Anybody Here?

Where will the next generation of Municipal Leaders come from?

In 1971, 71 percent of all city and county managers were younger than 40, but in 2006 just 13 percent fell into the younger than-40 age group, according to the International City/County Management Association.

“One thing about this generation of city workers now is that many of these folks came in during the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Many of the same workers that are retiring now created these positions for themselves during that era, and are very experienced,” said Michele Frisby, a spokesperson for the management association. “Cities need to start training (those) who are next in line to learn from these former leaders. The problem is, who is going to do it?”

Frisby said as the younger generations flock to jobs in the private sector, communities across the country are going to have to be creative to attract people to governmental jobs, such as increased pay and better retirement packages.

“Working in city government is a good, safe career, but I think young people don’t realize that yet,” Frisby said. “There needs to be new blood flowing into government offices across the country, or we will face a mounting problem as more baby boomers leave the field.”

I know many in my area of the world who are retiring or planning their retirement dates. Not just Managers or Administrators but Department Heads of all kinds.

For some reason I don’t fall into the group that is alarmed about this.

I’ve never felt that anyone is irreplaceable.

Those that do feel they are irreplaceable … are the most easily replaced.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 5:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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