Business View Civil and Municipal | March 2021

23 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL MARCH 2021 MI SS I SS I PP I MUNI C I PAL LEAGUE their community grow. It’s comprised of three core classes where we have someone come and teach community development, another teaches economic development, and the third core class has those presenters coming together to talk about how the two types of development go hand in hand. That class involves a hypothetical city. Attendees break up into groups and tackle problems like budget issues to better your community. It gives practical experience on how communities. The following is an edited version of our conversation. BVM: How would you describe the overall mandate of the MML? Veazey: “The Mississippi Municipal League is a private association that was founded in 1931. We’re one of about 49 Leagues of Cities across the country. We are proud to have 94 percent of Mississippi cities as members. Our true mission is to help them excel, whether it be economic development projects; helping them learn how to be a city official when they get elected; what their role is as a council member or a board member versus their role as a Mayor or City Manager. We do advocate for our members, so we spend a lot of time researching at the legislative level and looking for ways that laws need to be changed to be more effective; to update laws that are antiquated and aren’t keeping up with technology. Funding is always a huge issue in a legislative session, helping protect current municipal revenue streams but also finding additional ways that more revenue can be available to them, particularly as it pertains to improving water, sewer, and street infrastructure.” BVM: What educational programs do you offer? Brown: “We have a program called Certified Municipal Officials (CMO) with Basic, Advanced, and Professional Development levels. Whether you’re a Mayor or an Alderman or a Councilman, the first level teaches the basics you need to know to do your job. Core classes include basic law; basic organization; basic finance – people come from a wide variety of backgrounds and maybe haven’t dealt with a government budget before, so we talk about municipal finance; and basic land use, covering zoning codes, etc. They take those core classes plus elective classes. In total, they get 60 hours of education to complete the Basic level. “The Advanced level shows them how to help