All right, there is the 1.30 bell we are waiting for. I call the September meeting of the Monroe County
Election Board to order. Our first action would be the approval of the August 2025 minutes. Move approval
of the minutes from the August 7th 2025 meeting. There's a motion and a second. Those in favor, aye.
Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.
I would like to change up the agenda because we have a guest speaker, so I am requesting that we move
under new business, we move the accessible polling presentation by Michael Shermans up and move item
number three, which is the clerk's update, down to just before or just after new business.
with that objection. Mr. Shermish, please. May I also add one thing? I thought last time we also said
we would discuss how and when to take public comment on different items. My plan was to at the end of
every individual issue if there was public comment to allow it.
unless there's an issue with that. I thought we were going to discuss it, because I raised the issue
at last meeting. I just want to make sure. Mr. Shermas, you're on pause for just a second. No,
we're good. At least we're going to add that to the agenda. We're going to add that. Now you're on.
Go ahead. Michael Shermas is the special projects coordinator and human rights liaison for the city
of Bloomington. And some of you may remember a coordinated effort
make sure that all of our polling sites were accessible. This was several years back and Mr. Shermans
was a huge, huge part of the success of that. And so he is addressing us today and we welcome you. Thank you.
Yes, thank you very much. So many people around the county would know me as directing the Bloomington
Monroe County Human Rights Commission, but the other half of my job is to be the liaison to the Council
for Community Accessibility and the ADA coordinator at the city. And we train volunteer surveyors on
how to do accessibility surveys of businesses, generally
restaurants and retail kind of locations. But we have been asked in the past to do things like the Monroe
County Community School Corporation and the county itself asked us to do several of their facilities
as well as to work with the election board about
five years ago or so, to do all of the polling sites. And we greatly enjoyed that. It increased the
interest of our volunteer surveyors getting to do something that was really about civic engagement.
And so we appreciated that opportunity. And we worked out several things to help us make the polling
sites more accessible and feel good about that contribution.
Since that time, in the last year, we have purchased a software to help us with that. And I'd like to
say the difference is almost night and day because the surveys that we've done in the past, I would
have to say it lacked professional look to it and didn't really show it well in terms of
what we know and what we can do. This software, which is called Blue Dag, is a software that allows
us to do this on an iPad or a tablet or a smartphone, and a volunteer surveyor can be quickly trained.
We can train them within one hour, and then they can go out and
do sites fairly easily. We've been working with it for a year and have learned how to customize it to
the purposes that we are interested in, which is, yes, ADA compliance, but it's more about functional
accessibility. So how can people who are blind and people who use wheelchairs get into
places that they need to get into, and what kind of barriers might they run into if they're not been
addressed. So this software is fantastic at being able to do that. You don't show anything that's fine.
You don't worry about that. What you see if you see a barrier is you take a photo of the barrier. So
say something is like paper towels are
54 inches high. You'll put them tape measure and you'll take a photo of it showing that this is too
high. And then when you compile a report, it comes up with
This is exactly why it's too high. You can see the photo. And here's the diagram of what it's supposed
to be. So it offers the ADA rule and a diagram and an explanation of what it is. Included are like Indiana
building codes and whatever other kind of regulations and laws are relevant to this. So what I want
to do is just hand you a copy of a report that we did
This report is for Showers North. That is what we understand that the election central is going to be
ran out of in the next election where polling workers will be there, poll workers will be there, and
people who would come to do early voting would come. And so this report shows you all of the barriers
that are there in that site.
Primarily, it's focusing on parking lots. Now, the difference between the software that we have and
the software that I would suggest that the county might consider purchasing is that that software is
more customized for voting centers slash polling sites and takes into account HAVA as well. It will
also offer mitigations.
People frequently like, what does that mean exactly? My quick response would be something like, so let's
say that a bathroom has the soap dispenser that is too high. It's too many inches. It's above 44 inches,
so it's too high. A mitigation for that, there can be several possibilities. One is just to place a
soap squeezy thing that's there on the counter.
That's a mitigation. There are several other mitigations involving parking, path of travel, bathrooms,
the common areas where people might be signage. There are things that they can offer and say, here's
the suggestions if you can't fix this barrier. And the idea is that we potentially do these surveys
in the next couple months, and then you can prepare all of those locations by the time that they
would need to be addressed for the next election. So this report kind of shows you what it in general
would look like, but it would be even better. So in terms of the actual software, let me
explanation of the actual software itself and what it does. I won't go into detail into it, but this
is the different things that it would do for you. Finally, I'm going to offer you a
This is a quote from Blue Dag. So they're quite a bit more expensive than we at the city can afford.
But when I went and told them how we were going to use it and what we were going to use it for, I got
a really big discount. I've been looking at this software at the National ADA Symposium for the last
five years. And they've been pushing me hard. And I've said, I would love it. It's amazing software,
but we can't afford it. But when I kind of talked about what we were going to use it for, for these
kind of surveys,
They generally have contractors and developers using this to ensure that full ADA compliance is done
when people build new things, and we were using it for these kind of surveys. Well, they don't generally
use it that way, so they wanted to work with us, and they gave us a discount. When I said, hey, there's
a chance that maybe the county might consider this for voting, and they have this implemented in California,
but not beyond in terms of voting. All the other software is everywhere else, but in California, it's
the only place they have
their polling sites and voting centers. And so it would probably be in the realm of $30,000 to $40,000,
which is like, wow, it's kind of expensive, but it's amazing software, and it's worth it for what most
people use it for. And I said, yeah, I don't think the county is going to go for that kind of figure.
That seems pretty high. And I said, yeah, maybe $12,000 to $20,000, given what it is and what it could
do and all that kind of stuff like that.
And they came back with $36,000 for three years, once each year you would pay. And I said, yeah, I'm
not sure they're going to want it for three years because that's a long commitment. And I could see
how they would want it for every other year to be able to prepare each year. And they said, OK,
how about $12,000 a year whenever they need it?
kind of thing. So that quote is for what I was able to talk them down into for a more reasonable price.
So we would be honored to work with the county. We have a person who is my assistant who works closely
with the software to ensure that it's been customized and easy. If you were all to want to do something
like this, we would make
potentially, like your election supervisor, the administrator for it, that you guys would work directly
with Blue Dag to purchase the software and then help set it up. But our administrator, my assistant,
could work directly with the administrator, saying it was the election supervisor, to set it all up.
And we would provide the volunteer surveyors to actually do the polling site thing. So we would actually
have them go out. And then you would have however many polling site locations, you would have
blank amount of reports with here are all of your barriers and how to address those barriers specifically
in plenty of time to make sure that it, of course, is accessible for everyone. I should probably take
a breath and see if you have any questions. So is it required that this would be a long-term deal if
we sign with them? One year. Okay. And so then you... Because it's, you know, like, once you get it fixed,
If we don't change polling places, it wouldn't need to be fixed again. I would hesitate to say that
just because people frequently remodel, change things up, and remember, I'm assuming, and you can correct
me if I'm wrong in this assumption, that when you set up a site, you're
customizing that site, you're putting up cones, you're doing different things, and some things can change.
So I would say it would probably be smart to do it every couple years to make sure that it stayed accessible.
But once would be better than not at all. I would say even doing it once every four years, like in the
non-election years when we're
able to have time to look at the polling locations, the election board see if they're planning on using
the same ones and then the ones that we're not using update those with the ADA compliance with the software.
I also want to say thank you for giving us the survey on the parking lot at North Showers. That's where
early voting will be next year. So seeing that and seeing the things that need to be updated beforehand
is great. Thank you.
We need we need showers worked on before. Yeah, what it would be? Early voting will begin in January.
Yeah, yeah. OK, that's why we thought, oh, we'll give them this so they know right off where they need
to start. And this is the survey would be even more comprehensive than this. But this is a start for
you to be able to see quickly what kind of problems that need to be addressed. So yeah, have you shared
this report with Richard Crider who oversees the
We did this report and got it done this day and a half ago and just got it all finished up this morning.
