Fundamentals of Montana Municipal Government Online Course

Welcome to Montana municipal government! Through this six-week introductory course, participants will study the foundational elements of local government, including its purpose, laws, best practices, duties of elected and appointed officials, and much more. It is a great practical overview of municipal government in Montana for both new and experienced officials.* 

*This is a non-credit course offered through Montana State University Extension.

COURSE FORMAT  

This course follows a six-week, semi-asynchronous format based on the Montana Municipal Officials Handbook, 3rd ed. Participants will complete one unit per week following posted deadlines and must complete the following steps for each unit prior to the weekly deadline: 

1. Read the assigned Handbook sections.

2. Complete the unit quizz.

3. Participate in the online discussion forums with one original post and one response post each of at least 50 words.

REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS

PLEASE NOTE: Once you've created and confirmed your eXtension Campus account, you will receive an email from the eXtension Campus Help Desk confirming your registration. This is NOT confirmation of your enrollment. We have to complete your enrollment and will send you an official enrollment confirmation email with course access instructions once we've done so. You will not be able to access the course until you receive that email. If you think you've completed all the steps and have not received the confirmation email from us within a week, please let us know.

COURSE MATERIAL

The Montana Municipal Officials Handbook, 3rd ed. can be viewed or downloaded from the MSU Local Government Center's website. Participants are welcome to download and print the handbook from the link below.

We manually enroll participants into their course cohorts to avoid quorum issues, so you won't have access to the course until the week prior to the course start, as we wait till we have a complete list of participants before creating the cohort groups. If you'd like to be able to start working ahead, here's a course syllabus with the readings, course objectives, and major topics for each unit.