One in three of Manteca’s 360 municipal employees are 50 years or older.   
With 33 percent of city workers 50 or older and 14 percent past the 55-year mark, Manteca leaders are concerned that the aging workforce means they will soon experience not only a significant departure of institutional knowledge but may be caught flat-footed with out seamless succession in key positons.
It’s why the City Council has hired Mejorando Group to help devise a succession planning program. 
Consultant Patrick Ibarra has already started meeting with city staff.
The collaborative effort will develop a succession plan in order to identify, assess and develop talent to ensure leadership, management and supervisory continuity.
The plan will also focus on talent development, cross training and knowledge transfer among other areas. It will include ways to look for the best in-house talent and provide training to prepare them for advancement.
Ibarra told the City Council that local governments throughout California are faced with aging workforces, an explosion of technology, a completive marketplace, and increasing service demands.
Nationally, lbarra noted:
only 13 percent of local government managers are under 40 while nearly 71 percent were under 40 in the early 1970s.
the average age of a public sector employee is 44 compared to a private sector employee which is 39.
in 2014, 19 percent of the government workforce reached 61, the average retirement age. By 2018, that figure rises to 28 percent of those working.
49% of local governments reported higher levels of retirement in 2013 compared with 2012.
22 percent have reported that employees had accelerated their retirements,
Ibarra stressed succession planning is an ongoing process and is not designed to be a one-time effort.