Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Municipalities (cities and towns) and counties are those general purpose local governments that make policies affecting our everyday lives, e. g., police and fire protection, sanitation, land use regulation, libraries, and parks. Appointed officials in municipalities influence policy decisions and the distribution of these services. So one might assume that stability or turnover of appointed officials is likely to affect policy decisions and the distribution of services. This is an analysis of data collected from a stratified random sample of city managers, county managers, city council members, and county commissioners in North Carolina. The hypotheses are that professionalism, relationships between elected and appointed officials, election systems, and job satisfaction are related to the length of time city and county managers serve a municipality. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, regression, Cramer's V, and Kendall’s tau-c. The results may improve efficiency and effectiveness of local governments by reducing turnover of city and county managers–a significant problem in Pitt County and the City of Greenville in recent years.