A city manager is an official appointed as the administrative manager of a city, in a council-manager form of city government. Organisational use In some organisational analyses, administration can refer to the bureaucratic or operational performance of mundane office tasks, usually internally oriented. ... Management (from Old French ménagement the art of conducting, directing, from Latin manu agere to lead by the hand) characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). ... City lights from space. ... The council-manager government is one of 2 main variations of representative municipal government (for contrast, also see Mayor-Council government). ...

Typical roles and responsibilities of a city manager include:

• Supervising day-to-day operations of all city departments;
• Supervising the department heads
• Preparing a draft city budget each year with options the council votes on;
• Researching and making recommendations about topics of interest to the council;
• Meeting with citizens and citizen groups to understand their needs better;
• Providing executive leadership that encourages good performance by city workers;
• Operating the city with a professional understanding of how all city functions operate together to their best effect.

Typically, city managers have hire-fire authority over all city employees, though these decisions may be required to be approved by the council, and must comply with locally applicable civil service laws. This authority includes talent searches for "department heads" who are the managers of the city departments.