I'd be happy to share it with him. The reason I raise that is that North Showers is used for a lot of
other things besides early voting and I would think that the county would want that to be ADA. Yeah,
I've had other complaints about that parking lot. Because I'm the ADA coordinator at the city, everybody
thinks that I might
powers extend far beyond that and so I get complaints all the time and I've had complaints about that
parking lot before and it's never been kind of clear like why it's not being addressed but there are
many issues with that parking lot. So who owns showers? Well the county has responsibility for that
parking lot. I did talk to the building department and our public works person. It was the city, okay
city you're on it. No it's the county in this case.
but I think there were plans, too, for repaving that particular parking lot, but I'm not sure. Yeah,
repaving and restriping are pretty much our minimum. I mean, there's some things that wouldn't be too
difficult to deal with at signage, but that's the issue, is repaving and restriping. Yeah. And I would
just say with that parking lot, I texted Richard Kreider while he was talking and asked him when we
were planning on doing the lot, because I know we are planning on it, and he said,
They're going to send some cameras through some storm drains on the 8th to kind of complete the engineering
packet, and then it's going to go out the bid. So it's in process right now. Yes. Well, when do the
asphalt plants close? Isn't that like, well, December-ish? Yeah, late December-ish. But assuming, let's
pretend the weather has no chance of getting cold early, OK?
We do not want them not to have that done when we start early voting in January. Do we? Early voting
will begin in April, but we'll start having filing and individuals coming into the office January to
February. All right. I can ask Richard when he expects that project to be completed. Okay. But I think
the timeline we're on,
is cognizant of this need and this use. Let me be sure that I understand because I appreciate the citations.
The citations are this is what it should be. And then your finding is this is not it is not compliant
compliant at this time. So if I read this correctly, Monroe County government has 12 violations
not being in compliance with accessibility issues so that if we are going to use it for early voting,
we have at least 12 things that need to be mitigated or brought as much as possible to put us closer
to compliance. I would use the word mitigated height network because in some particular cases, some
of those barriers
we could negotiate. So, for example, there's a stairwell that you get up to the second floor, which
I assume many of the people who are going to the second floor to do polling work would go up there.
It's supposed to have a continuous rail, and there is a section that's not continuous. That is a minor
violation and doesn't
really affect most things because people can use the elevator. There's other things around. So,
for example, that might be something that you could consider way down lower, and that's further down
the line barrier. But some of the other things are definitely, yeah, you should get those fixed before
you do this kind of thing. Yeah? Some of my work with veterans would say elevators are not for them.
if they can work their way up the stairs so that missing place would make a difference. Yeah, exactly.
I will say upstairs. That's where the training space will be. So all the poll workers will be going
upstairs. They'll either be using the elevator or the stairs. I could ask for public comment on this,
could I not?
comment on this situation? And thank you, sir. You're very welcome. Let me know if you have any other
questions or any other issues and I'm available all time for consultation to try to help figure things
out. And what are there more information that you would need? I'll be happy to provide it. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to your update, correct? Um, actually, I had requested if we could go to the
later missing CFA files. I recognize the person. All right. Then let's do that. Missing CFA files.
Kylie you've got some stuff on that I believe. Yeah. So I updated your guys's packets with the new list
of individuals. We are down to three filings that are still missing. We have now four that have been
turned in but are considered late and then we have two of the individuals that were on the original
list that did submit in time and one their document was just missing. So those two that are at the bottom
that would be more of a
decision for you guys if you would like to make a motion to void those and then their first late filings
will their first offense for late filings will be dismissed and then The others will be if they are
here to speak upon Why they missed or if they are still missing? So we have two that have been turned
in and resolved do we have to do anything with that and
So the two at the bottom, they are going to be, I would suggest, my suggestion would be to void those
first offenses for those two individuals. One did submit on time, it was just in an email that was not
received but then was forwarded to us showing that it was sent on time. And then the first one in that
section was that they had filed, we just didn't have a copy of it in our office. Right, these two, go ahead.
Okay, so Ms. Oliphant is here. Do you wish to speak to this? Hi, you know, I don't really have anything
more to say. We had filed it back in May, May 25th of 2017. And because we never dissolved the committee
and we've been filing CFA for campaign finance reports annually, since that time,
requirement to file a new CFA one doesn't apply to me by statute. And we did verify that interpretation
of the statute with the Indian Election Commission as well. So I reached out to Kylie Ferris and Ms.
Ferris let me know they just didn't have a copy in the office. And so we had that record retained and
we provided it to her office. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
The one that you're recommending, we avoid. Yeah, that is one of the two that I recommend that we avoid.
I would move that we avoid those two late filings. I will second. Those in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed?
Okay. That is resolved. Okay. Those are settled. And then we have the four that are under the late CFA
one filings.
I just need a motion to either void or to give them their first offense to make the record official
in our office for their late filing. So you got theirs but they didn't come in on time. Correct. I'm
just being sure. What has been customary in this manner?
So the policy states that the first late filing is a written warning. The second is 50% of the maximum
fine. And then the third is 100% of the maximum fine. In the past, they have sometimes voided due to
situations. With this one, we wanted to make sure that you guys were OK with giving their first late
filing, since it was a law change and not everybody was informed. But we had sent out letters. The election
board had sent out a letter to both party chairs for them to contact
their elected officials in order for them to get them turned in on time. So these people would just
get an email saying don't do it again? They are saying that they have been late or they were missing
their documents. If you want to continue with the three that had turned in late that had not received
that original letter then it would just be a letter hey this is your first offense and we'll make it
official in our office.
so that we can keep track moving forward if there is another late filing. I am happy to make a motion
to send the letter notifying them of their first offense so that we have that paper trail going forward.
I second, let me get some good idea. Is this just for those that were late? The four in the middle,
correct? Yeah, the four in the middle. Have they had other
Lateness with other forms that they've had to file whether it was so when we adopted the new policy
for the CFA late filings last year, I believe or the end of 23 They had decided to wipe it clean and
everybody was starting fresh So most of these this will be their first late filing and then they'll
continue moving on from there So we have a motion in a second
Those in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, so they get the letter saying don't do it again.
And then the three at the top, they are still missing their CFA ones. I have received delivery confirmation
for the first two. I actually just received the second one as we were sitting here before the meeting
started. The third one still has not shown that they received the letter. So we can postpone on those
three until the next meeting or we can move forward with two of them to give them their second
A letter saying, hey, this is now a late filing. We need to receive your document. Are these sent email?
No, they are letter and they're sent certified. Okay. Yep. So you have not gotten anything back that
the third one has signed? Correct. Two of the three, we have received back the card saying that it has
been delivered to them. The third one, we have not received anything yet. And these were supposed to
be turned in originally? July 11th.
at noon. We're almost two months late. Ms. Kiley did I understand you to say this is the second letter
they've already we will send the second letter they've already been sent a letter that you're late yep
and and then you received back the proof so this will be the second you're late which I think is incredibly
generous. Absolutely.
I was going to say, I think Liz Fiddle, because the way she was caucused in, hers is a little bit different
than the other two, I think. But I will say Courtney Daly was also caucused in. But I know that Courtney,
Jeff, and I believe Dave Rollo had all had a conversation about this. And I've received one from Dave,
but I've not received one from the others.
I would move to send a second letter to them. Okay. They've had time and have it almost two months.
Okay. I'll second it. All right. And I will get those sent out. Yeah. Those in favor? Aye. All right.
Thank you. You want to do that first? Okay.
chair of this committee. I have not followed it to a huge thing, but I was told that it is to rotate.
I think honestly, I think that makes sense in every county because there are a lot of counties are just
like Monroe that have mostly one party rule. I think it's fair to do it this way based. Now the law
has changed. So it's a four year term. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah so as of July 1st there was a change to this. It is going to be IC code 3-6-5-8. I did provide
a copy of that for each of you guys in your meeting packets. It'll be the last page of that packet actually.
And it now states that the chair of the board is elected and they serve a four year term that is in
correspondence with the clerk's term. So the term that will be elected today will end on
December 31st of 2026. And then on the first meeting in January, a new chair would be elected and serve
a four year term. So from that, it is elected by the board. So it would be someone motions for an individual
be the chair. And then it would only need a two vote count to be approved. But it would be by party.
not the individual because that doesn't even coincide with when new party chairs take over and things
like that to appoint somebody new to the election board. Has that occurred for example this year? Yeah
so I mean today it's whoever is elected is elected. I do know that we were saying and we had looked back that
The last time a Republican had been in the chair position was in 2021. And they only served from August
to October. And then I know that we were just going to pick up from where it was left off. So it would
have been a Republican this year anyways. But that policy is now voided as of July 1st of this year
due to the law change. Tell me if your recollection is the same as mine from Mr. Kochivar that
the same person could be elected, like they could serve as party chair for 30 years, they just have
to be reelected. So it's not a party, it's a chair. Yes, so there's no term limit on it. They can be
reelected over and over again, but they do serve a four-year term, and then there has to be another
election for the election board chair. It was my understanding, though, that at a time when it would
have been the Republican
to take over that Judge Bankhart. Deferred to the other party. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Yeah,
that she she didn't want to take on that role correctly. I called her to see what the thing was because
I had heard so many different and she said to me that she did not want to take it to start 2025 because
she wasn't going to stay on. But she had. She actually.
