THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANAGER PLAN
Chapter I
This document is reprinted with permission from "The Manager Plan in Maine" published by the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy. Copies of the complete book may be obtained by calling the Center at (207) 581-1646.
Since 1917, when the City of Auburn adopted the manager plan of government, Maine has been in the forefront of the manager plan movement. After a modest beginning over 70 years ago, the Maine manager movement expanded to a peak in 1949 when Maine had over 21 percent of all manager plan municipalities in the United States and led all other states in total manager plan adoptions. By 1989, Maine had 187 manager plan municipalities -- 7.2 percent of the total number in the U.S. Table 1 compares Maine manager plan adoptions to manager plan adoptions in the U.S. by decade from 1900 to 1989.
The growth of the manager plan in Maine roughly parallels the nationwide movement. In the 1940s, manager plan adoptions grew at a faster rate in Maine than in the U.S. Since 1950, Maine adoptions have slowed somewhat while nationwide the number of adoptions has continued to rise, especially in the sunbelt states of Florida, Texas and Louisiana.
Why did the manager plan so develop in Maine? To what extent were the factors contributing to its development similar to those factors which encouraged widespread adoption of the manager plan nationwide (e.g., citizen dissatisfaction with partisanship and lack of representation in municipal government, the spoils system, waste, inefficiency, and lack of management typical of the 19th century weak mayor-council form of government) (Willoughby, 1969, & Nolting, 1969, pp. 1 - 11)?
The first part of this chapter discusses early manager plan adoptions in Maine. It focuses upon the early manager charters, why they were adopted and how they operated. In many instances the early manager charters were the prototype or "model" for charters subsequently adopted in Maine. The second section presents the findings of a 1968 study which defined factors in the growth of the manager plan in Maine (Forster & Dunham, 1968).
Table 1, Maine Manager Plan and U.S. Manager Plan Adoptions by Decade