Continuing Education

Administrative officers, managers, elected officials, public safety officers, not-for-profit staff, federal staff and other participants seeking to acquire knowledge-based skills to further their careers.

Note: PEWD program participants should be 18 years or older.

No prerequisites required.

Mr. John Milford

The Coordinator for the Certified Public Manager Program is John Milford, Graduate Professional Practitioner Senior Lecturer at UTRGV’s Department of Public Affairs and Security Studies. Mr. Milford has more than 40 years of professional administrative experience in local government and has assembled an outstanding group of knowledgeable practicing professionals and academic faculty for each track. He is a recipient of the Life Member Achievement Recognition by the Texas City Management Association and maintains a faculty membership by the International City Management Association. He is an expert in the field of public finance, personnel administration, municipal administration, court mediation, intergovernmental relations, government information systems, political leadership, economic development, strategic planning, and development.

His experience includes serving as the Executive Manager Searches for City of Alton, Texas, and City of San Juan, Texas. He has lead the development of a housing authority paradigm for a non-profit organization for the Edinburg Texas Housing Authority and the Hidalgo County Housing Authority. He has also served as the Financial liaison on debt issuance for Capital Improvement Projects for the City of Alton, Texas; Economic Development Strategist for initiatives for the City of Alton, Texas; Implementation and Staff Development for Historic Downtown Guidelines for the City of Pharr, Texas. In addition Mr. Milford has partnered to assist the City of Pharr, Texas in the development of a traffic analysis.

Note: If you are applying for the Continuing Education Private Loan to cover the registration fee for a non-credit continuing education program, then please use the UTRGV Continuing Education School Code: 003599. The loan amount you note in the application cannot exceed the open enrollment fee noted on our website. Books will NOT be included in the loan amount. The minimum for the loans must be $500.00. Some service charges may apply.

*The only loan provider PEWD accepts is Sallie Mae*

Private Loans

Focus: To provide essential information concerning personnel and labor relations to public administration. Examples of topics that will be covered include recruitment/selection, equal employment, opportunity / affirmative action, performance evaluations, discipline/termination, health/safety, collective bargaining, classification, compensation and employee benefits.

Focus: To provide essential information concerning the practice of building quality into public and non-profit organizations. Practices such as Re-engineering, Total Quality Management (TQM) and Strategic Planning will be explored in detail. The course will also focus on how a systems approach can help the public administration to understand the way in which organizations can improve their operations.

Focus: To provide essential information concerning the practice of communication within the organization. Topics include communicating with governing and oversight bodies, barriers to effective communication and dealing with disagreement, conflict, and groupthink. Improving oral and written communication skills will also be covered in this track.

Focus: To provide essential information concerning the practice of public finance and budgeting. The basics of finance, budgeting, and public sector accounting and auditing will be explored in detail. Additional topics include cut back management and economic development.

Focus:To provide essential information on how to conduct public administration research leading toward the evaluation of public and non-profit sector programs. Benchmarking, program evaluation, and the tools and techniques of public administration research will be explored. In addition, the basic principles of legal research will be covered in this track.

Focus:To provide essential information about management information systems used by the public sector and non-profit sector managers. Tools and systems such as the Internet and on-line federal and state databases will be identified and discussed in detail. Additional topics include geographic information systems and radio frequency identification technology.

Focus:The Applied Projects Practicum provides students the opportunity and tools to prepare a significant applied research project related to their organization or area of interest. This track is considered the “capstone” of the CPM Program and incorporates lessons and information provided in the six other CPM tracks.