STAMFORD – The town clerk is the minder of everybody’s business.
The office records births, marriages, deaths, burials, deeds, property sales, dog licenses, military discharges, election results, campaign contributions, public meetings, survey maps, lawsuits against the city, liquor permits, ordinances, appointments of city officials, historic documents, and much more.
The job of town clerks is to gather, verify and store the information, and produce it on request. It’s a lot to master.
There is so much material that the Connecticut Town Clerks’ Association offers certification for employees of the office who have at least two years on the job, complete a five-module training schedule, and pass a final examination.
Across the state, employees of the office regularly complete the certification program, said Lisa Dalton, town clerk in Watertown and first executive vice president of the Connecticut Town Clerks’ Association.
“I’m certified, my assistant is certified, my second assistant is about to start working toward it,” Dalton said. “There are many towns where this is true.”
Stamford, though, has not been one of them.
Stamford Town Clerk Lyda Ruijter, who first was elected in 2017, said she doesn’t know of anyone in the office who is certified.
“For Stamford, it’s very unusual,” Ruijter said.
At least it was until about a month ago, when Deputy Town Clerk Chanta Graham passed the Connecticut Certified Town Clerk test.
A taxing amount of information
It wasn’t easy. The classes, offered only twice a year, are held at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain. It usually takes two or three years to complete the course work.
For Graham, a member of the Stamford Board of Representatives, it was longer.
“It took me four years,” she said. “You get a certificate for each module you learn, and you take a final exam at the end.”
The modules are Records Management, Elections, Land Records, Vital Records, and Miscellaneous Records and Other Duties. The final exam has 20 questions per module, or 100 questions in total.
One question was about the state conveyance tax rate, Graham said. That’s a tax Connecticut collects when property changes hands. The answer illustrates the complexities of the matters handled by town clerks.
The state collects .75 percent of the sale price for properties sold for $800,000 or less, 1.25 percent on a sale price between that and $2.5 million, and 2.25 percent on properties that sell for more than $2.5 million.
Municipalities collect a conveyance tax, too.
“The rate in Stamford is less than the rate for the state,” Graham said – .35 percent for sale prices below $1 million and .50 percent for sales above $1 million.
It’s not information average people keep in their heads. The average person might take a stab, though, at a test question about the minimum age a person must be to register to vote. A likely guess would be 18.
Nope.
To register to vote in Connecticut you must be at least 17 and turning 18 on or before election day.
East Indians and Californians
It’s all good to know, Graham said, because it’s impossible to predict the requests for information that will come into the town clerk’s office.
“A gentleman came in the other day and said he was East Indian and wanted to know the number of East Indians who reside in Stamford. We don’t keep that information,” Graham said. “But I know there is someone with the state who analyzes that type of data, so I directed him there. They were able to get him the information. He was pretty happy about it.”
A California man whose family has roots in Stamford came in looking for records from the late 1800s, Graham said.
“He didn’t have exact dates, but I knew I’d be able to find something in our archives,” Graham said. “We found all the documents he wanted except one. He was really excited. He said he was going back to California and then to Italy, where his father was born, to look for things about his ancestors.”
A woman wanted to know how to report problems with city trees on her property.
“We don’t handle that but we can direct people to the right department and walk them through how to manage their request,” Graham said.
And then there’s June, Dog License Month in Connecticut. The law is that dogs six months or older must be licensed by June 30 of each year.
“The dog owners come in with their dogs, so we can see them, even though dogs are not allowed in the office,” Graham said. “It’s the craziest thing. But I like the community. It feels good to help people. Each interaction is an opportunity to learn something I didn’t know.”
When Ruijter created the deputy town clerk position, one of the requirements was state certification. It’s good for the city, Ruijter said.
“Chanta has brought a high standard of functioning to the office, and our team is better for it,” Ruijter said. “She is our backup on so many things, and she teaches the staff what she knows. We have a much tighter system now.”
11 clerks for 137,000 citizens
The office has index clerks who handle land records such as deeds and property transfers, and vital statistics clerks who handle births, deaths, and more. Some are also notary publics. There are so many duties that everyone must help everyone else handle what needs to be done, Ruijter said.
Over the last three decades or so, as Stamford has grown to become the state’s second-largest city, the staff in the town clerk’s office has remained at 11, Ruijter said. Their work takes time, she said.
“It sounds like a simple thing to come in and request your mother’s birth certificate,” Ruijter said. “But we have to follow rules for what identification has to be presented to ensure that the person requesting it is who they say they are, that it’s an honest transaction.”
Town Clerks play a central role in the administration of elections, Ruijter said. They prepare the list of offices to be filled and the candidates; prepare ballots by voting district; issue absentee ballots, military ballots, and ballots for residents living overseas; secure returned ballots; certify election results for the state; receive campaign finance filings; and more.
“Elections, to me, are the most interesting aspect of the job,” Graham said. “Election administration is always changing, and you have to work to stay versed in it. One wrong move can cause big problems for a candidate, a voter or an election administrator.”
The town clerk’s office is a revenue producer for the city, most recently generating an annual amount of $5.5 million, plus more for the state. Conveyance taxes contribute the largest amount of revenue, Graham said.
Besides dog registrations, something else is hot in the town clerk’s office, she said.
“Dual citizenship,” Graham said. “People want access to their ancestry. The most popular countries now are Italy, Ireland and the West Indies.”
Graham, a Stamford native who has worked in the town clerk’s office for 19 years, said keys to the job are “to listen more than you speak” and “to have patience” when helping citizens.
Mastering the information is an enjoyable challenge, she said.
“If there’s something I don’t know, I go to the ends of the earth to locate the information,” Graham said. “That’s my thing.”