News about the responsibilities and frustrations of municipal clerks doesn’t often get a lot of public attention, but the recently published “2025 State of the Clerk’s Office Report” shows the important nature of their jobs and the effect they have on the solid functioning of government meetings and public engagement.

As the report explains, “investing in city clerks benefits everyone. When clerks have access to the right tools and support, meetings become more streamlined, records are maintained with greater accuracy and public transparency and engagement improves – all of which contribute to more effective and efficient local government.”

The report is based on the second annual survey of municipal clerks, and was produced through a partnership between escribe, a meeting management company and the International Institute of Municipal Clerks. This year 475 clerks, largely from small and medium sized municipalities, responded. Among the challenges cited in the survey were last-minute changes to agendas by departments, version control problems with documents, and a lack of standardized procedures.

Another key problem addressed in the report is the shortage of digital tools that would allow municipal clerks to spend their time on the job more productively. About 40 percent said their entities still rely on “manual paper-based process or outdated systems.” 

Problems like these led 58 percent of respondents to say that too much time was spent on public meeting preparation, negatively affecting other responsibilities that are more strategic and focused on improving management systems, relationships, transparency and public engagement. That expenditure of time has less payoff when the meetings themselves do a subpar job of attracting a wide range of participants. The report provides quotes from several respondents about public engagement problems. Among the issues cited:

• “General apathy with residents only getting involved when issues directly affect them.”

• “Inadequate outreach,” with awareness of meetings low even though information is posted online.

• Limited access for residents who cannot attend meetings in person.

For the 13 percent of clerks surveyed who work in localities with populations over 100,000, one of the problems cited was the difficulty “in reaching a broad and diverse audience that reflects (city) population.” Smaller cities also noted the difficulty in getting the public engaged with written materials. 

Time pressures are especially acute given an expansion of municipal clerk roles over the years, with 50 percent indicating “their workload had significantly or dramatically increased. The report quotes one municipal clerk as saying they’d been in their role for 25 years, with a tripling of the workload. “Now, I’m handling tasks that used to be managed by several people,” the clerk said.

One of the solutions proposed is a “a user-friendly digital archive of meeting records and decisions that is easily searchable by the public” – an advance that would also cut down on the time spent by municipal clerks in addressing records requests.

The report also advises more regular check-ins between departments and municipal clerks to improve collaboration and rapport and to “help clerks better understand each department’s priorities.” In addition, it recommends more focus on building relationships with elected officials and instituting ways that clerks, who have often been in their position for years, could help to train elected officials who sometimes enter their new positions with relatively little government background. 

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