DELAWARE / SUNBURY — A good football team needs a head coach calling the shots. A successful business needs someone overseeing the operation.
In many Ohio communities, the person helping keep the machinery of city government moving is the city manager.
City managers play a significant role in how their communities operate, overseeing everything from city staff and budgets to carrying out the policies set by elected city councils.
As of 2022, 100 Ohio cities and villages used a council-manager form of government, according to the Ohio City & Management Association.
Delaware and Sunbury are among them. Paul Brake serves as Delaware’s city manager, while Daryl Hennessy holds the position in Sunbury.
In August, their respective city councils made very different decisions about their futures.
Sunbury City Council unanimously voted Aug. 19 to renew Hennessy’s contract for another two years.
Twelve days later, Delaware City Council voted 5-2 not to renew Brake’s contract.
Brake has served as Delaware’s city manager since 2024, while Hennessy has held the position in Sunbury since 2023.
From managing city budgets and navigating relationships with council to explaining why the job can feel like a roller coaster, Brake and Hennessy recently spoke with Delaware Source to shed light on a role they say is often misunderstood.
Defining ‘city manager’
At its core, a city manager is a city’s chief administrative official, hired by city council to oversee the government without advancing a particular political agenda.
Brake and Hennessy both used the same phrase to describe the job: “day-to-day operations.”
What falls under that umbrella, however, can mean a myriad of things.
“Managing financial and human resources, overseeing the delivery of essential services, so police, fire and public works,” Brake said. “Planning strategically for community development in the context that we’re a rapidly growing community.
“Using performance metrics for continuous improvements, then upholding a commitment to ethical standards.”
Hennessy said his primary responsibilities are to direct and supervise Sunbury’s various departments and to “carry out the legislative wishes of city council.”
But a day in the life of Hennessy is way more complex than that.
“My day may look different than any other city manager’s day,” Hennessy said. “For me, most of the time it is in the office working with city staff to carry out the services that citizens expect and have paid for in an efficient, effective manner.”
Hennessy said many of his daily conversations with city department staff involve preparing legislation for a committee or city council. Brake described a similar role in Delaware.
“I think that the role of a city manager, at least I think the role of an effective city manager, is not exclusively an internal role,” Hennessy said.
“There are a lot of reasons to be interacting with residents as well. Some of it’s responding to complaints, others are basically proactive outreach efforts.”
Hennessy added that participating in community functions, attending stakeholder meetings and delivering reports to city council are all parts of the job, too.
Hiring and overseeing department directors
City managers are responsible for hiring and overseeing many of the department directors who manage a city’s daily operations.
During his time in Delaware, Brake hired Assistant City Manager Andrew Beare, Public Utilities Director Emily Meek and City Attorney David Moser. He also promoted Alycia Hefner to finance director and Bob Hogensen to community affairs coordinator.
In Sunbury, Hennessy hired Finance Director Dana Steffan, Services Director Jacob Stockmaster, City Engineer Carla Odebralski and Assistant City Manager Sean Staneart.
While Brake said it is rare that he interacts with a whole department, he did say he meets regularly with the city’s department directors following council meetings.
“Generally the Tuesday following a city council meeting, we’ll have a department head meeting and I’ll go over what took place on the agenda,” Brake said. “Then we do kind of a round-robin where everyone gives a report of what’s happening in their department.”
In Sunbury, Hennessy said he meets with his department heads usually every other week, on the week there isn’t a city council meeting.
“I’ll pull all the leadership from across the city and try to share things that have cross-cutting impacts for folks,” Hennessy said.
“The engineering office might talk about what’s happening with our street program because it’s going to affect the police department and it’s going to affect the services department, for example.”
Both Hennessy and Brake explained that when they sit down with their department heads, the main thing they focus on is how they can get the departments’ projects in line with council’s vision.
Once they align the project with the vision, they plan out how they can efficiently bring that service to residents.
Managing a city’s budget
Another major responsibility for city managers is helping develop and allocate a city’s annual budget.
For Brake, that means overseeing an approximately $200 million operating budget, including a roughly $40 million general fund. Hennessy works with an all-funds budget of about $36 million.
Hennessy provided an entire breakdown of Sunbury’s current budget:
- All Funds Budget: $35.8 million
- $14.7 million for sewer
- $10.1 million in general funds and transfers
- $4.9 for capital improvements
- $3.0 million designated for parks
- $3.1 million designated as other
- General Fund Budget: $8.7 million (falls under All Funds)
- $3.5 million for the Sunbury Police Department
- $2.6 million for administration and engineering costs
- $1.4 million goes towards service/streets
- $1.2 million is allocated for planning, zoning and other
Meanwhile, Brake pointed to Delaware’s Strategic Action Plan as a road map for his budget, saying he focuses on the goals the city is trying to accomplish and the outcomes it wants to achieve.
“Not so much the inputs,” Brake said. “And what I mean by that is not getting hung up on line items and how many pencils you’re buying.
“Our budgets, better than three quarters are personnel costs — looking at the human element of accomplishing items.”
Brake said he takes a more holistic approach to how the budget is shared across departments. As an example, he pointed to replacing a water line beneath a street — a project that could involve funding and coordination across multiple city departments.
It’s not far removed from discussions Delaware has had about infrastructure work surrounding the installation of a new Columbia Gas line beneath Sandusky Street.
Brake said the city is trying to approach these projects with the goal of repaving an entire street after utility work is completed. Even when multiple departments are involved, he said the goal is for them to work together so residents don’t have to figure out which department to contact for answers.
Upholding an ethical standard
Hennessy and Brake referenced the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), a national non-profit organization that prioritizes the advancement of professional local government management, ethical standards and sustainable communities.
Both Hennessy and Brake are members of ICMA. Hennessy highlighted how the organization centers on fairness for all people regardless of title, or non-title in the case of a city’s residents.
“I think it’s important that when you think about city management, it’s not a political role,” Hennessy said. “Even though you’re in a political environment, it’s not a political role.
“It’s meant to be a professional administrative role, and I think the successful city managers understand that and operate that way.”
