MONROE — Monroe’s City Administrator is going back to school and is working on a local problem as part of her education.

The administrator, Brittney Rindy, recently briefed the Monroe Common Council on her participation in the UW-Madison Certified Public Manager Certification Course. When she was hired nearly a year ago to take the city’s top job, part of the job involved her pursuing continuing education to grow in the role.

Through a mixture of in-person and remote learning, she is now part of a class of public officials from throughout the state and a variety of government agencies — from police departments to public works and everything in between. The program began in 2023 and continues through March of 2025.

“It’s really a diverse group of people who work in the public sector,” said Rindy, adding that budgeting and team building two areas of focus for the students.

The program has three phases — supervisory, management and executive. It involves research, writing white papers and essays; group and individual projects.

For Rindy’s individual project, she will complete a 20-page paper on the need for — and how to build — a new public works facility for the city, perhaps in collaboration with the county, making the project less expensive and more efficient for both. The paper is due in January.

As part of that effort, she will look at funding sources, design, education and common council involvement and other aspects of such a project. Her work on the project is timely, as the city is in the early stages of planning a new or revamped public works garage facility and has commissioned a firm to go over all its available options.

That consulting firm is Milwaukee-based Barrientos Design & Consulting, which will create a design and space needs study. The firm has done extensive public projects including other public works facilities for other Wisconsin localities. The price for the planning work would be about $28,735, officials said. 

Much of the existing public works facility dates to 1966 and is woefully inadequate for today’s needs, they added. Rindy promised to share her final paper on the topic with the council.

Mayor Donna Douglas, praised Rindy’s work over her first year as the city’s top, non-elected management professional.

“You are awesome when I think of all the things you do here,” she told Rindy during the Sept. 16 common council meeting.