General Duties
Under both state law and city ordinances, your city clerk is entrusted with numerous and diverse duties. In addition to the required duties performed, the clerk has many other responsibilities resulting from long-practiced local rules and customs. Some of the City Clerk’s administrative duties are as follows:
Statutory Duties
The clerk’s statutory duties are relatively fixed. Basically, the city clerk, regardless of the form of government, is charged with the following statutory duties:
- Secretary to the Commission
- Secretary to the Municipal Corporation
- Election official with judicial authority
- Administrative official on the municipal level
Functions
The following is a list of many of the functions which may be performed as secretary to the Commission:
- Record official minutes of the Commission
- Handle municipal correspondence, both incoming and out-going, as directed, or as requested by the Commission
- Prepare meeting agendas
- Prepare Proclamations for noteworthy events and activities
- Process, record, file and advertise ordinances, resolutions, notices, bids for equipment, supplies, and services
- Advertise, record, and file municipal budget
- Perform liaison work between the public and the Commission as may be directed
- Administer and record oaths of office
- Maintain custody of all official records not specifically handled by other departments
Secretary & Election Official
As secretary of the municipal corporation, the city clerk has the following responsibilities:
- Maintain custody of the municipal seal
- Sign official documents
- Maintain receipt of service and legal documents
As an election official, the city clerk has the following duties:
- Certify vacancies existing on the local level
- Maintain receipt of any and all petitions, initiative or otherwise
- Exercise quasi-judicial authority in determining the validity of petitions according to the City Code or State Statutes
- Furnish material for local elections
- Maintain receipt of election results
Code of the Municipal Clerk
- To uphold constitutional government and the laws of the community
- To so conduct their public and private life as to be an example to their fellow citizens
- To conduct the affairs of their office in a manner that shall be above reproach
- To be ever mindful of their neutrality and impartiality, rendering service to all
- To record that which is true and preserve that which is entrusted to them as if it were their own
- To strive constantly to improve the administration of the affairs of their office consistent with applicable law