UPDATED: City announces new city manager

Hometown candidate Greg Burris was named city manager at a news conference Tuesday at the Busch Municipal Building. The decision was announced within hours of a closed-session City Council meeting.

Burris is vice president for administrative and information services and chief information officer at Missouri State University, where he has spent his entire 25-year career. He has a bachelor’s degree in computer information processing and a master’s degree in business administration, both from MSU.

Burris' salary will be $195,000, and he will be an at-will employee, without a contract. He starts Sept. 15.

Mayor Tom Carlson said the council spent more than 25 hours in closed session before settling on Burris, 46. Carlson said Burris fared better than the other candidates based on four desired traits: leadership, strong fiscal responsibility, development/redevelopment experience and community involvement.

“This guy has no peer when it comes to community involvement,” the mayor said.

Council members voted 8-1 in favor of Burris, with Councilwoman Cindy Rushefsky casting the lone dissenting vote. Rushefsky said she had concerns that Burris had never been a city manager, and she said his MSU administrative experience wasn’t “comparable” to running a city facing an ongoing budget crunch.

“Make no mistake about it, while the vote for candidate Burris was not unanimous, the support for city manager Burris is unanimous,” Rushefsky said.

Burris has repeatedly characterized the MSU campus as the 12th-largest metropolitan area in Missouri when classes are in full swing.

“Everything that I have done for the last five or six years has prepared me for this type of position,” he said. “I’m looking forward to leading Springfield and leading the staff. I’m very, very optimistic about Springfield. I know that Springfield has its own unique problems, but really they’re not unique. Find a city that is not experiencing some … challenges right now. It’s just a tough time.”

Burris was one of three finalists considered for the position. The others were:

• Kent A. Myers, city manager for Hot Springs, Ark.; former city manager in Casa Grande, Ariz., and Converse, Texas; he also worked for the East Texas Council of Governments. He has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Texas at Arlington and a master’s degree in public administration from Texas Christian University; and

• Larry Stevens, city manager for Edmond, Okla., where he has been since 2002. His previous positions include city manager for Pittsburg, Kan., and Brookfield, Mo.; community services director for Nevada, Mo.; and internal auditor for the Kansas City Police Department. He has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice/political science and a master’s degree in public services administration from Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg.

The finalists visited Springfield last week for a tightly scheduled series of formal interviews and public events that began with a welcome reception at Mediacom Ice Park and concluded with an ice-cream social at Phelps Grove Park.

A 21-person committee overseeing the hiring process met in closed session July 21 with representatives from Harrisburg, Penn.-based search firm Arcus Public to narrow a pool of eight candidates down to the trio of finalists.

Deputy City Manager Evelyn Honea, who has been with the city for 26 years, has been serving as interim city manager since Bob Cumley retired at the end of May. Cumley spent 36 years with the city and was named city manager in April 2006 after his predecessor, Tom Finnie, retired.