Earlier than that, but I'm not sure she did earlier than that. She she just she didn't have an ego.
She didn't think she was entitled to jump in there. She was new to the board and just was comfortable
with the other party taking the chair. And so that's what we did. The way that it looks from the old
policy, because down at the bottom of it, it shows where we were amending it, showing each time that
somebody would go into the chair position, we would state who was in that position.
The it seemed like every time that there was a new board member that came on that it was mostly a Republican
that it was the new board member. So the Democrat just referred to stay in the.
seat of the chair because generally it's if it's a new board member we give them time to get used to
being on the board and then if they want to be chair then they would switch it over but by this it states
that that person is chair until they resign or if they are changed out by the party chair themself.
So after today the new next election would be in
After 28, is that 26? After 26, okay. After today, the next election for the chair would be July,
I mean, January of 2027. So the policy, I shouldn't say the practice that had been used here of the
rotation could continue to be done if we chose that we wanted to continue that so that it was passed
back and forth
I asked that exact question yesterday when we spoke to Mr. Cochivar, and so yes, this is void. The new
policy trumps this. However, if it would not be, the board member can say, I'd like to resign as chair,
doesn't mean they're resigning from the board, but because of this new rule with the, it ending when
the clerk's term ends, it would be on the honor of the person
to say I'm ready to resign my chair and then the other person be voted in as chair. Does that make sense?
Yes, it does. I'm kind of a fan of the thing that we have right there that passes it back and forth
to be quite honest. That was what I was prepared.
to do that we give back is particularly because we hadn't had that since Hal Turner, just to balance
it out. The whole reason, just for the benefit of everyone watching, the entire reason was at some point
we realized that if you just switched off every other year, one party would never serve as chair during
a presidential election.
this was the way that seemed most fair, you know, so that each person got at least one presidential
election under their belt as chair. So once again, we were doing it well and the state messed us up
a little bit. Well, that's off the record. Okay. You know what? Just as anything else, I probably comment
on this. Anyone?
All right then, okay, I'm sorry, go ahead, ma'am. I feel that because the voters in Monroe County elected
a Democratic clerk that it should, a Democratic clerk and a Democratic board member that through the
end of 2026, that the chair should be in the Democrats' hands. But that's because of what the majority
of the voters had indicated with their choice of clerk.
That's not the criteria that this new statute. I realize that. I'm just saying that based upon the sentiment
that the voters have expressed with their votes, that's my own opinion. That's all. I kind of feel a
little bit for the, I know this may shock some people, for the Democrats in counties like Morgan and
Lawrence who would
probably never get to chair their election board, just like it would be here. And I'm not a real big
fan of that kind of stuff. So as much as it actually bothers me to do this, I will nominate myself because
of the Republican year to be chair of the election board. Is there a second? I will second your nomination.
They will do this on a roll call vote, Ms. Givens? No. I vote yes. Yes. Okay. So we have, we
have accomplished that. Thank you. And I guess now we will move to the clerk's update. Okay. Um, I really
just want to say are two things.
Well, no, I got more to say. We do have candidate packets now, so if you are thinking about running
for office, already have your plan, we're ready for you, and our candidate packets are available at
Election Central. If somebody is just itching today,
then you're welcome to take this one with you. It's very nice because it has the dates on the back,
it has the calendars inside, your paperwork that you need to complete. And so we're very excited that
those are ready ahead of next year. And then we talked a little bit about the new legislation and the
bill regarding citizenship
and voting and the clerk's role in if we should receive information that a person has been issued temporary
credentials but has not proven, not demonstrated, something has been flagged to indicate that they may
not be a U.S. citizen, that the clerk would then send out correspondence. It's generated
some scenarios for all of the clerks, all 92 of us, but also in Monroe County that concerned me. So
I am hosting a round table. I did not put it in the name of the election board, but we're happy to notice
it publicly in case the election board board members would like to attend a round table on September
18th from one to four at election central.
We've asked some people to serve as panelists. It's bipartisan. I have even invited some of my bipartisan
clerk siblings to come and visit us so that we can have a discussion about this bill, address any concerns,
issues. I've also asked members of the Secretary of State's office to come, their attorney and the election
coordinator for the state so that they can answer questions at the legislative as to why this became
a piece of legislation and what the intended objective is. So that's again September 18th from one to
four at Election Central and I hope to see you there. If you guys can just give me a heads up if you
guys are planning to attend so that I can get out a public notice. My plan is to get it sent out tomorrow.
That way we have plenty of time to have it out.
I would say go ahead. I can't guarantee it, but there's no reason not to have the notice. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Um, so I've alluded to, but we didn't talk about, um, yesterday, uh, Kylie and I went up
to Indianapolis for an election study publicly meeting. This was the second of three public hearings
that the secretary of state is holding. So the first one was a couple of weeks ago in Muncie, Indiana.
He's doing Northern Central Southern.
So Ms. Kiley in my stead went to the northern one in Muncie. Then yesterday she and I both went to the
Indianapolis one, which is central. And the next one will be on the 19th in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
And it's a public hearing about vote centers. It's also a public hearing about
moving municipals, whether or not the municipal should move to an even year. And so they did, I thought,
a great job of making you stick to topics. Excuse me, if you had public comment, you had to register,
but you could only do so on the topics that were being addressed. I did not see very many clerks there,
but we had v-stop there. The secretary had
two of his staff members present. And Monroe County actually got a couple of shout outs about as far
as how much money we would save if we went to vote centers. And it was, I thought it was a good mix
of pro, con,
and you have one more opportunity. They don't answer the questions in real time. What they are doing
is collecting those questions and then when they put their report out, they will answer citizens' concerns
about that. And so that was really, that was a good meeting. They stick, it's two hours and they started
at two, was it two? Noon. Noon and ended at two. Yeah.
and they have it live streamed and I believe that link is on the secretary's website. Yeah, so there's
going to be a link for on the secretary's website, but I'm also going to work with Vin from TSD for
us and also have the link added on to our website for the election board page so that people can go
there and view the videos from both of those meetings and then also have them add the third meeting
on there as well.
I also just want to say they have worked really, really hard on putting some data together and making
sure that it's very easy for everybody to understand, not just election officials, but also we did get
the shout out for the vote center plan that was put together by the vote center committee at the end
of last year, beginning of this year, and they are really making it easy for everybody to understand and to
get the word out that they're not for or against either of these. They are very nonpartisan on it, and
they just want everybody to have the information. Was it your sense that the state is going to move
to vote centers for all counties? Secretary Morales, he keeps his cards close to the vest. He was there.
He did not indicate one way or another.
As you recall from meetings with our vote center committee, two thirds of the state are already vote
centers. There are some who expressed public comment yesterday that because the word precinct is in
the constitution, that they do not see vote centers as aligning with the state constitution.
The prevailing concern, and Kylie correct me if I'm not stating this correct, the prevailing concern
is about the fact that we have electronic poll books. And so because electronic poll books are connected
to the internet and that's how we have the most up-to-date information from the statewide voter registration
system, vote centers make people uncomfortable specifically because of the electronic poll books. He
appeared to be taking in all of the information from yesterday's conference.
I believe that was the same for you and Muncie. I'm sure he will be the same. He's very attentive and
participatory. Whether or not he's going to mandate it, I think he's going to hold those cards. The
report I believe is due November 1st.
I believe so. The legislators are the ones that asked for the study committee to be put together and
they have been doing the election study on both of those topics, moving the municipal to an even year
and for mandating vote centers across the state. There was a bill filed for that in the last session,
I believe. I don't know if it got a hearing or not, but it didn't.
Yeah, and then there's the House Enroll Act that's in right now for, I think it's 1366. Nicole, can
you correct me if I'm wrong? It's a, I think you transposed the numbers, but- Probably. Okay. It was
proposed legislation. That's why we're talking now. It did not get a vote. It went to the study committees.
Doesn't that make sense? It's House Enroll Act 1633.
I thought those numbers sounded the right number. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. All right.
Thank you. Is there any comment on the clerk's update? We will move on to the election central update.
