Cincinnati City Council is "fully supportive" of City Manager Sheryl Long, but suggests areas of needed improvement in her leadership of the city, especially concerning communication.
Council released a public report Monday outlining a performance review of the city's top employee. Council last conducted a performance review in early 2024. You can see the full report at the end of this article.
Council member Mark Jeffreys led the effort. He says Long has established a culture of continuous improvement.
"Whatever city manager is going to be in that seat is always going to face challenges," Jeffreys told WVXU. "It's the question of, how do they respond to those challenges?"
The report praises Long for major improvement to winter weather response and for working closely with City Council and the mayor to address "a tough public safety environment" last summer.
The report does not directly address one decision for which Long faced criticism both inside and outside City Hall: placing Police Chief Teresa Theetge on paid leave and launching an investigation into her effectiveness as a leader. That investigation was recently extended for a second time and the situation is unresolved.
The report does say Long needs to improve human resources processes for "sharing performance challenges" to "ensure a better alignment with expectations when performance issues arise."
"[Long] acknowledged that she wants to continue to make sure that that process is improved," Jeffreys said.
Council met with Long privately in executive session to discuss their review of her performance.
"Annual reviews are a critical part of what we do as a city administration," Long said in a statement to WVXU. "They provide an opportunity to look back at accomplishments and identify areas of growth. I appreciate this feedback from Council and will use it to continue improving service delivery for our citizens."
Mayor Aftab Pureval said in a statement the city is extremely fortunate to have Long's leadership.
"City Manager Long has guided our city through incredibly uncertain times and built a strong path forward for our future."
Council wants better internal and external communication
A theme that carries over from Long's last performance review more than two years ago is communication.
The review released in early 2024 identified "a lack of and inconsistencies in communication for major decisions, including major hires, large projects and significant initiatives." Council said Long should be more proactive in communicating with Council, city employees and the media.
The 2026 report acknowledges improvement over the past two years, and notes Long is developing a crisis communication framework to ensure Council is kept up-to-date on critical situations like last summer's viral brawl outside a bar Downtown. The report says Long is working on this plan "proactively," although the performance review from 2024 included a directive to create a "crisis communication strategy."
Council asks Long to address the media "immediately and often" during a crisis: "Even if there are clear guardrails — especially due to legal concerns — it may be challenging to speak extensively but still important for the public to see the CEO of the city say whatever can be said in those situations to steady the ship."
The report also notes the "slow" and "disappointing" deployment of new revenue resulting from the sale of the city-owned Cincinnati Southern Railway. Jeffreys says Long plans to create a "single point-of-contact" to deploy the money more quickly and efficiently.
City Council wants to create an "employee perception survey" to track morale among city workers; results would be included in future city manager performance reviews.
"There should be an employee survey, not just at the leadership level, but overall, and then external feedback as well," Jeffreys said. "So formal feedback from stakeholders, whether it's in nonprofits or business community or neighborhood councils or whomever."
City Manager salary
Long is the city's highest-paid employee, with a current salary of $329,241 as of June 2025. Her salary has increased 14.8% since she first took the job in Sept. 2022.
Jeffreys says Long did not ask for a pay increase, and that she told Council she would refuse a pay increase even if Council approved one. It's not clear if that means she would refuse even the cost of living increase that is typical with each new fiscal year budget.
"She specifically said that she is not requesting a salary increase," Jeffreys said. "I think it is now on Council [as] we're going into our budget cycle to figure out what do we think should be there."
See the full performance review report below:
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