The Philomath City Council wants this year’s performance evaluation of City Manager Chris Workman to draw on more voices, focus on fewer but more meaningful questions and be run by elected officials rather than city staff.
Councilors voted unanimously Oct. 12 to authorize the Finance and Administration Committee to finalize the 2026 city manager performance evaluation process and questions, incorporating council feedback and a 360-degree evaluation. The motion also makes the mayor and council president responsible for administering the process.
Mayor Christopher McMorran, who brought the item forward, said the council has started the evaluation too late each of the past couple of years, leaving no time to fix the process before it had to be completed.
“We all have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it, but we never really actually change the process because we’re like, ‘Oh, it’s too late. We just want to get it done,'” McMorran said. “That has been sort of ‘Groundhog Day’ for the last couple years.”
According to the agenda item summary, the council agreed last year that a 360-degree evaluation should be performed in 2026, collecting feedback from staff, colleagues and community leaders in addition to councilors. McMorran said that could include department heads as well as leaders from the school district, the fire district and Benton County who work with the city manager and “can speak to his performance in a perspective that we don’t have.”
The other key change shifts who runs the evaluation. In the past, the assistant city manager has led the process. Under the new approach, Assistant City Manager Chelsea Starner will still help develop the questions and provide human resources advice, but McMorran and the council president will send out the survey and manage the responses.
McMorran said he hasn’t received complaints from staff, but having employees run their own boss’ evaluation “does put them in an awkward position.” He said the change reflects a practice he has seen in other cities, including Corvallis.
McMorran asked councilors to set aside past evaluations and talk about what they believe is important when assessing a city manager’s performance. The Finance and Administration Committee will use that discussion to build a new evaluation template.
Councilor Diane Crocker said communication — including clarity and timeliness — should be an evaluation area. She also raised a concern about last year’s process, saying a survey described as anonymous revealed her identity because it showed when she submitted it.
“I happened to be one of the first ones to finish it,” Crocker said. “I went, ‘Oh my gosh, all my answers are right there in the summary.’ I didn’t feel very anonymous.”
McMorran said having the mayor and council president gather responses should help keep individual answers within the council, which then works to present a unified council evaluation.
Councilor Spencer Irwin suggested adherence to the strategic plan and overall leadership as evaluation areas, noting the city manager often bears the brunt of public concerns and complaints.
McMorran said a review of previous evaluations turned up questions he didn’t believe councilors cared about, citing one on the city manager’s technology literacy.
“Are we going to make an employment decision based on our responses to that question?” McMorran said. “I just want this to be focused on what the council would actually make employment or compensation decisions based off of — not just on, like, do we like his tie.”
He described the city manager as an executive who reports to a council rather than a day-to-day supervisor, and said the evaluation should focus on broad, foundational responsibilities such as delivering the strategic plan, interfacing with the community and leading the team.
Crocker asked whether the evaluation could be opened to the broader community rather than limited to community leaders. McMorran said the intent is to gather feedback from people who work professionally with the city manager, “not just sort of like an opinion poll.”
Councilor Jessica Andrade suggested a pilot that would ask a random selection of people who interacted with the city manager during the year basic questions, such as whether they felt listened to, along with an explanation of what the position entails.
Councilor Rich Saalsaa cautioned that respondents should have direct dealings with the city manager in that role, citing his experience with the fire district’s evaluation of its fire chief, which draws from rank-and-file firefighters, the board and outside partners who work with him in that capacity.
McMorran added that some residents might be upset about council decisions Workman carried out, such as the police services fee, or about Planning Commission decisions where he served as the planning official.
“That’s maybe helpful feedback for us politically, but it’s not helpful feedback for evaluating the city manager,” McMorran said.
The idea was added to the committee’s list of topics.
Workman said his main concern is balancing a thorough evaluation against the time it demands.
“Make sure it’s comprehensive, but at the same time, it’s not overwhelming for the ones that are asked to do it,” Workman said.
Andrade asked that any section descriptions in the new evaluation accurately describe their headings without repeating content across sections.
McMorran said it had been discovered that the city manager position description hasn’t been updated since 1995. He doesn’t expect it to be revised before this year’s evaluation goes out, but said the committee may take it up.
“Obviously, it’s a very similar job to what it was in 1995,” McMorran said. “But the city has grown and the world has changed.”
McMorran said Workman’s contract simply states that the city manager shall perform the duties of a city manager, while the city charter outlines some of the job’s responsibilities. He said past evaluations have assessed Workman on expectations that don’t appear in his job description.
“If it’s something his performance evaluation will be based off of, it should be in his job description and it should be formally communicated from the council that that’s an expectation,” McMorran said.
Irwin suggested the council use this year’s evaluation discussion to draft a summary of core competencies for an ideal city manager, which could later help define the role. He also proposed including a category of metrics that Workman himself wants feedback on.
The city recorder is working to schedule a Finance and Administration Committee meeting, ideally before the end of October or in early November, according to the agenda summary. Nothing requires the evaluation to be completed before the end of the year.
