Competencies management has deserved increasing attention on the part of professionals and academics since it was proposed. In the public sector, a gap is perceived on theoretical or empirical studies concerning the state and municipal levels of the administration and also their decision level. This article describes the construction of an instrument to measure competencies of mayors and municipal secretaries, carried out through 17 interviews with on the job participants, and its validation with a sample of 455 other subjects initiating or ending their political mandates. The results suggest psychometric validity of the instrument and the empirical structure is in accordance with the competencies theory.
competencies diagnosis; public sector management; instrument validation
