Rural Planning Group Intern

Location: Salt Lake City, UT (can work remotely after training)

Position Type: Part time, 15-20 hours per week on data entry

Duration of Internship: The length of the project; immediately needed until the end of April with possible extension on a semester-by-semester basis depending on needs and intern performance.

Compensation: $10-14 DOE

Description: This job requires a responsible, self-motivated, detail-oriented individual with high initiative. The work may be performed remotely and the ability to effectively communicate via telecommunications is essential. The intern will be expected to work roughly 15–20 hours per week collecting historical budget data from across rural Utah's cities and towns. Most of the intern's time will be spent online recovering old budget data and logging it into a database for the Rural Planning Group. The intern will be expected to make judgment calls on how to categorize data according to defined criteria. Interns will be expected to document their work processes and decisions. For this reason, logical reasoning and organization are key qualifications for this position. When questions about specific expenditures or revenues are encountered, the intern will be expected to contact City officials or the budget preparers for clarification. Weekly progress updates will be required. The database created by the intern will play a foundational role in research on rural communities statewide, and will be instrumental in consulting individual communities on city management best practices. 

Responsibilities:

• Manually aggregate municipal budget data into a single spreadsheet
• Contact elected officials about specific expenditures and revenues when it is unclear what those revenues/expenditures mean
• Categorize expenditures and revenues according to RPG standards
• Maintain a log of assumptions when categorizing data
• Contact Rural Planning Group full-time consultants with questions
• Provide a weekly update on problems encountered, help needed, and the number of communities completed.

What the Intern can expect:

1. A greater understanding of municipal finance and budgeting.
   
2. A better understanding of municipal finance successes and failures in Utah.
   
3. The opportunity to be part of a larger project that considers the decline of rural communities and
   how city budgets are best used in maximizing community services despite decline.
   
4. The opportunity to interface with community leaders and officials from across the State of Utah. 
   

Contact: (for further questions)

Kyle Slaughter

Rural Planning Group

Planning Consultant

(801) 368 - 6289

http://ruralplanning.org/