Oh, I'm sorry. What's there? Oh, yeah. Just come to the come to the mic, please. Also, we still have.
the budget part on the clerks update. We'll do that. We need a mic at the podium. There is a mic.
Is there? Oh, OK. OK. I couldn't see it from my vantage point. Thank you. I am Sean Hannon. I am a Monroe
County resident in Perry Township. I've worked polls in three different counties in the state, including
Monroe County, and I would just say that
And the experience of having vote centers in a previous county where I lived was outstanding. The thing
that I would avoid, and it really was only a problem the first year, but if we go to vote centers, the
county I was in had a vote center on one of the most well-known roads, one of the landmark places. It
was the place.
in the county where everybody had gone for basketball games. It was a big arena. The problem there was
the lines got so long, and there was another vote center a mile away. So if it had just been a little
less well-known, people would have looked a little... I mean, it wasn't far to get to a different one,
but people waited in line a long time. But I would strongly recommend
vote centers as being something to look forward to positively in my experience, both as a voter and
as a poll worker. I want to thank you for serving as a poll worker. And I recognize some poll workers
in our audience. And so thank you for your service. We had some poll workers at the meeting yesterday
and they shared their experiences as well. Thank you. Thank you. Now the budget update. I'm sorry.
Yeah, election central. OK. So then it will be I'm going to start off with the citizenship update. As
you said, as Nicole said, we are going to have a roundtable to kind of discuss citizenship law a little
bit more in detail. But today I just want to give you guys an update of what my office has completed
so far. So as of
Since July 1st, we have sent out 38 letters to verify proof of citizenship. Eleven have shown their
citizenship proof. One has asked to be canceled due to them not being a citizen, and they got registered
through the BMV when they went to get their identification card. And then we have also had
Six that have came back as undeliverable. Those will stay in the 30-day hold until we are told to do
anything with them at this time. They've kind of put a pause on canceling anybody until some things
get straightened out at the IEC. But this leaves us with 20 open files at this time. And I will bring
another update for the citizenship at the next meeting.
And then I'm going to move on to the voter list maintenance update. Since July 1st of this year, a total
of four thousand seven hundred and twenty two voters have been processed. Four hundred and forty nine
of those voters have stayed active. Twenty one have been rejected and one hundred and sixty five have
been canceled. A total of four thousand and eighty six voters have been moved to inactive status. The
shipment of cards from the state will start coming to us. They will come in three different waves. Our
first shipment will be sent out on October 22nd
The next will be November 12th and the third will be December 8th. So within those three months we will
be extremely busy at voter registration with processing those cards as they come back and then in January
we will open up for candidate filing. I will also bring back another update to the next meeting for
voter list maintenance update as well.
And then I just kind of want to give a recap from the IVRA conference that I went to. Me and Laura were
chief deputy. We both attended that conference, and it was a really good experience. They had the highest
turnout that they've had in previous years for this conference, and we were able to bring back a lot
of knowledge from other counties and also be able to provide knowledge that we've been able to share
with other counties as well. Tippecanoe County, we got to talk
to them quite a bit and it was both on the college ID side with the SB 10 and then also on the side
with the citizenship. They're dealing with the same amount of income that we are and in fact here in
Monroe County we're seeing more than what they are so it's really good to be able to have that time
to communicate with other counties, see how they're doing things to make our elections better and be
able to pass on things that we're doing as well.
I actually got some wonderful feedback while Kylie and Laura in real time were in.
in Tippecanoe County. That's the county I typically don't mention for obvious reasons. And so I wanna
thank them both for attending in my stead. That's the one conference that I stayed back from and try
to let them go and get ideas and bring them back without influence from me. And so I appreciate you're
both going and glad you brought back some incredible knowledge from the conference.
We appreciate getting those opportunities. And as always, we look forward to December as well to be
able to bring back knowledge from more counties across the whole state. Absolutely. Speaking of Tippecanoe
County, a skydiving bison is substantially cooler than a guy carrying around a sledgehammer.
I would concur. OK, I mean, that's pretty simple. All right.
I think we're at a point now, and I'm gonna save our comment to the end, okay? Okay, if there's public
comment on any item that they wish to speak about. Hello, my name is Cheryl Langdon. I'm a Monroe County
taxpayer and I'm a disabled Army veteran.
The following events that I'm about to speak here are real and true. Not so long ago in a neighboring
Indiana County, an elected corrupt sheriff bullied a nobody young housewife and mother. One morning
she reached out to her local non-emergency police number, requested assistance to curb speeders in her
neighborhood. She offered her driveway and any refreshments to make it pleasant for the police. She
wanted to serve them while they served her community. However,
She was met with arrogance and spite that the appointed communications dispatch person that she was
speaking to. She was told to contact the sheriff directly. So the housewife called his answering machine
and left a message pointing out the clowns running his corrupt, clickish, nepotistic clandestine circus.
The sheriff's response to the powerless housewife's phone message came later that day.
while she was making tacos for her family's Cinco de Mayo celebrations. The powerful sheriff sent two
cruisers to falsely arrest her innocent husband. One cruiser had a female officer. The sheriff's intent
was to bait the housewife and take her to jail with her innocent husband and put her children in CPS
custody over the weekend. You see, he did this on a Friday night after banks were closed.
Thankfully, the housewife kept her composure on the direction of her handcuffed innocent husband and
took her crying children into the house. She raised those children to respect police. She later called
the friend for bail money and got her husband out that evening. The corrupt sheriff's plan didn't work.
Two weeks later, the county judge ruling over the innocent husband's case was forced to apologize to
the innocent husband and return his money. The judge apologized twice.
This event prompted an investigation by County Legal with the help of state officials into the corrupt
sheriff's regime. He was found guilty of several crimes, fired, and others in his corrupt county regime
were fired as well. He died a criminal and ruined his tyrant. The moral of the story?
If you are an elected official who took an oath and bond to serve the taxpayers, do not weaponize your
elected position and bully the taxpayers who pay your bills. The truth is powerful, and the only people
who are afraid are people who have something to hide. It is a dangerous thing when words can empower
a dangerous authoritarian to weaponize their elected office against the powerless and frail. Oh, and
the housewife in the story is me. That is my story.
And it's real. It is a timeless story of the underdog fighting tyranny. And my fight is never over.
Thank you. Anyone else? Not sure if I have a comment until I can ask a question, please. I was following
along on the agenda, and I was wondering if there is a budget-related item or update, then I'll just
wait for that. OK. So I haven't missed it, correct? You have not. OK.
Thanks. And I apologize because we had the guest speaker I thought I presumed that the budget conversation
would take a little longer and I didn't want to hold up the guest speaker. So that was my recommendation
to move that down on the agenda. But that appears to be the last one. We will do the budget conversation
after we have one more. Yeah. And then we'll do the budget conversation.
I'm Chaz Mottinger. I live in Bloomington Township, just down the road. I have worked the polling locations
for the last, I don't know, probably almost 10 years, I think, actually. I just wanted to say I've been
inspector, and I wanted to voice my support for the polling, the voting centers. I've done actually
a lot of the polls farther out in Monroe County, Burgund, Baptist Church, and I've also done Fairview
Elementary right over here.
And there's a lot of different, because of precincts, the average resident here in Monroe County doesn't
always know what a precinct is, and they don't always know that that's where their votes go to, and
all of that. There's also a lot of students, there's a lot of parents with small kids, and I've just
seen a lot of people go to the wrong polling location, and sometimes it makes sense. Like Fairview,
they're supposed to go to Tryon North,
very close, so it makes sense why they would be confused, but I've had to turn people away because they
can't vote. We don't have their ballot at
my polling place, right? And so I've had to turn away a lot of people. And I just think that the voting
centers would help. It would be more accessible in lots of ways to people. It would be less confusion.
I just think the problem of people going to the wrong voting place is always going to happen. And I
believe in people's right to vote. And I think making it the location easier for them to get to by having
larger voting centers would just help a lot of
residents in Monroe County. So I just wanted to say from my personal experience that I hope you do consider
that when thinking about all of our busy people with full-time jobs, kids, students. So yeah, thank
you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your service as an inspector and poll worker. Okay, so we need
to talk about budget stuff, correct? Correct. Okay. Whoever does that, let's roll.
Just in summary, the budget session for the clerk's office was last week. And what has typically happened
in the past, because I am the person who does the day to day overseeing of that budget in the office,
is I've submitted my proposed budget based on a number of variables.
