VALPARAISO | Porter County Clerk Pam Fish found herself at odds Monday with the other two members of the county election board over a proposal to revamp local election positions.
Fish argued the changes are needed to comply with state law.
But after hearing a contrary opinion from an attorney on the election board, the County Council rejected the proposed changes and opted instead to grant larger than typical raises of $5,000 each to Kathy Kozuszek and Sundae Kubacki, the Democrat and Republican representatives in the county voter registration office.
"You put on one heck of a show," Council Member Karen Conover said, lauding the women for their handling of this month's busy elections.
What Fish proposed was to take two of the four employees from the voter registration office and place them under the control of the election board along with two new employees. This group would be charged with administering elections, she said.
The two remaining full-time employees at the voter registration office, which has traditionally been charged with running the elections, would focus exclusively on registration issues, Fish said.
State law calls for this arrangement from any county with a population of more than 125,000, Fish said. Porter County has about 160,000 residents.
Fellow Democratic election board member and attorney J.J. Stankiewicz, however, told the council neither he nor board attorney Clay Patton agree the changes are mandated for the county.
Stankiewicz, who said he was blind-sided by the proposal, said the election officials need to step back and take look at what needs to be done to update the county's election process. The three election board members were invited to come back after the start of the year with a proposal agreed to by all.
Fish argued the extra help was needed to process votes after elections and redraw boundaries for 26 precincts that have exceeded the optimal limit of 1,200 voters each. The county also is likely to be called on next year to host a referendum for a $34 million high school renovation and addition project proposed by Porter Township schools, she said.
School Superintendent Nick Brown said earlier in the day he hopes to avoid the referendum and instead, complete the project within budget.
