We’re committed to keeping the #13Percent issue at the forefront of local government discussions. Periodically, we’ll post “From My Perspective” blog posts from ELGL members on the topic of women in local government leadership. Here’s a post from SE ELGL Advisory Board member Bonnie Svrcek. Bonnie is a former ICMA president and the Deputy City Manager of Lynchburg, Virginia.
Update on the Recommendations from the ICMA Task Force Report on the Status of Women in the Profession
Many people have inquired about the status of the recommendations included in the Task Force Report on the Status of Women in the Profession that was forwarded to the International City/County Management Association Executive Board in September 2014 at the annual conference in Charlotte by the Task Force on Women in the Profession. The ICMA Board discussed the recommendations at their meeting in November and asked the Task Force leadership to provide more information on the recommendations, particularly from a responsibility and precedence perspective. This work has been completed and will be forwarded to ICMA by the end of January for their review and consideration.
In the meantime, the PM (Public Management) magazine article titled “Women in Government – Why So Little Progress in 30 Years” written by Heidi Voorhees and Rachel Lange-Skaggs generated a lively response from Kirsten Wyatt, co-founder of Emerging Local Government Leaders (ELGL) that generated quite a buzz on Twitter.
The Women Leading Government Coalition that met for the first time during the ICMA Conference is beginning to create a structure that will pursue implementation of some of the Report’s recommendations while awaiting any action by the ICMA Executive Board.
The conversation and deliberate actions based on the recommendations must continue and I applaud ICMA and Heidi and Rachel for the PM article and Kirsten and ELGL for keeping the conversation alive!
Stay tuned!