The budget is provided to the election board and they have a chance to weigh in. If they attend, they'll
come maybe early because it's been advertised that we'll be together for the budget hearing. Last week,
one of our board members was on virtually, the other submitted a letter indicating support for the budget.
And so I have one board member supportive of the budget, one not supportive of the budget. I believe
if I understood them correctly, what they did is they motion to accept the budget, but they have, they
wanted us to meet to discuss what was submitted. And then if there are issues, they will reopen the
budget for discussion. So with that,
I'm happy to talk about the budget. You all have received a copy of the budget and I am happy to answer
questions. I think there's some questions that fit in with understanding how budget decisions are made.
We're all aware of the fact that the county is facing a $9 million shortfall, and that the county council
hopes to be able to provide a 3% COLA increase for all employees. And as you stated correctly, and I
agree with completely last week, that we need to be able to pay our workers sufficiently to keep people.
We need to maintain the people that you have on staff. We don't want them leaving for other jobs, which
can happen if there's not enough money to provide that COLA.
But I think before we even discuss budget, we need to make some other, we need to have other understandings.
Like last year there were 29 polling places. Do you anticipate or does your office anticipate having
29 again or will that be expanded or reduced? So we absolutely anticipate having at least 29. We have
had some offers from,
sites in the community where they are volunteering to serve as a polling site in 2026. I don't want
to, I just want to level set with every election is different and voter turnout is different at every
election. And so we have a large one, a little less than large, and then a smaller one with the presidential,
the off presidential,
and the municipal. And so obviously the one where we typically experience the most turnout
is our presidential. The one where fewer people are eligible to vote, so it's a little bit lower turnout,
is municipal. And then the off presidential two years after, which is what 2026 is. So the people who
have asked about serving as a polling site,
I have responded and asked if Kylie and I could go and meet with them to see if it might be a polling
site that would work well for us, that we could recommend be a voting site, but we haven't talked to
the 29 to say, are you intending to continue to serve? Your question was about 29? Yes, I expect at
least 29, but we also have had some other offers that I am open to.
looking at. I raise it because it increases staffing costs when you have a lot more polling places.
That's why I'm asking those kinds of questions. Of course it is. But what I would remind you is that
the same number of people are eligible to vote in the off presidential as is the presidential, which
is every single voter registered in Monroe County. And so, yes, because it's the same number of people
to prepare for.
But if we had more polling places, we would pay more for staffing. That is correct. They do have to
be staffed. But then also, we haven't talked about this, whether or not there'll be early voting satellite
locations in 2026. And I know. We've talked about it. Yeah. Because that increases costs also. It does.
With budget constraints, I'm less inclined to think that's a good idea, just because of, you know, unless
we did a rotating here, here, here, here, a week here, a week there, and I'm not sure that wouldn't
make it more confusing. That would make it more confusing and we would have even more issues. So we're
making the showers a really nice,
they get finished with it, a nice place. I'm not sure that that won't suffice. I really have issues
with cutting down polling sites because what's the most, what is the largest number of precincts at
a site off the top of your head? It's six, and that would be election operations, which is the early
voting location used on election day. I'm not advocating to cut the site. No, I'm not saying that. I'm
saying we need this information.
I want to make sure that people that have chosen to live out in the county aren't inconvenienced any
more than they have to be. The lowest will be one precinct and that'll be both Burgoon and Meadowood.
But they are small but mighty. And I think if we talked about taking away Burgoon, I think we have an
uprising. I have no desire to take away Burgoon. If you're listening, Burgoon, thank you for your story.
If you're going there, you're going there intentionally. Yes. Okay. And I would say, just because I've
made that drive, the nearest polling site to Burgoon is a 15-minute drive, and that is
Is that the Church of the Nazarene? I believe so, yes. The Church of the Nazarene. And so some of our
Burgoon voters are older. They're longstanding members of the community. And so I would definitely agree
with you that we should not take away Burgoon. So I went in and met with Kylie a couple of days ago
and learned some things that I was pretty shocked about. She indicated that on election day,
They have up to 80 people in Election Central. That is correct. Those ballots for people that have early
voted and scanning them, which is which is a lot. Do you anticipate the same level of staffing needed
for that and for early voting in general? I will say that on Election Day, it will be
just a little bit less than the 80, but we had 80 in there last year and they started at 6 a.m. They
did not end until I think it was 5 50 p.m.
and they opened all 30,000 actually closer to 31,000 ballots to get those scanned through. The issue
with that is that it's also taking the time of having to unfold the ballots that are inside of those
envelopes to make sure that they even read through the scanners. So having a large number of hands helping
with that on election day is highly important and that's one thing that I will
stand by that we do not cut any of those and just lower it just a little bit like we did for the municipal
election as well. And I absolutely would agree with that, Kylie. But not only would I agree with that,
if we if we don't get as many if we didn't get as many mailed in ballots. So let's say we only got twenty
thousand and they were done by noon. We would send them home and pay for a half day. We wouldn't pay
for a whole day. But we don't know that. No. Until Election Day.
I was just asking because you do have a lot of experience with these things and this is an off-year
election and I didn't know what your experience had been so many years you've been as I said to the
council when at budget hearings I learned a very powerful lesson in 2018 in a previous incarnation of
the election board we we try to adjust for an uptick in
voters, but not quite as much as a presidential.
We learned a very powerful lesson that when we had better than expected voter turnout, I am certainly
not going to present myself as someone who can predict the future, but I watch the news like many of
you, and it certainly would not surprise me to have better than expected voter turnout, and so we want
to be prepared. I would also just remind the board to really quickly, which I also said budget, this
is a reverting fund. The election budget is a reverting fund, so the monies are put in there,
there at every election, whatever we don't spend just goes right back to the fund. And so it's available
for the next election cycle or it rolls over until we have an election cycle. I believe the auditor
publicly announced that we typically do not go to the level of our budget. We advertise a little higher
just because they won't go down. I'm sorry, they won't go up.
they will come down and we've taken some haircuts on our budgets. But whatever we don't spend does revert
back and that money can be used toward the next election cycle.
I do agree with you, Nicole. At the IVRA conference, they were saying that we should prepare
for a larger-than-expected turnout for this election. I do just want to note that I did give you guys
a three-page packet that has, from the 2022 election, 23 election, and 24 election, the number of poll
workers that we had, and it is separated by polling location with how much it cost for each of those
polling locations to be ran on election day.
For the 2022 municipal we had 250 poll workers on Election Day at the polls specifically. That's not
including your workers that are at Election Central on Election Day. That's not counting couriers, travel
board, any of your early voting staff. That's just the ones that were at the polls on Election Day.
Overseas and military? Yep. They are not included in that either.
And this doesn't include the costs of for meals either. I do have a copy of that one. I added that in.
So if we look back at twenty twenty two for one election, it was fifty six thousand four hundred fifty
dollars. That's including meals and training. And that's just for the general municipal in twenty two.
So that would be doubled. So your expense for personnel to run the election, did I hear you correct?
Fifty six thousand dollars roughly. Yeah. And so then for
The primary and the general would be $112,900. I noticed when I was going through the budget and I do
want to talk about a lot of several individual items in there. You have FICA included but you don't
have costs for Medicare?
which is 1.5%. So I believe that Kim Schell, you were on the meeting, I believe that Kim Schell explained
that they put that money in another budget. I believe they put that in the human resources budget, but
it is delineated for elections. That was not a choice I made. We do not touch the tens. We don't have
to worry about it? That is what Kim Schell said. Okay, all right. See, at early voting, I know you have
election leads,
that for the work at the early voting site election operations and then for work at election central
how many because they get an hourly rate how many hours per day would do each of them work. So the leads at
early voting typically work a six hour, five to six hour shift, sometimes a little bit more. I do know
that we have one lead at least in here if he wants to say how long his days normally ran during the
election last year so that that can better clarify for you. But the ones at Election Central, they are
there from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. with us. All four of them? Yep. Not just one per. No.
All four of them are there. We have two of them, one Republican, one Democrat, that's working on military
and overseas, and then the other two, one Republican, one Democrat, that are working on mail-out ballots
and travel board. Sorry, I didn't think to ask you some of those things earlier. Then also you have
some part-time people listed in here.
many hours out of the year do they work? As you know, part-time is up to 28. It's one day less than
full-time employees work. We have, it depends on the particular employee, so up to 28, but I would just
remind the board that they step up as, everybody steps up all hands on deck, and so they do work more
hours during
early voting and election as we prepare for early voting and election. And in the same way that our
absentee election days, in the same way that they are bipartisan, my office is bipartisan too. So there's
a full-time Democrat, a full-time Republican, part-time Democrat, part-time Republican. Everything is
times two. And that's at all 92 counties. That's not Monroe.
but I guess what I wanna know is you have in here 35,000 budgeted for each of the two part-time positions.
