County Commissioners held a special meeting Dec. 15 to discuss their plan for appointing an interim elections administrator after voting 2-1 earlier this week to remove election duties from Cascade County Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant.

Commissioners said they wanted to discuss recruiting an interim administrator, the job description and inventory of existing supplies and equipment.

Commissioner Rae Grulkowski, who opposed the resolution removing election duties from the clerk’s office, said that they should consult Merchant since she had “vast knowledge” of elections operations.

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Commissioner Joe Briggs brought the resolution forward during a Dec. 6 meeting and Commissioner Jim Larson supported it this week, based on his concern that an elected official should not oversee elections and over concerns with errors and mismanagement of elections this year under Merchant.

Three civil lawsuits were filed over elections this year.

One was filed by the Great Falls Public Library Board against Merchant, leading a district court judge to appoint an election monitor for the library levy election.

That lawsuit has since been resolved.

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A second lawsuit was filed over the May 2 elections for the Fort Shaw Irrigation District and the West Great Falls Flood Control and Drainage District.

That lawsuit is still pending.

Two county residents filed a lawsuit against the city over the library levy election more than a month after those results were certified.

That lawsuit also remains pending.

During their special Dec. 15 meeting, commissioners made no substantial decisions and will meet again Dec. 19 to review more information.

After voting Dec. 12 to remove election duties, Briggs said he talked to the county human resources director asking him to meet with existing election staff to see if they’d stay to determine operational capability and to develop a job description.

Svetlana Pinocci, who works in the elections office, said during the Dec. 15 meeting that HR staff came to talk to them and that it was “intimidating and disrespectful to them.”

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During the meeting, commissioners discussed keys to the elections office and access to various county spaces.

Grulkowski said that a directive she didn’t know about was issued to take all keys from Merchant, but Public Works Director Les Payne said that his office only asked for the keys to the elections office, which is standard practice when someone vacates a position.

Grulkowski said there was a bucket of keys that was taken that had keys to other buildings and Briggs asked why that hadn’t been inventoried by the elections office. She said they were working on it.

Briggs said he received an email from the Montana Secretary of State that they had revoked Merchant’s access to the state voter systems but had not issued a directive regarding keys.

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Commissioners also discussed ballots from a previous election that the county still had in storage.

Grulkowski asked what they were going to do with those ballots.

Briggs said the county had retained those ballots beyond the statutory requirement at the specific request last year from Lola Sheldon Galloway, a state legislator, who wanted to keep them and review them during the next legislative session.

Briggs said that the session had come and gone and Galloway had never followed up on the request to view those ballots so he didn’t see any reason to continue storing them.

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Commissioners discussed a plan to move the accounting office, which they split from the clerk’s office in January, out of the clerk’s physical office to make room for Merchant to move out of elections.

Grulkowski said she wanted to know about remodeling a space in the annex and how much it would cost.

Last week, during a special commission meeting regarding capital projects, Grulkowski asked to remove $75,000 from the commission’s reserve account toward a generator, leaving about $2,000 in that fund saying that if they needed more money she believed they’d be able to find it.

Briggs said that he had built a contingency fund in to their budget this year and had about $100,000 in vacancy savings since they hadn’t yet hired a chief financial office and he was performing those duties temporarily, so they could afford the remodel and hiring an elections administrator.

Grulkowski asked about Merchant’s salary if they were removing duties.

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Briggs said state law is clear that they can’t change an elected officials salary during a term and that they didn’t discuss it when the removed accounting duties in January.

Grulkowski said that the additional pay for Merchant was for election duties. Briggs said that it was for a combined office, which the clerk’s office has been with multiple duties consolidated under that office to include surveyor and auditor.

Larson said that HR was gathering information from other large counties that have staff election administrators to determine a salary for the new position.

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Several people have mentioned in public comment or social media posts that the salary would be $111,000.

Grulkowski mentioned during the Dec. 12 meeting that was the salary of the elections administrator in Yellowstone County.

Bret Rutherford, the person who held that position until October 2022, said that was not accurate and it was closer to $91,000.

During the Dec. 12 meeting, Grulkowski said that in Cascade County it’s just a $2,000 add-on, but did not mention the clerk’s base pay, which is $75,086.30 in the current budget. Merchant also receives another $3,032 for running a combined office. Her total salary in this year’s budget is $80,118.30.

County commissioners make $77,086.30 in this year’s budget.

For comparison, this year’s budget increased the county attorney’s salary to $148,872.

County continuing election canvass

Grulkowski said that she believes the money for a new staff person would be better spend on a new chief financial officer, a position that has been vacant since February with a pay range of $90,000 to $115,000. The job is still posted on the county website.

In Yellowstone County, the clerk and recorder’s salary in this year’s budget is $125,586, according to the Billings Gazette.

Briggs said that the county has the budget to do the remodel and hire an election administrator in the current budget but would have to consider the new position going into the next budget.

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Briggs said that typically, if the county asks an internal employee to take on interim duties, they increase their pay by 15-25 percent, depending on the situation.

Grulkowski asked if an interim administrator would be disqualified from consideration for the full time position and Briggs said that was up to them to decide.

Briggs said he thought the interim position should be open to those currently in office as well as those in the county with recent experience in elections.

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Grulkowski scheduled another meeting on Dec. 19 for continued discussion of the matter that the other commissioners said they didn’t know about it until they got the meeting notification for the county website that is also available to the public.

Grulkowski said the elections office operations are halted without an administrator though filing for the Great Falls Public Schools board election opened this week.

Brian Patrick of GFPS said that a current school board member went to the elections office on Dec. 14 and the staff didn’t know how to handle it.

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He said that candidates can file their forms with him and once the county selects an administrator, district staff would meet with them to outline how they’ll work together for the upcoming May election.

Patrick said that Marlee Sunchild, the incumbent, dropped of her forms with him on Dec. 15.

Commissioners asked Carey Ann Haight, chief deputy county attorney for the civil division, to work with the Montana Secretary of State’s office for guidance on handling those issues in the meantime.