California City Managers Survey

Nikhil Agarwal

’24

The Rose Institute has been retained by the California City Management Foundation to conduct a survey of city managers in the state. The new hire team has completed the data collection and we are moving on to data visualization. We are working on tables and graphs to summarize demographic characteristics (age, gender, level of education, years in the job, etc.) to develop a profile of the profession. With the help of a small team of RAs, we will also be coding the responses from city managers regarding the most pressing issues they are facing (similar to the Sinclair polls last fall). We will complete the final report by June 1, 2023.

The 2022 Kosmont-Rose Institute Cost of Doing Business Survey included new data and visualizations, including interactive maps of business exits from California, produced by Nolan Windham ’25 (above). The 2022 Survey received a flurry of media attention in outlets including the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Business Journal, the Dallas Business Journal, several Southern California News Group publications, and broadcast outlets including KTLA in Los Angeles, the Rynor Report on ABC network affiliate stations in Sacramento and San Diego, and CBS and Fox affiliates in Texas. We are seeking to build on the 2022 Survey’s success this year.