Given: Time is a scare resource for government managers.

Therefore: Too much time spent on low-priority issues could have a deleterious effect.

"For example, if around budget time, he or she is worrying about the administration of a local library instead of the police and fire departments," explains Manuel Carballo, a lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "Perhaps instead he or she should spend more time allocating money for police and fire budgets."

Using examples such as this, Carballo and other K-School professors will discuss the importance of time management and other issues at a Harvard seminar for Massachusetts mayors on Thursday and Friday.

The seminar is sponsored by the MIT-Harvard Joint Center for Urban studies, Harvard's Institute of Politics (IOP), and the Massachusetts Municipal Association.

First

"This is the first time that we've done something like this for the mayors from small cities," Ira A. Jackson '70, associate dean at the Kennedy School, said this week.

"What we'll be discussing are things that we would normally teach to newly-elected officials at the school."

In addition to professors from the Kennedy School of Government, featured speakers at the seminar will include Govt. elect Michaei S. Dukakis, Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.). State Rep. George Keverian, and State Sen. William M. Bulger.

Professors from the Kennedy School will lead discussions with mayors from 25 Massachusetts cities on a wide range of subjects including office staffing, financial management and press relations.

Intensive

The Kennedy School and the IOP conduct an intensive week-long seminar every other year for newly elected mayors from large cities across the nation, but at the request of the Municipal Association, professors at the school agreed to participate this year in a "mini-version" for Massachusetts mayors only.

Arnold M. Howitt, associate professor of city and regional planning in the Kennedy School and one of the organizers of the event, stressed the "mutual benefit" which the project could have.

He said that while the seminar was arranged so that "mayors could learn more about being mayors," the Joint Center and the Kennedy School have "always been concerned with staying up-to-date with current policy issues and the specific problems with which mayors are concerned."