New York Municipal Clerks Institute July 2021 Program

Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy is hosting courses for the Certified Municipal Clerks (CMC) and the Master Municipal Clerks (MMC) training programs July 12-16 and July 19-23. The Institute will be offered online using Zoom. Clerks seeking professional certification through the International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC) as well as other municipal officials seeking professional development are welcome to participate. The NYMCI July Institute includes 40 hours, and participants who complete the necessary assignments will receive 20 points/credits.

Registration (registration closed, capacity full)

July 2021 Program: $645.00
Click here to register and pay online (preferred)
Click here to pay by check

Schedule

Date______	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
July 12-16	8-10am Introduction, Overview, Learning Action Plans Monaco/Mathews	8-10am Parks Case Study 1 Finn	8-10am Negotiating 1 Asal	8-10am Records Management (CMC only) Detschner	8-10am Grant Writing Bronner Jr.

	10:30am-12:30pm IT Use/E-Government/Strategic Management Gasco-Hernandez	10:30am-12:30pm Innovation as Enabler Canestraro	10:30am-12:30pm Negotiating 2 Asal	10:30am-12:30pm Written Skills Liebschutz	10:30am-12:30pm Performance Management, HR Holt

				1-3pm FOIL (MMC only) O’Neil

July 19-23	8-10am Cybersecurity Wright	8-10am Pivot Tables and Charts Luna-Reyes	8-10am Social Media (CMC only) Peluso	8-10am Budgeting Chen	8-10am Ethics Brancatella

	10:30am-12:30pm Data Visualization Sorensen	10:30am-12:30pm Oral Presentation and Written Skills Pappianne	10:30am-12:30pm Records Mgt, Legal, Content Mgt, Imaging Meadows/Lowry	10:30am-12:30pm Economic Development Maguire	10:30am-12:30pm Parks Case Study 2 Finn

			1-3pm Project Management Toolbox (MMC only) Canestraro

Course Descriptions

(in order of schedule)

Introductions and Overview

Eugene Monaco

Learning Action Plans

Barbara Mathews

IT Use/E-Government/Strategic Management of Information

Mila Gasco-Hernandez

Technology is an incredible tool but its potential to change and improve depends on humans’ decisions and behaviors. The most successful technological projects are led by strategic thinkers and decision-makers, who understand the public environment and who have the ability to, as Steve Jobs used to say, connect the dots. Although many of us likely hold the belief that public organizations cannot or should not innovate, governments have been very successful in designing and implementing technology, showing that the use of technology in government can indeed make a difference in people’s lives.

During this session, a myriad of digital government types of initiatives will be presented that will show the multiple opportunities that local governments have to leverage information and technology. In addition, the session will address how to identify and promote the combination of factors that may lead to successful digital government projects as well as to anticipate its desirable effects.

Parks Case Study

Peter Finn

This case study is designed to expose students to different aspects of public administration, and to enable students to see themselves as actors, not simply observers, in a public policy setting, as well as build skills and develop relationships with their new classmates.

Case study participants are cast in the role of Director of the Parks Department for Stratton County, a fictitious metropolitan county in upstate New York. Due to economic conditions and increasing costs, the County Executive has directed all departments, including Parks, to develop plans to cut next year’s operating budget by 10% from the current level. The Stratton County Parks Department is a cabinet-level unit of county government, with the Director of Parks (participants) reporting directly to the County Executive. The county has five major parks and hosts 450,000 visitors annually. The agency’s current budget totals $2.70 million including 20 year-round (annual) staff positions, supplemented with part-time and temporary (hourly) staff on a seasonal basis.

Innovation as an Enabler for Achieving Organizational Success

Donna Canestraro

Information Technologies and the use innovation can provide government leaders and senior managers with unprecedented opportunities to serve and support citizens. This 2-hour session introduces participants to selected best and current practices in the how to apply innovation to serve and support citizens and the particular role played in these efforts by government leaders as change agents. Through the use of lectures and small group activities this session explores public sector innovation models, the complexity of IT investment decision making, and innovation success and failure factors. The session will also allow the program participants to explore analytical tools that will assist them as they learn to clarify goals and outcomes. Topics: ICT Innovation in the Public Sector: Enabler or Barrier? Why Evaluate IT Choices? Understanding the Problem, and The Critical Influence of Context.

Negotiating

Victor Asal

The format of this session is a series of exercises and simulations that will introduce participants to the theory and practice of negotiations. Through acting as “lab rats in their own experiments” participants will get a sense of how negotiation works and useful ways for planning to negotiate and tactics of negotiation. Participants will learn the important difference between negotiating based on positions vs. negotiating based interests on interests and the big difference that a mixed sum and zero-sum approach can have. Participants will learn the utility of creating Red Lines and Green Lines before negotiating as well as other tactics.

Protection of Essential Records

Amanda Detschner

This course will include identifying essential records through a records inventory process, as well as the need for utilizing the MU-1 for naming and retention schedules. Identifying records and using naming conventions that allow for access throughout your Municipality universally should be the goal and will determine the success of such an undertaking. Through the identification process you will recognize issues associated with maintaining all types of records, whether it be naming, storage solution or identification. After recovering from our devastating fire that burnt our Village Hall to the ground in January 20, 2019, I will discuss various ways to protect your records and the importance of having a pulse on all your records to aid in disaster recovery. Our Village was able to save records from the debris with the help of a document recovery vendor and the process from start to finish will be discussed in great detail. The final step in protecting essential records will culminate in developing a migration records plan.

