Municipal Clerk Responsibilities, Job Description & Salary

At Town Web, we know a thing or two about running municipalities (with a municipal clerk playing a key role in this). After all, we offer a dedicated service for building user-friendly, accessible, and up-to-date municipal websites. Here, we will explain the common municipal clerk duties.

At Town Web, we know a thing or two about running municipalities (with a municipal clerk playing a key role in this). After all, we offer a dedicated service for building user-friendly, accessible, and up-to-date municipal websites. Here, we will unpack a municipal clerk job description, their duties and job scope. We’ll also look at some municipal clerk job advertisements and expand on what you need to consider when hiring a municipal clerk.

What is a clerk?

A municipal clerk is a senior municipal official. Their work often comprises a range of legal and clerical tasks. But, they also tend to undertake financial tasks, report preparation, and copywriting/transcription, among other duties.

In the US, states have the freedom to decide for themselves what tasks the clerk will undertake with some describing the provisions of what a municipal clerk must do in their constitutions

Common municipal clerk responsibilities

There is no singular, formal municipal clerk job description covering the entire United States. But some duties appear more regularly than others.

Here’s what the most common municipal clerk responsibilities involve:

While you work to hire the right people, Town Web can help by building a new, high-quality site for your town or city. If you’re interested, you can request a quote through our website.

Municipal clerk job requirements

Let’s explore what an applicant usually needs. Here are some of the normal requirements of becoming a municipal clerk:

You may decide that they must have previous experience in a similar role, or, if you’d like, you can list this as preferable. In general, it’s up to you whether or not to class any of the above as a requirement or just preferable.

Examples of municipal clerk jobs

To give you a sense of city clerk jobs in practice, let’s look at a real municipal clerk job description.

First, here’s an example of a city clerk job ad for High Point, North Carolina, on the jobs site Glassdoor:

Below is a second example, as taken from the jobs site Monster. It shows a municipal clerk job description for the Deputy City Clerk of Eastpointe, Michigan:

Municipal clerk job ad template

Now here’s a template of what you may want to include in a municipal clerk job description ad:

We are currently seeking a city clerk to undertake a range of duties that will serve the local council and the general public. We need someone with all the relevant skills suitable for a job as varied and important as the city clerk. If you believe you tick the boxes and have what it takes to become a municipal clerk, read on.

What is a clerk? A municipal clerk job description:

As the city’s clerk, you must prepare and maintain official documentation, financial records, and various reports while making sure that citizens can access public records. You will also need to take meeting minutes regularly and undertake transcription work, archiving, and digital data management. It will also be part of your job to help organize city elections which take place on a bi-annual basis.

What does a city clerk do?

Requirements:

Municipal clerk responsibilities FAQs

Q: How many hours does the average municipal clerk do?

A: It may surprise you that most municipal clerks do 40 hours a week and no more. But in many cases, municipal clerks will need to occasionally do evening or weekend work. This might happen if meetings are held outside of regular office hours or for events such as city elections.

Q: Who does a municipal clerk primarily work with?

A: Mostly, municipal clerks work directly with the local mayor and city council. They may also work in conjunction with the managing directors of a range of municipal admin departments.

Q: What is the average salary of a municipal clerk? 

A: In the United States, municipal clerks tend to have salaries in the region of $44,000 to $54,000. The average figure, according to Salary.com, is $49,164. In some cases, the figure will fall below $40K, while on other occasions, city clerks may even see salaries in excess of $60K. Factors like where they are applying, how much experience they have, and the scale of the job can all play a role in shaping the salary of a municipal clerk. After all, working as a clerk for a small rural town is likely to pay quite a bit less than that of a city clerk for a major American city like Los Angeles, California or Dallas, Texas.

Learn more through our blog

Today we looked at the various elements to a municipal clerk job description. Beyond that, we touched on what you might want to list as the requirements or preferences when hiring. We also explored a job ad template and existing job examples.

If you want to know more about municipality promotion, check out our blog! We explore topics like government chatbots and cyber security for municipalities.

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