If somebody were working an average of 30 hours a week all across the year, so 15, 1,560 hours, that's
why I was asking how many hours they would work. So it's not an average of 30, it's an average of 28.
that's the max, even though you said that they work more? They can get more, they can get more, but
it typically average, because they want time off like everyone else, and if they don't work, they don't
get paid. Right. And so they take vacations, they have classes, you know, they get sick, they want time
away, and so it typically averages out to that 28, but they do work more during election seasons.
I met with Kylie and with Molly Turner King. They said for part-time people, folks are paid $17 to $20
an hour. It's a range. Yeah. So if they are earning the $20 an hour, that would be, well, I used a higher
number, but for the hours worked because of the extra for
voting season, I guess I'll call it. That would still work out to about 31,200 and you've got 35,000
budgeted for the other position if they were at 17, which is what Kylie said the one is at now. That's
less than 26,000, but you're budgeting 35. I don't start out at the $20.
unless I have seasoned poll workers. So you may remember Bonnie and Jack, they made at the higher end.
So again, you don't know what projects, like right now, voter list maintenance is coming up. There's
something to do whether or not we have elections. And so certainly I have allowed for a little bit of
wiggle room,
And that's what we have asked for in the past. I'm sure my part-time employees, as they get experience,
will come back and want to renegotiate a higher wage. And Kylie and I work together to determine. I
typically take steps, but if I have an exceptional worker, I'm not above. For example, one of my part-times,
she had some election experience in another state.
she could very easily justify why she should not make at the bottom of the range. And with the experience
she's getting here, she could very easily go up to a higher wage. Sure. But I'm saying that if they
worked an average of 30 hours a week, that takes into account extra time for some of these special things.
If they work 30 hours a week making $20 an hour, that's $31,200. You've got it budgeted at $35. I would
like to bring it down.
If they worked at the $17 an hour and they worked an average of 30 hours a week across 52 weeks,
that's $26,520. Again, you've got it budgeted at 35. I think we should have a realistic number in here.
So keep in mind, though, I can take some of that. If I have my full-time employees who are also working extra,
and they work more than 40 hours, they get some comp time, then they would go into overtime. And certainly
we try to keep that overtime money down, but they are required to work election day when everybody else
is off. And so they get some overtime hours. That is an area where I might be able to move some money
into that line without having to go back before council and ask for additional appropriations.
to kind of park there, to use Liz Fiddle's terms. I would take objection to the phrase park there. We
will not have time in 2026 to go back and ask council for additional appropriations. We will be incredibly
busy, all hands on deck. And so I would not use the term park. I would simply again remind the board
member that any money that is in the election,
budget. Any money that is not expended returns back to the election budget. I don't want to be penalized
for being judicious and just making sure that we have what we need to work with. And if it's not, if
we don't need to spend it, all the better. It goes back and it will be used for the next election.
Thank you. Well, one of the things that Kylie educated me on, as I said earlier, was that on election day,
You have up to 80 people in Election Central. And she explained to me why it's important to have t-shirts
and how it makes people really, really recognizable very quickly. So if it's just going to be t-shirts
and you only need a few new t-shirts, why is it $500? That's $100 a t-shirt. I mean, we got, so we have
some people who worked before who had t-shirts, but now I have new,
people, and they don't have any. I did not order shirts for myself or anything like that. That is a
place where I might consider taking a small haircut, but they are embroidered with the election symbol
that is going to cost more. I believe Kylie negotiated a very good deal, but we do have more people
who will be getting t-shirts this time than
last time. Last time, are you saying you're going to buy more than six t-shirts? Yeah, there was six
of us last time. And so did everybody get two? No. OK. And so we each got one. And because they're going
through that, you know, every day you want a fresh shirt, you know, you want to you don't always collection day.
Some of the staff does use it early voting, but it was majorly used on election day, but some of the
staff would use them during early voting. I know I did because it was easy for them to identify me.
A lot of the poll workers don't realize which individuals are part of the election office staff and
which ones are just poll workers or leads. I'll move on to a couple of other
topics here. One of the items in here says voting machines custom and it's $350,000 listed. Is that
the contract that was supposed to be 150 this year and so it shouldn't be all 350 next year? So there
was a contract we have and all I know is the contract with Bob is how I think of it. That's how I would
call it too. Okay. Is that the one that's
listed for $350,000 in the, what's there, it's under what I see is line 70. Yeah, that is Bob's contract.
And so it was signed, so how much, 130, 150? I think it's not to exceed 100,000 in the year of 2026
and not to exceed 250,000 in the year of 2026, sorry.
Not to exceed 100,000 in 25, not to exceed over 250,000 in 2026. So that should, 100,000 of that should
be in this year's budget and 100,000 less for next year. So the new budget starts in December and I'm
sure that we will have year-end bills. We certainly will pay Bob with what we have. That contract did
not get signed until
I believe it was May. And we didn't have those numbers, but I'm sure we're going to get some year in
bills from Bob. The budget starts in December, not January. So there is there are some bills this year
that I'm sure we will have to pay and then not to exceed. And I would also remind the board that Bob
himself admitted that he does. We do not go to the top of the budget, but we
prepare for the fact that anything could happen and where he increases, he has to have more staff or
charge us for something.
And we cannot, I will say this for the benefit of every single person watching, we cannot do elections
without Bob White and his team. If I have to go back and ask for what I need to make sure that Bob is
taken care of, I certainly will because that has made all the difference in how well Monroe County elections
are run. Thank you.
But the contract is for next year is not for $350,000. So why is it missing the budget? We didn't have
that number. We didn't have Bob's number this time last year when I was budgeting. So it needs to go
back to council to put it in this year's budget. What you budgeted for 2026 is more than 21% higher
than what was spent in 2024. What you are budgeting for 2026 is
than four times what was spent in 2016 and during that time CPI has risen well between then and next
year less than 40 percent so there's a four-fold increase in the spending so and this is with this in
2024 you paid rent for election operation we're not even paying rent for election operations so to increase
it by 21 percent just seems
off the wall. I would just say not one vendor, but every vendor post pandemic when their cost increase,
I end up paying for those costs. They passed them. And I have explained that to County council software
and licensure increases, how much you pay people increase. We could, what I, whatever I asked for just,
I just to be clear, we could hire a vendor to come into Monroe County and run it all.
run elections from January 1st to December, obviously coming in for early voting in election day. That
is substantially, they are three to four times higher than what I am saying. And again, yes, there are
some areas where that money is higher, but it reverts back if we do not need it. But those costs are
passed on to me and they are very real. And we are right now looking at where,
finishing up, even in the off-election year, we've had election bills. We still pay vendors. And so
that's what I'm trying to explain, is that the budget actually starts in December. It's not the end
of the calendar year and the budget year. Bob is going to give us bills for the end of the year. And
that money is there. We can start paying him to finish out this year. I don't know what that money is
going to be.
you know, especially if we're moving from moving everything from election central to to the showers building.
I will also say with the House Enrolled Act 1633 we have to remember that if the vote centers are mandated
we're going to have to have money somewhere in our budget to put towards equipment on top of having
to ask for additional money so having the money that's in there if it's not spent with the immediate
response that it's in the line for then that money is going to be moved in order for us to afford this
equipment that we're going to have to buy if the vote centers are mandated.
happen until next year and it wouldn't go into effect in the middle of it would go into effect in July
1st 2026 is what we've been informed. And then it would go into where in the general election of next
year we would have to be a vote center if it is passed.
violates current law which says you have to have the same polling places. It would be the same polling
locations because it would be the same polling locations because if it's the 26 that the 29 that we
have right now those same 29 would convert to vote centers. Ranchers and stuff to be able to operate
for all 29 of those locations. So another thing that's in here and Kylie again explains some stuff to
me that you have to have
the number of ballots for, if you have 80,000 people registered to vote, you have to have 80,000 ballots.
