Cascade County Commissioners have a lengthy agenda set for their Feb. 13 meeting, including adjusting a mill levy, filling a seat on the mental health advisory council vacated by Alluvion Health, multiple contracts, subdivisions, moving the county print shop and fees for public records requests.

But one election related item won’t be on that agenda.

Commissioner Rae Grulkowski brought at item to the Feb. 7 work session asking to ratify a contract between the county and Great Falls Public Schools that was signed by Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant in May 2023.

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The contract is an agreement that the county will conduct the GFPS May 2024 election and the district requested that it be conducted by mail.

During the work session, Grulkowski said the historic practice in the county was for the election administrator to execute those contracts.

Commissioner Jim Larson said they have already talked about the contract being a legal document, and “I don’t know what it’s coming forward for again.”

Grulkowski said the commission should approve contracts unless they designate the authority.

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Grulkowski said that those election contracts weren’t recorded in the clerk’s office because they didn’t go through commission meetings.

Carey Ann Haight, chief deputy county attorney for the civil division, said that was not correct and that those contracts hadn’t been recorded because they hadn’t been taken to the clerk’s office to be recorded.

Grulkowski attempted to renew the debate over whether the county should hold a mail ballot election for the May school election.

Commissioner Joe Briggs said that the discussion during the Feb. 7 work session proved the point on why he didn’t think the item should move to the regular agenda for their Feb. 13 meeting.

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Briggs said that the county has a legal contract and should move forward for the GFPS election.

He said the county has started defining a better process on who can sign contracts but didn’t want to get into argument about mail ballots.

Josh Racki, county attorney, said it’s a valid contract that the county is obligated to honor.

As far as whether the election should be conducted by mail, Racki said that the GFPS board has requested that but the county can still adjust the form of the election if needed.

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Haight said that Sandra Merchant, county clerk and recorder, signed the contract last year for the county to conduct the GFPS election in May.

“That is not debatable. That is not a request,” Haight said to Grulkowski during the work session.

After continued back and forth between Grulkowski and Haight, Racki said the existing signed contract is binding on the county.

Racki said that it didn’t particularly matter if the commission decided to approve the existing contract since it’s already legally binding.

If the commission were to disapprove the contract, Racki said he expected that the school district would sue the county.

“The contract is, at this point, binding,” Racki said.

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He said that previously, the clerk and recorder had the legal authority to sign the agreements between the county and GFPS or other entities on conducting elections.

Grulkowski continued to cite a section of state law about the election administrator determining whether it’s economically or administratively feasible to conduct an election by mail.

She did not cite a provision in the same section of code requiring that the election administrator respond to a request for a mail ballot election within five days granting or denying it with specific reasons.

The GFPS board voted Jan. 8 to request a mail ballot election.

Larson said that the county already had a contract with GFPS to conduct their election and didn’t want to move the item forward to have commissioners vote on an already legal contract “just because it puts a cloud over what the expectation is.”

Larson said they could record the contract in the clerk’s office without taking commission action.

Racki said the legal department can send a reminder to staff about who has the authority to sign contracts on behalf of the county.

Since two commissioners were opposed, the item was pulled from the agenda.

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The Feb. 13 agenda includes a resolution to move the county print shop from the clerk and recorders office to the commissioner office.

Briggs said that when they separated elections from the clerk’s office, they didn’t address the print shop, which has historically been treated as an extension of the elections office.

He said it would make the organizational structure cleaner to have the print shop under the commission.

The county print shop prints ballots and envelopes for elections, but also does printing for other county departments.

Briggs said it would give commissioners the option to have it fall under the commission office or make it a standalone department.

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Grulkowski said she brought the issue of the print shop up and believes it should stay under the clerk’s office.

Commissioners will also consider a proposal for an upfront fee for public information requests that require the IT department.

Racki said that the county is being inundated with public information requests, and in the case of requests for emails, the IT staff is spending an “inordinate” amount of time on those requests.

He said they were getting big requests that take a lot of staff time for IT, as well as legal, and then the requester wouldn’t want to pay the fee for the records.

The proposal is to have an upfront fee for the requests that can be applied toward a larger fee for big requests or returned in part if the request didn’t take as long, he said.

Haight said state law allows a local government to cover their costs with public records fees.

Sean Higginbotham said that some of the information requests are broad and might return 60,000 to 100,000 email items and it takes time to comb through through those.