By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Glasgow’s city clerk has earned the designation of being a Kentucky master municipal clerk.
Mona Simmons, who’s been in this particular role for the city for five years, said she is extremely excited about achieving this milestone in her career.
“It was something I really wanted to obtain. It was my pedestal, all the way up to the top,” she said.
To her knowledge, Simmons is the only Glasgow clerk to have climbed up to that pedestal, and that adds another level of excitement for her.
To be a municipal master clerk, though, a person must first have been a certified Kentucky municipal clerk, a process that requires two years’ membership in the Kentucky Municipal Clerks Association and three consecutive years of training – 40 hours each year – from a program approved by the International Institute of Municipal Clerks, she said. The Kentucky Municipal Clerk Institute, offered through the Kentucky League of Cities, is one such approved program. That total of 120 hours must include 50 percent in public administration, 30 percent in social and interpersonal concerns and 20 percent electives. Simmons said the electives come through participation with boards and such.
“They want you to be involved,” she said.
She said those programs are only offered once a year and are usually in July in Lexington.
Simmons earned the “certified” designation in July 2021.
“So that’s the first step,” he said.
Once someone is a certified municipal clerk, if they are an active member of the KMCA, that person may then apply to become a Kentucky municipal master clerk, a designation also issued by that same clerks association.
The KMMC designation requires 100 education points earned by attending a minimum of 60 hours at Kentucky Master Municipal Clerk Academy a minimum of 20 hours through KMCA Spring Conference programs. If needed 20 additional points may be obtained through other training sessions but not those from the KMCI, a program summary sheet states. In addition to the 100 education points, a master municipal clerk designation also requires 20 professional and social contribution points, which may be earned by holding various officer positions in regional chapters, serving as an active member of the KMCA Board of Directors, serving on KMCA and/or IIMC committees, attendance at an IIMC Region V conference or attending other KMCA sponsored trainings or KLC annual conferences.
In Simmons’ case, she earned additional educational points with trainings in topics such as ethics, occupational safety and health recordkeeping and reporting, equity and inclusion, disability awareness, budgeting basics, cybersecurity, and open meetings and open records.
She got involved with the Barren River Municipal Clerks Association and became its vice president then its 2024 president, and she has served on a few KMCA committees, for example, as part of her professional and social contributions.
She said the KMCA is very strict about how the points are received and how they’re recorded on the application, so much so that she had to redo her application more than once, and finally got it approved after getting feedback from a friend who is also a city clerk. Proof of how the all points were obtained is required with the application, as well as a continuing education plan, and there’s a $100 fee involved as well, which she has also submitted now.
As part of her master municipal clerk application, she also had to write about how her education up this point has benefited her – personally and professionally – and her municipality and community; write about what aspects of her education have been most beneficial and what areas of the education program might be improved and how; describe the types of education and training she intends to pursue in the future; and explain how continuing education may benefit her, her municipality, her profession and her community.
Simmons told Glasgow News 1 that these educational efforts have helped her do her job as correctly as possible.
“Yes, I’ve made mistakes, but I’ve corrected them to the best of my ability and went forward,” she said.
The aspects of it that have been most beneficial for her, she said, are team building and meeting and working with other city clerks.
“If I come across something I can’t figure out, I have people to ask how they do it, and it’s very beneficial,” Simmons said.
In the interim between completion of the state-level programs and designations, Simmons joined the International Institute of Municipal Clerks and, after meeting the two-year IIMC membership requirement as well as meeting other goals, she got that organization’s designation as a certified municipal clerk. She said the requirements are mostly the same as they are to become a KCMC, “so if you get one, you’re almost guaranteed the other.” Because she didn’t join the IIMC until she’d already gotten the state designation, though, she had to wait until she’d been a member two years to get the latter one.
“I’ve got three of the four, so I’m satisfied. I’m happy,” Simmons said, referring to the state-level and international certifications and this KMCA master designation she’s received and the IIMC’s master-level program she won’t get, because she’s retiring at the end of February, and the IIMC master designation requires twice the number of “active” points like the professional and social contribution points.
Simmons has also earned from the City Officials Training Center, through the Kentucky League of Cities, her Level II Excellence in City Governance certificate, which is also determined by hours of education. She got the Level I certificate in September 2023 after completing a total of 30 hours of approved courses, one of which had to be in ethics. Level II was earned in September this year after completion of 60 hours of approved course, two of which had to be in ethics.
She has the opportunity now to pass along some of the wisdom she’s gained over the past five years, as she’s begun training a person — Danielle Cashion — slated to take over the role after she’s gone.
