This is the fifth in a series on the Cayuga County Legislature's

proposal to create a county

manager position

The Cayuga County Legislature's Government Operations Committee released details on Tuesday regarding what powers and salary a reduced chairman of the Legislature will have in conjunction with a proposal to create a county manager. While these limited details may be a bone to some critics who have questioned how this will all work, there are still some questions about the functionality of the proposed county manager position and how it will change current operations.

The big question is whether the Legislature will allow him or her to do the job they want done. Or are they setting up the position to fail? The county manager is only one part of the management equation for county operations.

The other half is the 15-member county Legislature which, officially or not, will have to give up some of its powers if a county manager system is going to work. The bottom line is whether legislators are going to give up their current ability and, in essence, role, of being micro-managers.

That is easier said than done. Every leader says that they don't want to "micro-manage" - that they want the person they hire to do that job. That is, until they get a complaint from the public and are asked to intervene, see something they don't like, or have a special interest in a subject. No one wants micro-managers, until something goes wrong or when they have a vested interest.

With that in mind, how easily will the 15 members shift from the current hold they have on everything from hiring department heads to budget tinkering? If human nature is any guide, not well.

That then leads to another more serious problem - responsibility. For those who have ever been in the military, there is an old axiom that "rank has its privileges, as well as its responsibilities." That is also true in government. In the current case, it looks as if the county manager will have much responsibility but may not have the ability to carry out responsibilities unhampered by micro-management.

In the end, that may mean they are just responsible for what goes wrong. They will become a scapegoat for failure, because they don't have the tools to avoid it.

A clear delineation of actual roles, versus legal powers, between a county manager and the Legislature is needed.

Yet that hasn't been clearly done. While Washington and Albany have "checks and balances," it looks as if Cayuga County, under the current proposal, will only have checks and blocks.

The bottom line is, are legislators willing to give up some of their power to micro-manage?

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com