And I understand that. And there was some of the cost from 2024 for the ballots came through not until
2025. But you've got $100,000 listed for ballots when the total that was expended
in 4-20-24 ballots was less than $85,000. In fact, it was less than $84,000. Why that huge jump? Did
the cost of paper go up that much? As the vendor's costs go up, they pass them on to me. I don't know
what the price of ballots is going to be, but it will go up. I will say generally, HART will send us
a list of how much each thing will cost.
in the beginning of the year so we'll probably see that about January so I know that we always anticipate
for it to be more expensive than what it's going to be because of the fact that if we don't have the
money there we're going to have to take the time back to go back to the council to ask for that money
and then it puts us in a short time crunch like I had explained to you when you came and seen me on
Tuesday that
Like last year we were printing ballots Monday morning that had to be sent out by Saturday afternoon
because we didn't have the state certified list of presidential candidates yet until that morning. So
it's having that money there to not have to worry about going back to pay for it in a time crunch of
right there in the middle of the election is the best possibility for us, but also
As Nicole said, that money goes back into the election fund. It's not going anywhere. It will be used.
And if it's not used, it'll be there for the next election. I just find it incredible that the cost
of ballots would go up 20% or more than 20%. That's what it feels like. Again, I agree with you completely,
Clerk Brown, on the fact that we need to be able to pay people
but I find some of these things disturbing for me. And I've done budgets as part of grant applications
a lot of different times. So 21% increase just hard for me to swallow. So one of our viewers, one of
our regular viewers is reminding me that we did not receive a value
excuse me, a ballot invoice until the next year for part of the ballots from the previous year. They
were paid this year for part of last year's ballots. That's what I'm saying. I said that, that it was,
you didn't receive the bill for it until this year for part of those stuff from last year. But altogether,
the cost for ballots for 2024 was a little bit less than $84,000.
when you take into account what was paid in 2024 and 2025. I just think that there are places that this
budget could be trimmed. I appreciate the fact that it goes back into the election fund.
But I also appreciate the fact that we may be needing to save money for new equipment. My. I certainly
took haircuts. I met with my council liaison. We took some haircuts ahead of even going to the budget
and we certainly where we can hold. We try to do that. I am aware of the cost as well.
but elections matter, and I will not, and I certainly would never ask my staff to make time to go back
and grovel for money when we need what we need to run the election. We don't know how much of the increase
is going to be passed on, but elections are a profitable business.
and we don't have very many election vendors, we have to pay when the bill comes due, it has to be paid.
Could we look at a couple of haircuts? Yes. And I was certainly prepared to take a small haircut for
shirts, because that isn't as important as, say, paying our contracts.
I want to ensure that we have money, sufficient money that we are not running back when we are all going
to be busy, including you, Board Member Githans, because you're required to work too on election day.
We are all going to be busy. I will not have time to get on the council's schedule. And I appreciate
the shortfall that the county is in, but I would say that elections are not responsible for that shortfall.
I also, as I reminded the council,
My office is one of the few offices that actually brings money back to the council because we collect
child support, the federal government reimburses. So the increases that I ask for, I try never to ask
more in increase than what I have brought back to county funds for their unrestricted use and I have
not done so here. Thank you. Just one other question and this is a general thing about the
contract with Bob, does he not provide the transportation that's needed to move the equipment?
So traditionally, the clerk has paid for the trucks and his team get that. He is now carrying the insurance
on the trucks. And so that I understand some of his contract has
has changed, it could include the truck rental. I don't know what is going to come up if we have to
rent more trucks than expected or whatever, but we have that money available to us. That cost has doubled
from 2022. Have you seen gas prices this week?
How many U-Hauls do we have? Last year we had a total of four, and if it is to be that we transfer over
to the vote centers, we will have to have at least two more for all of the equipment that will be going
out to the polling locations. That wouldn't be until the general hit the primary. Correct.
Truck rental is not the gas price, sorry. Well, you have to fill them back up. The rental price, they
have to be full when they go back. The cost of renting a truck, I'm sure, is more than it would have
been in 2022. A double is what I'm looking at. Honestly, that wouldn't surprise me from moving kids
around. The double, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
That doesn't surprise me that it would double. We've had a patiently waiting comment. So I've worked
at Election Central, and I did the job similar to Bonnie for $15 an hour. And I understand the wanting
to reward someone for their experience. But I saw my job, and I also did poll work and so forth.
As a service to my community, I didn't expect to get paid a lot of money. I appreciate from being a
taxpayer that taxpayers are fatigued and they're sick of bureaucracy and just more money, more money,
more money. Yes, our elections are important, but elections do have cause and effect.
And I witnessed many times where there was money spent for people that weren't doing anything. So from
my perspective, I witnessed waste. So I appreciate any kind of scrutiny on anything that is considered
waste. And t-shirts to me is definitely waste. Thank you.
anything here? Can you hear me? My name is Nancy Goswami. I've worked early voting and Election Day
in various positions, and I disagree that some people do want to be paid for their time, and I think
they should be paid appropriately. If you are okay with $15 an hour,
That's okay, but maybe some people want to be paid more for their money for their time, and that's okay.
I agree with the t-shirts. If you want to identify people, can you just do like a fluorescent lanyard?
Maybe that would be a little cheaper. And I know we're just talking about a few hundred dollars. Also,
too, I think that
on Election Day in some places, if you have two judges, I think that perhaps you don't need a sheriff
in addition to the two judges. Early voting, I think sometimes we do have too many people working early
in the voting process.
And then, of course, the later it gets in the process that we do need more workers, but I think perhaps
cut down on early voting, poll workers early in the early voting. Also, too, just want to know with
voting centers, would having voting centers and having printers
at polling sites, would that lower the cost overall, you know, like eventually rather than printing
ballots that you don't need because I see a lot of wasted ballots on election day. So thank you.
Hello again, Chas Mottinger. I just want to say, I think that voting is really important. We don't have
as good a voter turnout as we want all the time. It's been increasing per year. I think I'm correct
in saying that in Monroe County, which is amazing. I think that I just want to say, you guys are, the
clerk's office, the election board, you're all in a tough place where, yeah, you just don't know what
these things are going to do.
what's going to happen with the voting. But at the end of the day, I feel good as a resident and a citizen
when I know that the county would be prepared to handle an election and to handle a lot of people. I
understand what you're saying, Penny, with cutting down things, but also at the same time, I feel good
knowing that Election Central and the clerk's office can get what they need if they need it. I don't think
I think that waste can come if you cut something that's a little unnecessary and it's just saving pennies.
It doesn't necessarily matter as much if it goes back into the budget already. There's probably some
things to tighten up. I know for sure, sometimes sheriffs might not be a thing we need at all the locations
for sure. I think there are probably things you could tighten up, save some costs there. But at the
end of the day, I think that
being an inspector, working the polls, also being a voter, I have to early vote. I wanna know that things
have enough money, that there's enough staff. And at the end of the day, if we're giving people in our
county money, I'm happy with that. It's been so hard. People are losing their jobs all the time. I'm
in my 30s. Pay people $20 for sure. I want everyone to be thriving in our community. I want everyone
to have the right to vote. I want things to work well. So at the end of the day,
stand behind our clerk, Nicole, trying to make sure that they, her staff has an easier job. They can
do what they need to do and not worry about money as much. It seems like if there was actual issues
or, you know, something wrong with the budget that we did need to look at, that's another thing. It
doesn't sound like that's what's going on. I'm sure there are things to do, but I just wanna say, I
think you can, you're never gonna,
appeal to everyone, right? So you have to do what's right. And I think that we could probably all agree
on the fact that it's our right to vote is our literal right in this country. And we need to make sure
it's efficient and it works and we all can do it. And if we're going to pay poll workers to do that,
I say, let's do it. Let's pay our residents here. So anyway, thank you very much for your time. Thank
you for your service. How much was each individual t-shirt?
For the total of six of them, Nicole, I believe we spent $180, and that was almost a 50% discount from
the company we wanted. In an organizational situation like that, when you have people who are in positions
of making... If you can find out who they are easier, it's well worth your time.
I'll say that a lot of the poll workers that were in Election Central on Election Day this past election
said that it made them feel like it was very easy to identify who they could talk to about anything
that they felt needed to be discussed. And on Election Day, when we have 90 plus people in that office
and it starts getting cramped and we have Bob and his team in the back office scanning ballots, trying
to get everything processed, it's easiest for them to identify. And it's not just our poll workers that
are using those to identify us.
It's also Bob and his team. It's voters who are coming in who have questions or concerns. It's easily
able to identify them in a quick manner that's not trying to search for a lanyard saying, oh, this is
this person. And I understand we have our county badges, and that is one way to identify us. But it
is so much easier, so much quicker, and more efficient to just have the t-shirts that stand out from
everybody else.
