PROJECT OVERVIEW
In 2000, the St. Tammany Parish Council changed its government structure from a police jury system of government to a home rule charter with separate executive and legislative branches. Before and since the change in government structure, St. Tammany Parish has continued to grow in population and economy, and the idea of assessing the council size, with the ultimate goal of increasing government efficiencies, has been discussed and encouraged among some council members and business leaders in the community, including the Northshore Business Council (NBC).
To support this assessment, NBC engaged Emergent Method to assess the current composition, structure, and operations of the St. Tammany Parish Council.
METHODOLOGY
The objective of this study was to analyze existing operations in St. Tammany Parish, gain stakeholder insights, review academic research on optimal council size, and assess comparable councils to formulate options that the St. Tammany Parish Council may wish to pursue. The analysis includes a review of the following materials:
- Five stakeholder interviews
- 16 comparable legislative branches and one policy jury
- 19 media articles
- 20 academic papers
STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS
Major themes from the five stakeholder interviews conducted include:
- Perceived lack of transparency and accessibility from the council.
- Varying opinions on the structure and future of the council, however, most agreed that the council would benefit from reducing the council size to seven or nine members.
- Ideas to add positions such as inspector general, city manager, and various administrative positions.
- Other considerations related to infrastructure, road, traffic, and draining concerns, as well as the idea of tax reform.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Through a literature review, a variety of variables were found that impact council size and operations and may be considered when evaluating the most efficient size and makeup of a council. These factors include population growth, age distribution, education level, ethnic diversity, share of homeownership, unemployment rate, income level, and tourist activity.
FINDINGS AND OBSERVATIONS
Based on our analysis, it was discovered that increasing or decreasing the size of a council comes with trade-offs and there is no precise method of determining the size of a governmental body that will maximize performance on all legislative goals. While determining council size is a complex decision, there are a
number of findings further expanded upon and cited throughout the report that can be utilized to inform decisions:
- The average council size of the comparable councils assessed in this report is nine, and the median council size of comparable councils assessed in this report is seven.
- Many factors were found to have little to no effect on council size across the legislative branches studied for this report. Those variables include population, ethnicity, and poverty. Others, like education, land area, and per capita income were shown to have a non-zero relationship with council size.
- A legislative branch with governance over a population size of 200,000 or more is considered large. Part-time council members of large legislative branches work 42 hours per week on average, and 3/4 of these councils pay their council members $20,000 or more per year.
- Of the councils assessed that employ part-time councilors, the average annual salary is $19,987.15.
- Councils of larger size typically have increased annual expenditures as opposed to councils with fewer members.
- The most common type of governance across councils in the U.S. is the council-manager form of government.
- Election methods (at-large, district, ward, etc.) are more crucial to minority representation than council size.
- A smaller council is more likely to generate interest in full-time councilors. Conversely, a larger council is more likely to result in a part-time council because of the reduction in the workload faced by each council member and the overall higher total cost of the council.
