Commissioners approve elections comp time

NORWALK — The cost of doing business. When mixing business with the government, so too is the phrase, "fasten your seatbelt." Huron County commissioners had a lengthy discussion Tuesday morning with Cecilia Blevins, the county Board of Elections director, and Ben Kline, deputy director, about compensation pay from working long hours with this year's elections. There were three elections this year, because of the added primary. Elections workers are required by law to spend extra time in the office following the elections so that people who use provisional ballots have a chance to review them. Blevins said very few, if any, people come those seven days — but by law they must be there. Commissioner Terry Boose questioned the costs, both while Blevins and Kline were at the meeting, and again later when commissioners voted on the appropriation adjustment to the board of elections' budget. "Same cost, small election," Commissioner Harry Brady pointed out. "If this was a business, they would be out of business," Commissioner Skip Wilde said. When commissioners finally voted, the budget adjustment was passed by a 2-1 vote, with Boose voting no. "We have to check all of the machines ... have all of the polls covered, no matter how many are opened," Blevins said. "We needed them. We were so busy. We use the minimum for most of them. The state requires us to have 15% more (poll workers) than what we need. We have to have them trained ... in case we call them at the last minute." Boose noted the board had already given salary increases above the five percent for last year to the directors, more than what was budgeted for. "It is time to do a new look at how we budget board of elections," Boose said. "We absolutely need to make sure they have enough to do their elections. We have been trustworthy in the past ... we are finding out they are transferring money to do such things as put new flooring in that didn't get out approval, to our building. "They are also working on a contract with an architect for the basement when we haven't approved anything is going to happen there," he added. Boose said he asked administrator clerk Vickie Ziemba over the weekend to change the interim budget. "We made need to take a different approach," he said. "The amount of money we have for the interim budget is way more than we need to operate for the first quarter."