What does Dallas' city manager do? We asked someone who held the job
DALLAS — The city of Dallas will be under new leadership, starting this week.
Dallas city manager, T.C. Broadnax, is officially stepping down Thursday from the job he's held since 2017. Assistant city manager Kim Tolbert will immediately take over as interim city manager while city council works to hire a permanent replacement
As a city's top administrator, a city manager is often considered the most important person in a local government, but it's also one the public knows little about.
Candidates for the position don't have to fundraise, campaign, or appear on a ballot. They must simply convince a consensus of city council members they're the right person for the position, a feat that's challenging in itself.
A.C Gonzalez understands the job well. He held the position for three years in Dallas, following stints as city manager for the Texas towns of Dilly, Carrizo Springs, and San Marcos, and nearly 15 years as an assistant city manager in Dallas.
He often found himself explaining the position to friends and family.
"They say, 'Well, what do you do?' And you say, 'Well, I kind of run the city'," Gonzalez recalled.
The job may lack the spotlight of political office, but that was always fine by him.
"Quite frankly that's why I hate doing this kind of stuff," he said in the midst of an interview with CBS News Texas. "Because I'm neither comfortable or good. I really prefer to just be in the background making things happen."
When it comes to the day-to-day government business, it is the city manager in charge of making things happen. The position holds more individual power than any single member of city council, or even the city's mayor.
In Dallas, the city manager oversees nearly 14,000 employees, manages the city's multi-billion dollar budget, coordinates all its operations and programs, enforces its ordinances, makes recommendations to council on how to improve operations, and implements the council's decisions.
"Your job is to do the very best you can to give your recommendation to the council. And it's their job, and it's not an easy job, to come up with the decision that the community is going to live with," said Gonzalez.
Think of the city manager as the CEO of a company, who answers to a collective body like a board of directors, but in this case city council, with the mayor serving as its chair and its public face.
In Texas, most cities use this manager-council form of government.
Houston is one notable exception, with a "strong mayor" or mayor-council form of government, where the mayor serves as the chief executive.
Gonzalez, as you might expect, prefers Dallas' structure.
"It provides a separation from politics," he said.
There's a lot of work to be done to keep a city of 1.3 million people running.
"Virtually everything you do is touched on by the city. If you go to the restroom… The water, the sewer. There's an actual influence the city has on your electricity and your other utilities you use," said Gonzalez. "You get in the car, you drive on a street… Whether or not there's a place to recreate, how your neighborhood is put together…That's in part governed by the city."
If it sounds like things you take for granted, Gonzalez says, that's the point.
"To make it look effortless."
The job can make you an easy target of criticism.
Gonzalez drew plenty of it. So has Broadnax.
As Dallas looks for the next person up for the job, Gonzalez says the list won't be a long one.
"You're going to get a lot of names, but in terms of who has prior experiences and who has the track record is going to be a fairly smaller group," he said.
It's a tough job, he says.
"And you're going to be beat up every moment that you're there by somebody while you're doing it," he said. "You have to have a very strong desire… a strong part of yourself that's geared toward public service…That's what I would get excited about."
Both Gonzalez and Broadnax earned salaries of more than $400 thousand a year as city manager. As interim city manager, Tolbert will be paid at a rate of $367 thousand a year. Gonzalez says the salaries are all far less than a CEO in the private sector running a comparably sized business.
The search for a new permanent city manager is expected to take until the end of the year.
