The Town Meeting-Council-Manager Form
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.
Several Maine municipalities have the town meeting-council-manager form. It is used by municipalities with populations between 1,000 and 10,000. Approximately 40 percent of municipalities with the town meeting-council-manager form have adopted this form of government since 1970.
Essentially, the Maine town meeting-council-manager charter provides for a sharing or a division of the legislative powers of the municipality between the town meeting and the council. The exact delegation of powers differs from one municipality to another. In some municipalities, the municipal legislative powers may be shared by the town meeting and council. Generally, all legislative powers not specifically delegated by the charter to the council and all other residual powers of the municipality remain vested in the town meeting. In other municipalities, the town meeting is retained for the primary purpose of approving and adopting the annual town budget with all other legislative and residual powers of the town vested in the elected town council.
This latter variation of the town meeting-council-manager form also was used in Falmouth, Gorham, Kittery and Old Orchard Beach to reduce the need for frequent town meetings and to facilitate policy-making through a small council vested with broad powers. These four towns, however, have since voted to discontinue the town meeting and to transfer the budget adoption function to the council, thereby converting to the council-manager form.
The Maine town meeting-council-manager form features a small council of either five or seven members that is elected at-large and on a non-partisan basis. In addition to sharing the municipal legislative powers with the town meeting, the council is vested with the executive-administrative authority of the town. The council then appoints a town manager who is accorded supervisory, appointment and budgetary authority. In several instances, however, the council itself has some administrative duties (i.e., serving as overseers of the poor, assessors, road commissioners). In other cases, the council may appoint the clerk, tax collector, treasurer, health officer or other municipal officials.