You're not on mic. My point is, and I'm trying to drive this home, why am I, as a taxpayer, paying someone
$20 an hour that can't and doesn't know how to identify the person they're supposed to go to without
a t-shirt? A badge is fine. I don't understand why I am paying someone that if they aren't qualified
to do this temporary position and they can't
identify and they don't have enough training to know who they're supposed to go to without a t-shirt,
a billboard. I mean, then maybe I need to have someone that's more qualified. This isn't a permanent
job. This isn't you're not doing service community service to be a poll worker at election.
to pay your cable bill. You're there to serve the community. And it's not your supplement. It's not
what you rely on to feed your family. It is extra money. And I don't think that any taxpayer or voter
should be held hostage with the PIRT string, with a blank check, just so that people can just extort
from the taxpayers.
We just want fiscal responsibility. That's it. And I was willing to do it for $15 an hour. I was happy
to do it. I felt very qualified. I've done census work, military. I've done everything. And I was happy
to serve my county. And I was very qualified for it. So I take issue with t-shirts and putting unqualified
people in a position over our elections, very important.
And they don't even deserve the money that they're getting overpaid for. That's it. I'm a little different
than everyone. I won't get an applause. And it's going to be what no one wants to hear. But as a taxpayer,
how I feel. Thank you. I want to let everybody on the election board know that has not been here for
past elections.
Every single one of the employees who are working in our office on Election Day have a lanyard on that
has their name on it so that we can identify them. So if we all have a lanyard on that says that this
is this person, it's harder to identify each of those people. Also, another thing is I lost that one.
We'll go back to the public comment. Different taxpayers can disagree on whether or not
an easy way to tell who's working there. One of the nice things about having elections in this country
is you're allowed to have a different opinion, and I'm okay with that. A lot of people on my football
game Friday night are not going to agree with my opinion, and that's okay. Yeah. All right. And then
the other thing was that the poll workers that we have in there, they see us twice a year if that.
It's hard for them to easily identify each of the individuals who are in the office, especially if there
is a new staff. Like this year, I have three staff members who were not here for the last election.
That's three out of the five of us. So only two of them are reoccurring from the last election. Okay.
Go ahead, ma'am. Hi, my name is Laura Ward. I'm the chief deputy clerk in the clerk's office in Monroe County.
And I just wanted to throw in, obviously, my two cents, because we've been through the trenches of elections.
And I am so proud of my team. And they really have been amazing to work with. They have been on point.
We don't agree on everything together, but that's OK. We all pull in the same direction. And I want
to just state that. First of all, with budgets, I have a personal budget.
I say, okay, here's an estimate, it's an art form, it's not really a science to a certain degree. So
we need to have a little bit of wiggle room of, because you don't know what the lawmakers are gonna
say, because they're constantly changing laws, like every, right before an election, and Kylie was even
saying we had to wait to print out the ballots until the nth hour, and so it's like,
No one has time to come running back in front of the council going, please, please, please, because
it is a pain in the neck. Because then sometimes they say, ooh, we're not going to be there. We're canceling
this. We do have emergency options. But man, that is just one more task load that we would have to think
about. I say absolutely. Do the haircuts where you can. But just try not to hobble us, please. That's
what we're asking.
We have been fiscally responsible. Let's see, the cost of supplies, I was wondering, I was like, okay,
because you had mentioned 20%, cost of supplies since 2000 have risen between 21% to 30%, depends on
what it is. So that's very reasonable ask, if you're like, that jumps up 20%, that's very reasonable.
I know my groceries per se have gone
up to like 30%. I'm like, okay, so we have to have that wiggle room in our budget. So just keep that
in mind, please. We respectfully ask as a team, as a crew who have been there, done that, will be doing
that. Let's see. Most of the costs are in equipment, not necessarily the ballot paper. I mean, it is
expensive, but it's the cost of
the equipment, the printers, they are not cheap and they are not gonna get cheaper because it's just
gonna be more and more population coming into the county. So just gotta keep that in mind too. Are poll
workers worth every penny? Every penny. I just be, some of them are like, I don't even know how to explain
it but when it comes down to it,
the price you pay for quality people pays its return over and over and over again. And sometimes people
are like, you know what? It's not a national holiday. They're taking their time off of work,
regular work. And some of them are like, if they don't work, they don't get paid there. And yes, they
want to do their civil servant, but we all got to pay the bills at the end of the day. So absolutely,
I say what they earn now is 100%.
So thank you very much for your time and consideration. Have a good day. I will point out that I didn't
question how much people were paid. I was asking about why we're over budget from what they are being
paid. I mean, I totally support salaries for people. I would like to see them hire. I would like to
see them hire, too. And I would be honored to stand with you if you make that
position with the council. Two years ago, I was the one that went before council and said, give our
employees a 7.9% raise. And I thought that there was going to be a few people faint with that, but it
happened. So yes, I do support that. Just for comparison, Hamilton County, their poll workers make $400
for the day. I would say that they have a comparable cost of living to Monroe County.
I'll also say that there is another county I can't exactly remember which county it is that is in my
group email that we were talking earlier today, but they just had theirs set to that they have a base
pay for their inspectors at $350 for the day and then they get paid an additional $150 for every precinct
that they oversee. If we did that in Monroe County, we would be paying the inspector at election operations
over $1,800 for the day.
Any other public comment on this? Is there any just board comments? I am going to stand by the budget
that I presented to the council last week. Certainly, you know, for some for some reason, what was intended
to make sure that staff were easily identifiable, the T-shirts have
that clearly there's been some resonance with the t-shirts. That is one place I'd be willing to take
a small haircut, but they do cost. And I think a 50% discount, anybody in here who gets something on
sale for 50% off, you think you are walking out hoping that they don't call you back and say it was
a mistake. So I appreciate Kylie getting the 50% discount. And so they would have been double.
And so I am willing to take a small haircut in that. But otherwise, I am very proud of the budget that
I submitted. And I believe that it would ensure that we would not have to return to council during two
very busy elections at which we expect better than expected voter turnout to grovel for money.
Thank you. Anything else for the good of the order?
I do believe that there needs to be an official vote on the budget from the election board so that it
can be continued through the county council. Then I will move to accept a budget, to forward the budget
as written. Second. In favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Okay, passes two to one.
that handles what we need to handle. Am I correct? Does anybody else have anything you want to add?
We were going to discuss how we take public comment, whether we're going to take it on each voting item
or... Or all at the end? Yeah. I think that what I'm accustomed to is you don't take public comment
on minutes. Obviously. That's something that we are responsible for. But anytime there's a motion
but I'm accustomed to is you take public comment before a vote occurs and that you usually would make
a motion and then the board discusses it. But that's a slight, but I would like to encourage us to take
public comment on any vote. I don't really have an issue with that to be honest. I mean, when we have
comment. So it's just adding a public comment to every item that is going to be taking a vote on.
And you don't need to list it on the agenda. Correct. Yeah, I don't have any. Yeah, I can. Maybe I can
remember to take public comment after every before we talk. I'll make myself a note. OK, OK,
we can do that. And then the only other thing is, do we want to start doing like a public comment section
for any items that are not on the agenda? I have no problem with the people have something that we need
to hear about letting us hear about it.
Do you guys want to, would you want to put that at the beginning of the meeting or the end of the meeting?
Because right now it's just we have a public comment section. I would like to say at the beginning,
because I don't want to make them hang around longer than they have to, but sometimes they might be
a little bit long-winded and I don't want to keep people here that have business. So I would prefer
it be at the end, just from the standpoint of being fair to everybody in their time. I think we also
should specify that there's a three-minute limit.
Absolutely, without question. Yeah, without question, yes. Mr. Cockrell, do we need to take a vote on
that? I guess eventually I think the answer is going to be yes. I mean, I would, I guess if I don't
normally handle these meetings, if this was a meeting I handled, I would want that all in like a resolution
or something. So I have a piece of paper to refer back to.
two years, four years, six years down the line, and so my suggestion is let's get it written up. Let's
present it at the next meeting for a vote and have the vote then. That's better than me making a motion
right now that we do that. If it's better to have a piece of paper, that's fine. That works for me.
That's fine. I'll contact Molly and have her write up a resolution for that, and then we can present
it at the next election board meeting. We don't have to make this rocket science. No. No.
anything else from anyone I would entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second those in favor
aye opposed motion is adjourned we will see you on October 2nd