The Odessa City Council formally adopted a new job description for the position of city manager and gave T2 Professional Consulting the green light to advertise the position with the Texas Municipal League.
The new city manager will be expected to have a bachelor’s degree or higher in public administration, business administration, management or a related field. In addition, they must have three or more years experience as a city manager, assistant city manager or as a department head in a city of similar size to Odessa.
According to an old job description dating back to March 1998 and obtained under the Texas Public Information Act, the city manager should have a bachelor’s degree in public administration, business administration or a related field, but it also noted the city preferred a master’s degree in public or business administration. The city also required 10 years of “increasingly responsible municipal government experience with a minimum of five years of large city (50,000 or larger) city manager or assistant/deputy city manager experience.
Unlike the old job description, the new also describes in explicit terms what it expects in a new manager when it comes to personal attributes. It states the manager “possesses and acts with the highest level of integrity. Must believe and practice doing the right thing no matter if someone is looking. Works in an honest and ethical matter obeying both the letter and spirit of the law and leading by example and from the front. Sets the example that if something isn’t right, it won’t be done, if something isn’t true, it won’t be said, and if something isn’t ours, it won’t be taken.”
The job description goes on to say the city manager will take responsibility for their actions, consider their effect on others, is accountable for the financial and operational performance of the organization and avoids placing the blame on others.
In addition, they’ll be able to make difficult decisions in a timely manner, gather relevant input and will be comfortable “leading up” and expressing disagreement or concerns to the council when needed. The council also expects the city manager to “maintain satisfactory working relationships.”
The job description also lays out the typical job duties expected of a city manager.
The Odessa City Council voted 5-2 to fire City Manager Michael Marrero without explanation Dec. 13. Marrero earned $238,000 a year and had a car allowance.
Marrero spent more than 20 years with the City of Odessa. He was former City Manager Richard Morton’s top deputy, managing departments that deal directly with the public apart from fire and police services. They included parks, public works, code enforcement and planning and zoning.
He spent more than six months as the interim city manager before being named the city manager in 2018.
On Tuesday, the council agreed the new city manager will earn somewhere from $170,000 to $250,000. Any other perks will be negotiated at the time the position is offered.
Although T2 originally expected to have a city manager hired by mid-July early August, T2’s Mica Lunt agreed with Councilmember Denise Swanner that it’s possible to push up that timeline. The only hiccup would come if the city didn’t get enough qualified applicants, Lunt said.
The new job description was created after T2 conducted an employee survey, held a meeting with council members last week and had council members fill out a quiz.
T2 will now create a brochure marketing Odessa to possible candidates. Once applications are received, T2 will review their resumes to make sure they meet the minimum requirements, do a preliminary background check and send them some initial questions.
The candidates will be asked to answer some questions in writing and others orally, Lunt said.
“That’s going to give us an idea of a number of things. One, it’s going to start to assess fit right there. It’s certainly going to assess communication skills, both orally and in writing,” Lunt said. “We will take those candidates from that group and identify what we believe to be the top candidates and that will be the first time that we have a discussion as to who they are…and we’ll present you with an executive summary up to that point.”
Once some of the candidates are weeded out, Lunt said T2 will then put the remaining candidates through the “TriMetrix” assessment created by TTI Success Insights, a Scottsdale, Arizona company which boasts of having helped such companies as American Express, GE, Pepsi, Mercedes Benz and Volvo.
At some point, more questions will be asked, another executive summary will be issued and decisions will be made as to who will get the opportunity to meet with the council in person during an open meeting where residents will be allowed to ask questions, Lunt said.
“Once that happens, we would have an executive session discussion on whom you would like for us to start entering into negotiations with and we would ideally definitely want to have a number one and number two candidate so that we could work on that at the same time,” Lunt said.