Written Skills and Memo Writing

David Liebschutz

Make your writing stand out and get results with less effort — some practical tips and tricks.

Freedom of Information Law

Kristin O’Neill

Freedom of Information Law (FOIL): This session provides an opportunity for attendees to learn more about a government agency’s rights and responsibilities in relation to the Freedom of Information Law. The class will focus on the areas of concern most relevant to you, so bring your questions, concerns, and unusual situations to discuss and to receive advice and guidance from the Committee on Open Government.

Grant Writing

Kevin Bronner Jr.

Grant funding can help municipalities to reach some of their goals. This important session will provide information and tips for the process, from problem identification through proposal submission.

Human Resource Management

Stephen Holt

Introductory principles for successful recruitment, training, assessment and promoting productivity in the municipal workplace. Some attention will be given to working with organized employees and negotiations. (This curriculum will assume a basic knowledge of the Taylor Law and PERB in New York State).

Cybersecurity

Stacey Wright

We all know it's important. Critical even. A quick glance at the headlines tells you the impact of a cyber event could cost a local government millions of dollars. But when you try to talk about it... everyone suddenly has somewhere else to be. This session will provide an overview of the current cyber threats to local governments, explain why and how the best practices work to help prevent them, and will reference free resources and tools you can use to immediately improve your government's cybersecurity. Plus, I promise to speak plain English, not cyberbabble!

Data Visualization

Lucy Sorensen

When it comes to presenting data, a picture tells a thousand words. In this session, participants will use Microsoft Excel software to create a number of different types of charts and graphs to display different forms of information. Using a practical and hands-on approach, participants will learn first how to prepare, simplify, and reorganize data. They will then learn to build, format, and customize data visualizations that can then be integrated into dashboards or reports.

Pivot Tables and Charts

Luis Luna-Reyes

Finding answers to important business questions from large data sets requires tools to produce summaries of relevant aspects of the data. In this session, participants will apply the concept of PivotTables from Excel to answer a set of questions from a large Open Data set. Participants will discuss the importance of formulating clear questions to guide data exploration, and then they will use the PivotTable function to produce meaningful summaries.

Oral Presentation Skills/Public Speaking

Paige Pappianne

Would you like to hone your oral presentation skills? This two-hour training will help you be a more engaging public speaker. We begin with a conversation about the important qualities of good public speakers. This will be followed by an interactive PowerPoint mini-lecture on the most important facets of good oral presentations. The second half of the training will be comprised of an activity where teams are given topical information and develop mini-oral presentations which they will share with the class. Group members will give each other feedback on their performance using a rubric. The training will end with participants sharing their experience and feedback with the larger group.

Social Media

Johnalyn Peluso

This session will explore the basics of using social media and how to use it to communicate with your constituents and foster a sense of community. Topics will include: current and most popular social media channels, creating social media accounts, identifying appropriate content, format of content for each channel, safety and security, and frequency of posting. The instructor will also touch on establishing social media guidelines for your staff, reading analytics, and how to interact with your audience when receiving feedback.

After this training the student will be able to:

Create a business social media page on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Identify the correct platforms for their town
Create a post with the correct text, graphic, and a link for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Create a story and know when to use this capability on Facebook and Instagram
Schedule a post within the social media platform or using an additional platform to do so
Respond to positive and negative comments
Create and follow social media guidelines for their staff
Access analytics for their business social media page

Records Management

David Lowry & Denis Meadows

In this series of sessions, management of records (including records creation, receipt, management and disposal) will introduce topics of legal aspects, electronic records and content management, and imaging processes. It will also present options for developing a management system in light of possible disasters.

Project Management Toolbox

Donna Canestraro

This course will introduce the key principles of Project Management Methodology and provide an overview of key tools and techniques that will help you manage projects. It will provide you with knowledge of the “before the beginning” planning that needs to take place before a project is even started. It will help you gauge what is a project and what is not and determine what procedures and policies need to be put into place in order for your projects to be successful.

Budgeting/Financial Management

Gang Chen

Approaches for improved budget process and financial management including: policy-oriented budgeting, multi-year budget analysis, revenue analysis and capital planning. Pre-requisites include: a basic knowledge of New York municipal budget process and development, public sector accounting and the New York State uniform system of accounts.

Economic Development: Behind the Scenes

Sean Maguire

Local officials are regularly asked to provide either symbolic or real financial support for proposals that seek to grow business in an effort to help the local economy. But bigger isn’t always better. We will discuss some of the roles that local officials can undertake to support local economic development, and mistakes to avoid.

Ethics

Sarah Brancatella

As public officials, municipal clerks are subject to certain rules on what constitutes ethical behavior while performing their duties. This course will look at what state laws need to be followed, how case law on ethics laws help inform how to act, and the role of your local municipal ethics code. You’ll learn how to analyze if there is a conflict of interest and what to do, nepotism rules, when one person can hold two offices, and more.

With thanks to this year's sponsors of the New York State Town Clerks Association and the New York State Association of City and Villages who have allowed us to reduce the registration fee this year!