As May’s primary inches closer, Columbus is preparing to do something it has never done before — reimburse Bartholomew County for the costs of overseeing a city municipal election.
The new arrangement, which was approved by the Columbus Department of Public Works in September, brought the city’s municipal elections into compliance with requirements in Indiana law governing municipal election expenses.
Under the current rules, a county may bill a city for certain election-related expenses, including meal costs for poll workers, rental of polling places, election advertising, overtime wages for voter registration staff, among other costs.
The only expenses excluded from the agreement are the salaries of Bartholomew County clerk and deputy clerk staff and voting machine maintenance, said Bartholomew County Clerk Jay Phelps.
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“This is just to help the county,” Phelps said. “The county has less taxable resources than the city does. We were supposed to be doing this for decades.”
The current rules are governed by several sections of the Indiana Code. Certain sections establish how counties and cities should divvy up the financial burden of funding municipal elections.
Angie Nussmeyer, co-director of the Indiana Election Division, said the current language of those sections of the Indiana Code have largely been in place since at least 1986.
However, the requirement that cities reimburse counties for election-related expenses has been around much longer.
In 1947, the Indiana General Assembly enacted a law that required cities to reimburse counties for 75 percent of the costs of city municipal elections, while counties are required to pay for the remaining 25 percent, according to George Angelone, executive director of the Indiana Legislative Services Agency. The current rules were derived from the 1947 requirements, Angelone said.
According to the agreement between the city of Columbus and Bartholomew County, the county auditor must certify the county’s election-related expenses within 30 days after each city municipal election. The city has until Dec. 31 of the year in which the election was held to reimburse the county.
Phelps said the county’s motivation for sending a bill for reimbursement was to help save Bartholomew County some money, since the county has had budget woes in recent years. The city, he said, has been “very understanding and accommodating.”
“Bartholomew County was having a budget crisis, and I was looking for ways to get some revenue for the county,” Phelps said. “I had heard about these rules years before, so I talked with the Indiana Election Division and other county clerks, and the other clerks said, ‘What? Your county’s not doing this?’”
Bartholomew County faced a $3.9 million budget deficit in 2016.
That year, Phelps approached the city about getting the city’s municipal elections in compliance with state law to give the city time to earmark the funds for the 2019 elections, said Mary Ferdon, executive director of administration and community development for Columbus. The city is required to reimburse the county because the city’s elections don’t take place at same time as the county’s elections, she said.
Nussmeyer said cities cannot change the year of their municipal elections under section 3-10-6-5 of the Indiana Code.
“The frustrating is that, by law, the city can’t move our election to another year when all of the other elections are being held so we don’t have to pay for this,” Ferdon said. “We can’t move it to be on the county schedule by law.”
Last year, Phelps told the Columbus Board of Public Works that the 2019 primary and general elections would cost an estimated $75,935.20. The city, however, budgeted $65,000 from its general fund to reimburse the county, said Luann Welmer, city clerk treasurer. Phelps said the 2015 city municipal primary cost the county $62,000, and the general election cost $40,000 — a total of $102,000.
Phelps said the 2015 primary was more expensive than normal because the county had stepped up advertising efforts to raise awareness of the county’s new voting centers. It was the first year the centers were used.
Phelps said he was projecting that the county would receive at least $80,000 in reimbursements from the primary and general election this year.
The city, for its part, will just have wait and see if the actual election costs exceed the budgeted amount.
“We’ll either negotiate the terms with the county, or we’ll find the additional dollars,” Ferdon said.
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Voter registration deadline for the primary is April 8.
Citizens may register online by using the Indiana Voters app or by visiting IndianaVoters.com, or may submit an application to register in person at their local Bartholomew County Clerk’s office. The clerk’s office is located in the Bartholomew County Courthouse.
To be eligible to register to vote, you must:
- be a U.S. citizen
- be at least 18 years old on the day of the next general, municipal or special election
- have lived in your precinct for at least 30 days before the next general, municipal or special election
- not currently be imprisoned after being convicted of a crime
Voter registration will reopen after the May 7 primary. Hoosiers wishing to vote in the Nov. 5 general election must be registered by Oct. 7.
As of Monday, there were 28,918 people registered to vote for the upcoming primary, according to Shari Lentz, Bartholomew County voter registration supervisor.
For more information, call the Hoosier Voter Hotline at 866-IN-1-VOTE.
Source: Indiana Secretary of State’s office
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Early voting at the Bartholomew County Courthouse in downtown Columbus will be from April 9 through May 4.
From April 9 to May 3, voters can cast their ballots in person at the courthouse from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Additionally, the courthouse will be open for early voting on two Saturdays — April 27 and May 4 — from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Early voting is also available at Donner Center, at 739 22nd Street, from April 29 to May 3 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturday, May 4 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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