If council members are uncompensated, they cannot be considered "public employees" whose information is protected pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. Section 10-7-504(f). Hodge, the Tennessee Open Records Counsel at the time of this letter, also offers suggestions for improved processes in filling the request in question.

An ordinance which gives city personnel the right to seek and hold public office, as a member of City Council.

MTAS surveyed selected cities in Tennessee regarding their use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Nine cities responded to questions about their use of ERP software for community development, finance functions, agenda management, human resources functions, and asset management. Cities provided the name of the vendor and software packages used, and reported their level of satisfaction with the product.

A better policy than simply not investigating anonymous complaints would be to respond to them on a case by case basis depending on the indicia of reliability in the complaint.

MTAS Legal Consultant Elisha Hodge responded to a question regarding a Tennessee city loaning money to the Industrial Review Board.

MTAS was asked whether a home rule municipality can adopt a charter amendment authorizing a public referendum on tax rates.

MTAS Legal Consultant Elisha Hodge responded to a Tennessee municipality's request for information regarding records retention and public records.

Municipal benchmarking with MTAS is a voluntary program that consists of four activities: deciding what data to gather, gathering data, collating and cleaning data, and analyzing the statistics of participating cities. This manual describes the benchmarking process, which begins with the TMBP steering committee deciding what data to ask cities for. Definitions of those data points are included in this manual, as well as a timeline for the overall process.

An ordinance to change the town election date to the November general election date.

Two sample forms; 1) an application for the potential licensee to submit to the municipality requesting a certification of compliance; and 2) a form that the municipality can submit to the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission confirming that the licensee meets the municipality's compliance requirements.