DIRECTORS \ / COMMISSIONERS —Popular control— GENERAL ——Centralized authority—— CITY MANAGER MANAGER Appoints Appoints and discharges Correlated activities and discharges Department heads —— Department heads / \ ENGINEERING LAW MAKING PUBLIC SERVICES RECORDING PUBLIC WELFARE SELLING PUBLIC SAFETY WELFARE FINANCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Sidenote: Position and powers of the manager.] =The City-Manager Plan.=—In keeping with the principle, therefore, that some one official ought to have direct charge of the city’s administrative work, the city-manager plan has been devised. Under this plan the commission (or a small elective council) continues in full control, but its members do not divide the various functions among themselves. Instead they appoint a well-paid, expert official to act as general manager and he takes charge of all the city departments. The city administration, under this arrangement, is conducted like that of any ordinary business corporation. The commission or council serves as a board of directors; the city manager becomes, as it were, a general superintendent.[76] In selecting its manager a city often goes outside its own limits; usually it chooses a man who is an engineer by profession because so much of the work is of a technical nature. When the manager is appointed he plans the work to be done, estimates the cost, awards the contracts, purchases the materials, and hires the labor. The city-manager plan has been adopted by more than a hundred cities, but only a few are large communities.[77] [Sidenote: Merits of the plan.]