-timed way. This needs to be done so that every members of the council can participate in the meeting and help the council to make crucial statements in a decisive way. The well management of finance and the budgeting is expected to be managed by the CAO is an corrigible manner. The CAO is expected to produce timely report and analysis about the opinions, which can be addressed while meeting issues as well as recommend the necessary course of actions that can be taken, which is subjected for the council’s consideration (Rubin, 2016). Thus, it can be concluded that the CAO is responsible and function to operated in compliance to the councils policies and rules, as well as ensure complete conformity to the legislative reforms along with imparting genuine suggestions to the council on legislative and administrative grounds.

Areas of expertise of a Municipal Administrator

Based on the concerned topic, the chief administrative officer or a city might raise a question about the field of expertise, whether it is financial or managerial. However, the designation is dependent in the regional responsibility and the customs. The governments of the large cities might deploy a manager due to a large number of employees while its rural counterparts with a strong mayor-council governments might employ an administrator who is a combination of a clerk and an accountant as well as who might look after the budgeting concerns with efficiency. Thus, it can be assumed that based on the size and the category of the municipality, an administrator or a manager might come into action.

The administrators usually look after the administrative and the legislative functions that revolve around the budgeting and the expenditures, typically acting as a treasurer. The administrative responsibilities include the management of the bids and the contracts, overseeing the tax and the municipality services proclamations. This also includes the inspection of the special assessment of the notices and the collections (Rubin, 2016). Often, the administrators look after the health and the facilities of the buildings to ensure that they meet the allotted safety and security parameters. Often, the administrators look after the information and the technological systems of the defined area and determines it validity for uninterrupted communication.

In some instances the administrators often acts as the managers and works according to and along with the departmental heads as well as help in devising and executing policies. The managerial duties of the administrator often involve the hiring and discharge of employees in certain allotted departments. In some cases the administrators also has to perform the duties of the election supervisors. In addition, the administrator has the capability to train, hire and supervise the election judges as well as setting up polling station to help count and certify the votes.

While coming on to the public functions, the administrator can perform duties, which are a mixture of both the administrative and the managerial in nature. For such the administrator correspond to the representation of the staffs in public meetings, helping in providing technical expertise and facilitate public proceedings. The administrator has the authority to recommend and advise the commission as well as the committees in terms of appointing citizens for the exceptional committees and the commissions. He has the authority of representing the city in terms of engaging with the civic groups and performs as and information bank for the addressed public regarding the area’s services and the development.

Conclusion

With the help of this report, it can be concluded that the local form of governance is quite different for that of the main governance. However, despite the structure and the difference in the operation, the localized form of the governance acts according to the legislative and the authoritative protocol that has been enforced within the state. The structure of the local government under Maine legislation has been subdivided into different positions, from the Town Meeting Selection Board to the Assessor’s Annual Meeting. This report also concludes about the duties and the responsibilities that the Chief Administrative offices as well as the field of operation of the administrator in terms of budgeting and development.

References

Blom?Hansen, J., Houlberg, K., & Serritzlew, S. (2014). Size, democracy, and the economic costs of running the political system. American Journal of Political Science, 58(4), 790-803.

Cronkhite, C. L. (2012). Law Enforcement and Justice Administration: Strategies for the 21st Century. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Egner, B., Sweeting, D., & Klok, P. J. (2013). Local councillors in Europe. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Fish, P. G. (2015). The politics of federal judicial administration. Princeton University Press.

Fried, A., & Shaw, E. (2012). Voting Restriction Politics in Maine. The New England Journal of Political Science, 6(2), 293.

Helpap, D. J. (2012). Principles of municipal budgeting? A reexamination of the debate over the principles and proverbs of public administration. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Henry, N. (2015). Public administration and public affairs. Routledge.

Johnson, J. (2013). The Distributional Effects of Recent Changes to Maine’s Tax System. Maine Policy Review, 22(2), 26-33.

Levy, J. M. (2016). Contemporary urban planning. Taylor & Francis.

Mikesell, J. (2013). Fiscal administration. Cengage Learning.

Perry, J. L., & Christensen, R. K. (2015). Handbook of public administration. John Wiley & Sons.

Rubin, I. S. (2016). The politics of public budgeting: Getting and spending, borrowing and balancing. CQ Press.

Ryu, J. E. (2015). The Public Budgeting and Finance Primer: Key Concepts in Fiscal Choice. Routledge.

Shafritz, J. M., Russell, E. W., & Borick, C. (2015). Introducing public administration. Routledge.

Thomaston, S. (2012). South Thomaston, Maine, Selected Ordinances.

Willoughby, K. G. (2014). Public Budgeting in Context: Structure, Law, Reform and Results. John Wiley & Sons.