Covington government transition reaches major milestone with final report

Covington’s transition to a new form of government reached a major milestone this week.

The city committee in charge of issuing recommendations on transitioning the government voted Thursday night to send its final report to the city’s Board of Commissioners. There’s one caveat to the final report–a subcommittee on the city’s appointed boards and commissions is still working to issue its recommendations, so that addendum to the final report will be issued later.

The board will now consider the recommendations and then vote on whether to enshrine the recommendations into law before the end of the year.

“This is a lot, a lot of work that’s getting done,” said Mayor Ron Washington, who also chairs the committee.

Covington residents overwhelmingly voted to transition the government from its current city manager form to the mayor-council during the 2024 general election. About 7,500 Covington voters, roughly 61% of the votes cast, voted in favor of the transition.

Covington’s current government is a city manager form of government. Under the current form, a city manager manages most of the city's day-to-day business and its departments. Four elected city commissioners plus the elected mayor, who has relatively little direct authority, appoint the city manager.

Under the current model, both the commissioners and the mayor have a vote in local policies. Mayors are responsible for running meetings, signing contracts and acting as the public face of the city, but they share executive and legislative power with the commissioners. The mayor cannot veto legislation.

In other words, executive and legislative power is spread evenly between the commissioners and the mayor. No one has any unilateral power; the commission and mayor can exercise power only as a group.

One of the key differences between the city manager form and the mayor-council form is that under the mayor-council form, the mayor has more authority to hire and fire city workers, unlike the current system, where every personnel decision is subject to a vote from the commission (Note: key department heads, like police and fire chiefs, are still subject to ratification from the legislature under both systems).

Broadly speaking, the mayor-council form places more executive authority in the mayor's seat, granting the mayor greater latitude in running the city on a day-to-day basis. It also grants the mayor complete authority in personnel decisions. As a result, the mayor-council form is sometimes referred to as the strong mayor form of government.

Covington will continue to have a city manager under the new system to aid in city administration, but the position will be less powerful than it was in the previous system.

The mayor-council form is the more commonly used form of government in Kentucky. Over half of the municipalities in the commonwealth use the mayor-council form of government, according to the Kentucky League of Cities. Nationwide, however, larger cities tend to use the city manager form or some variation of it: 54% of the nation’s cities with populations of 10,000 or more use the city manager form, according to the International City Managers Association. 

The transition to the new government form will take effect in 2027. The Covington Board of Commissioners established a transition committee to issue recommendations on the new government structure in early December 2024. The committee has met numerous times over the subsequent months to unpack the city's laws and regulations and think about how best to revise them for the new government structure.

The committee's revision recommendations for the city's ordinances likewise concluded this week. Thursday's meeting saw discussion on possible revisions for fire safety regulations, rental licensing regulations, regulations on mobile homes, parks and permitting for temporary fire stands. City Solicitor Frank Schultz said many of these recommendations were based on input from the city's department heads.

These recommendations, as well as recommendations for other city ordinances still need to be examined by the board of commissioners, who will offer their recommendations before they come to a final vote. The commissioners have the power to accept or reject the revisions as they like and propose their own recommendations.

A complete, detailed (and likely quite long) list of all of the proposed revisions is not yet available for public view, as they're considered preliminary documents under Kentucky law and are, thus, exempted from open records laws. The final set of revisions will come before the Covington Board of Commissioners later this year, likely in the winter, at which point they will be available to the public. LINK nky will report more on those recommendations as information becomes available.

The board of commissioners passed the first ordinance structuring the new government in May of last year. That ordinance established a six-person city council, nonpartisan elections, at-large representation of council seats and the salary levels of the legislators and the mayor. Notably, that ordinance increased the mayor's salary to the maximum allowed under state law, which is currently $97,887.93.

"The reason being is that the mayor is a full-time position," said Covington's Director of External Affairs Sebastian Torres. "They're now the true chief executive officer of the city. He's going to have to decide what happens to the staff of over 400. He's going to have to make the big decisions at the end of the day. He's not going to be able to rely on the city manager anymore to make those decisions."

The committee also previously issued recommendations to consolidate several city departments, purportedly to decrease the number directors reporting to the city manager in the name of efficiency. These consolidations were enacted as part of the city's budgeting process; the city's new budget was passed earlier this week.

Under this new structure the city's Economic Development and Neighborhood Services Departments, which are currently headed up by distinct directors, will be consolidated into a single Community Development Department, which will have one director. Next, the HR, IT and Data & Analytics departments will consolidate into a single People and Technology Department, which will likewise have a single director.

Finally, the city's Communications Department will be removed from the city manager's purview and placed under the new Department of External Affairs, which focuses on lobbying.

Although the committee has delivered its final report, it will meet two more times this year—once on Aug. 20 and again on Dec. 3. The board of commissioners must enact any and all new ordinances to transition the government before 2027.

Read the final report below.