From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Form of city government
A
mayor?council government
is a system of
local government
in which a
mayor
who is directly elected by the voters acts as chief executive, while a separately elected
city council
constitutes the legislative body. It is one of the two most common forms of
local government in the United States
, and is the form most frequently adopted in large cities, although the other common form,
council?manager government
, is the local government form of more municipalities.
The form may be categorized into two main variations depending on the relative power of the mayor compared to the council. In a typical
strong-mayor
system, the elected mayor is granted almost total administrative authority with the power to appoint and dismiss department heads. In such a system, the mayor's administrative staff prepares the city budget, although that budget usually must be approved by the council.
[1]
Conversely, in a
weak-mayor
system, the mayor has no formal authority outside the council, serving a largely ceremonial role as council chairperson. The mayor cannot directly appoint or remove officials and lacks veto power over council votes.
[2]
Most major American cities use the strong-mayor form of the mayor?council system, whereas middle-sized and small American cities tend to use the council?manager system.
[3]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Kathy Hayes; Semoon Chang (July 1990). "The Relative Efficiency of City Manager and Mayor?Council Forms of Government".
Southern Economic Journal
.
57
(1): 167?177.
doi
:
10.2307/1060487
.
JSTOR
1060487
.
- ^
Saffell, Dave C.; Harry Basehart (2009).
State and Local Government: Politics and Public Policies
(9th ed.). McGraw Hill. p. 237.
ISBN
978-0-07-352632-4
.
- ^
George C. Edwards III; Robert L. Lineberry; Martin P. Wattenberg (2006).
Government in America
. Pearson Education. pp. 677?678.
ISBN
0-321-29236-7
.
