City manager

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A city manager is an official appointed as the administrative manager of a city, in a council-manager form of city government. Called the chief administrative officer in some municipalities.

Typical roles and responsibilities of a city manager include:

Supervising day-to-day operations of all city departments;
Supervising the department heads
Preparing a draft city budget each year with options the council votes on;
Researching and making recommendations about topics of interest to the council;
Meeting with citizens and citizen groups to understand their needs better;
Providing executive leadership that encourages good performance by city workers;
Operating the city with a professional understanding of how all city functions operate together to their best effect.

Typically, city managers have hire-fire authority over all city employees, though these decisions may be required to be approved by the council, and must comply with locally applicable civil service laws. This authority includes talent searches for "department heads" who are the managers of the city departments.

For many years, every city in Virginia had a council-manager form of government. Currently, 38 of the state's 39 cities use this form, with the one exception being capital city Richmond.