Leaving fiscal mess behind, city manager heads for the hills

I'm thinking of a career switch. How do you get one of them city manager jobs?

R. Leon Churchill Jr. has been the city manager in Reading, Pa., for the past four years. The city recently announced it spent $2 million more than it budgeted in 2007 and will have to make up the shortfall by a combination of cuts in city services, layoffs and tax increases.

The mayor of Reading, the Hon. Tom McMahon, never mentioned the fiscal crisis when he was running for re-election in 2007. Safely returned to another four-year term, McMahon admits the city's finances are in shambles but he didn't know about it.

Let's turn our attention to the city manager. Isn't it his job to keep track of the city's finances? Shouldn't he have informed City Council about the $2 million in over-spending? This is a volunteer council. They don't work day-to-day at City Hall overseeing the various city departments. That's the manager's job.

This may be a remarkable coincidence, but Mr. Churchill is about to leave Reading for greener pastures in the hills of California.

Mr. Churchill confirmed to the Reading Eagle today that he has accepted a new job, one where he will make 62 percent more than what he was paid in Reading.

The city of Tracy, Calif., is willing to pay Churchill $191,000, compared to the $118,000 he was making in Reading.

I wonder if the town fathers in Tracy read newspapers. Perhaps they'd like to know more about the fiscal mess Mr. Churchill is leaving behind in Reading. Was Mr. Churchill interviewing for his new job while the city has was managing plunged into a fiscal crisis?

This from the Reading Eagle:

Tracy has a city-manager form of government with the mayor and council part of the same team, (Churchill) said, while Reading's strong-mayor form of government is rife with conflict between the mayor and the separate City Council. And, Churchill said, since council seems bent on probing who makes mistakes — most recently why it didn't know the city was spending down its surplus — his departure may help council focus instead on what the city needs instead of who to blame for what.

Imagine that. Those meddlesome City Council members want to know who screwed up the city's finances. Mr. Churchill is leaving his current job because the City Council wanted to know how he overspent the budget by $2 million. That is called accountability, Mr. Churchill.