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Purchase a WMCA Name Badge
Last chance to purchase a WMCA permanent Name Badge. They are great to wear in your office or at a meeting.
We need 25 orders at a time to have the badges made at our price point. If we do not receive more orders by the end of the month, we will have to discontinue this program. |
District Meetings Coming Up |
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THE WMCA MISSION:
To be the premier source
for the personal empowerment
of municipal clerks in Wisconsin
through education, professional development, and the promotion of excellence.
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Have a Happy
Valentines
Weekend! |
Are You Ready to Certify?
The Next Deadline is March 1st
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The next deadline to submit a Wisconsin Certified Municipal Clerk(WCMC) or Wisconsin Certified Professional Clerk (WCPC) certification application is March 1, 2015. Plan ahead, compile your information and send it to the WMCA Office by this date.
When filing your WCMC or WCPC certification application, you need to attach proof of attendance for all the education you attended. Since mid-2013, when you register and attend WMCA educational sessions your class hours are posted in your record on Cvent online accessed through the Wisconsin Municipal Clerk Association website Membership Directory. For those sessions which are listed in the Cvent system, you only need to print out the one attendance page and no additional certificates of attendance will be required for all events listed. For all other training sessions, certificates are still required. We also want to remind our members that if you attend a training session that does not provide a certificate, we ask that you get the instructor to either sign the agenda indicating the number of hours that were completed or have them provide a document with this same information.
It is important when submitting your application to include copies (not originals) of the training documentation required for each and every portion of the application. Also, remember to include proof of employment from your current or from any previous employment used to earn points on the application. Incomplete applications are returned to the applicant to be corrected and resubmitted before the next application deadline.
If you have any questions about the certification process, visit the WMCA website for FAQs about the certification program or contact any one of the committee members. Questions related to the Cvent online system are to be directed to the Executive Director Faith Elford.
The State Certification Committee will be meeting March 10th to review the applications submitted. After March 1, 2015, the next deadline to submit a WCMC or WCPC application will be October 1, 2015.
WMCA State Certification Committee:
Nancy Zastrow, WCMC/CMC, Co-Chair, Village of Pewaukee
Jane Romanowski, WCPC/MMC, Co-Chair, Village of Pleasant Prairie
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35th Anniversary WMCA Conference
Education . . . Strength of a Mighty River
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The annual conference, set by the WMCA Board of Directors, is 1 ½ days long in even years, (major election years) and 2 ½ days long in the odd years, with pre-conference classes held the day before. This year’s 35th Anniversary WMCA Conference is the expanded version and will be August 19-21 at the La Crosse Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The expanded conference allows more time for educational sessions, networking and exploring different communities. These opportunities are invaluable to clerks and the municipalities we serve. The full line-up of classes and registration will be out in April but we wanted to give you a sneak peek at a few details to help you decide when to come to La Crosse.
In keeping with our conference theme “Education … Strength of a Mighty River,” we encourage you to start your conference experience by attending a Pre-Conference class on Tuesday, August 18. The Pre-Conference classes are designed for all levels of clerk experience. The line-up includes the New Clerk’s Class, a Master Academy class by UW-Green Bay, and an Athenian Leadership Dialogue. All classes will start at 9:00 am Tuesday morning in the La Crosse Center. The Registration/Check In area will be open at 7:30 am. Then, after the “Education,” you may wish to experience the “Strength of a Mighty River”. We have made arrangements for a cocktail cruise with pizza at 5:30. If you’re not into cruising, take a walk in the park and enjoy the scenery, or visit our shops downtown.
Have you made your hotel reservations yet? If you’re coming to the Pre-Conference classes, do you have a room for Monday night? The Radisson Hotel is fully booked but rooms have been added to our block at the Holiday Inn and there are still rooms available at the Courtyard by Marriott.
Tips regarding the Hotels: The Holiday Inn is right across the street from the front doors of the La Crosse Center. They even have an enclosed connecting walkway over the street. I would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone that has trouble walking great distances.
For anyone that would like an up close view of the mighty Mississippi, the Courtyard by Marriott is the place to stay. This newly remodeled hotel is beautiful and located right on the bank of the Mississippi. From the front door of the hotel, you can see the La Crosse Center just two blocks away. That may seem far away to some, but I believe it really is not any further than walking the corridor from the Radisson to the South Hall and classrooms in the La Crosse Center and you will have the chance to enjoy the outdoors for a little while each morning.
Contact information for the hotels can be found at http://wisclerks.org/education-training/conferences/
Watch for further details about the conference in future E-Newsletters. Full registration materials will be emailed out in April.
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2015 started off with a rush for clerks to provide input at the Joint Legislative Audit Committee Hearing in January as a result of the December 2014 GAB Audit Report. Over 100 clerks emailed written testimony to the Committee and 25 clerks were in attendance at the hearing. The input will now be reviewed by the representative for the drafting of future election laws and policy changes. You’ll want to keep a watchful eye out for those. The representatives were very impressed with how many clerks had made contact in some fashion with the Committee.
There are also some other proposals you will be seeing in the near future pertaining to changing the requirement to process absentee ballot requests in 24 hours to processing in one business day.
There will be a proposal that will allow clerks to serve as Registration Deputies on Election Day, if they are not on the ballot.
Also, the idea of eliminating Special Registration Deputies, except for those serving Care Facilities for absentee voting; as well as tracking the SRD’s. The intent is to encourage the voters to use the MyVote website which GAB has invested considerable time in developing and save clerks from having to enter the data.
Under discussion will be changing deadline date to hold a Caucus. This will provide uniformity across the state and allow the County Clerk’s adequate time to prepare ballots for distribution.
These are just a few of the things under consideration, so watch for more information as these proposals are presented. We will probably see more activity after the State Budget is finalized and the final decision of the State Voter ID Law has been determined.
Looks like another busy year for the Election Communication Committee but we can’t do it without the assistance of all the clerks across the state. It is realized that it is difficult to attend the hearings at the Capital, but your assistance in sending letters and contacting your representatives helps WMCA present the issues and concerns of the clerks, municipalities and the voters across the state. For those of you that have provided that support in the past, thank you very much and please continue your efforts. For those that have not, please take the time to use one of the forums to contact your reps.
Click here to go to the Wisconsin State Legislature website to look up proposed legislation and find the contact information for your area legislators. You might want to bookmark it for future use.
Thank you,
State Election Communication Committee
Diane Hermann-Brown, Co-Chair, City of Sun Prairie
Sandi Wesolowski, Co-Chair, City of Franklin
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Don't lose your certification or your clerklist connection -
Have you paid your dues?
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If you are a Regular member or an Associate, your 2015 Membership Dues Email was sent out on December 30th with a due date of January 31, 2015. A second notice was sent out the first week of February. If you have not paid your dues by February 28th, we will have to discontinue your log-in accounts and clerklist privileges. And please remember, one of the rules for keeping your certification status is continuous membership to WMCA. Don't let your membership lapse.
Contact Executive Director Faith Elford if you are having trouble renewing your membership on-line or have any other questions regarding your membership. |
| Our Associate members support the WMCA by purchasing ad space in our E-Newsletters and on our website. Remember the next time you need to buy new equipment or services, see what the WMCA Associates have to offer. |
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