by Dennis Dalman
After a year of learning and training by Sartell City Council members and city staff, the council approved the activation of a “Policy Governance” program at the Oct. 14 council meeting.
The policy is a way for the council, staff members and the people they interact with to achieve successful, transparent and well-understood actions taken by the council and/or staff, especially in making decisions affecting Sartell residents. Basically, its ongoing goal is to maximize governing effectiveness through good communications and wise policies.
The five Sartell council members and staff – most notably City Administrator Anna Gruber – participated in at least nine workshops under the leadership of Stacy Sjogren, a senior management consultant with the Minnesota Office of Management and Budget. The workshops began last November and each involved three-to-four hours of training.
The cost of the training was just under $40,000.
And now, after the learning and training, the council can now start implanting the skills, insights and knowledge of what they’ve learned.
Sjogren’s consulting expertise involves group facilitation work, council governance and project management. In her work, she introduces training skills for strategic planning, stakeholder engagement initiatives and task-force initiatives. She also helps strengthen board governance processes, governing policy frameworks, accountability systems and board-staff relationships.
Before the Sartell City Council voted Oct. 14, City Administrator Anna Gruber outlined aspects, issues and questions of the “Policy Governance” initiative.
It includes the following:
How to work together as a council within executive limitations?
How to empower leaders but set for them boundaries so they know what’s out of bounds?
How do members delegate to leadership within the organization?
Monitoring performance reports will be an ongoing process toward improvement.
Working results of communitywide surveys into decision-making, such as the National Council Survey Sartell results taken about a year ago.
How to handle executive limitations, such as policy governance as it relates to accountability.
How to implement boundaries on the authority granted to the city administrator.
Using a football metaphor, the “Policy Governance” can be summed up, basically, by setting an out-of-bounds area on the council/staff’s field of play.
The policy also considers the following:
Financial planning and budgeting, treatment of residents and customers, employment practices, planned and purposeful development, ongoing monitoring reports,
The council’s sole official connection to the operating organization, its conduct and achievement, will be through the city administrator.
In summary, the policy defines the purpose, governing style and processes of an elected council and ways for the council to evaluate itself in an ongoing basis (monitoring), within a framework of accountability.
A closed meeting every year will be held to assess the performance of the city administrator.
There will be new, more detailed agendas and memos and data about city decisions made available to the public.
(Editor’s note: Many of those questions and issues were raised last year by former mayors, former council members and current residents when the city council, on a 3-2 vote, decided to sell 81 acres of city-owned property to a private buyer.)
City Administrator Gruber told the council the policy provides an ideal connection between accountability and empowerment, and it will bring efficiency, productivity and overall effectiveness by clearly defining the roles and boundaries of council and staff.
Near the close of the Oct. 14 meeting, the policy consultant Stacy Sjogren addressed the council. She praised its members for their hard work and decisions during the series of workshops, which she said would have a very positive impact on the city. She also praised Administrator Gruber.
“Anna has worked harder than any city employee I have ever worked with,” Sjogren said. “She has climbed a mountain like you wouldn’t believe.”
The council’s vote to approve the activation of the policy was 4-0. Council member Jed Meyer was absent due to a scheduling conflict.
It was noted the two new council members elected on Nov. 5 will receive training and updates about the ‘Policy Governance.”
