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Clare County directs staff to draft contract for township ballot programming and election consolidation fees
Summary
The board authorized staff to develop a contract with townships to formalize ballot programming and consolidation services; county staff presented sample costs and said townships cannot contract directly with an elected official and must use the county as fiduciary.
The Clare County Board of Commissioners voted to direct county staff to draft a contract that would allow townships to contract with the county for ballot programming and election consolidation services.
Clare County Clerk (Laurie) explained the county's role: the county provides ballots and precinct supply kits, while local units traditionally arranged programming themselves. Because recent election-law changes have increased workload, the clerk recommended formal contracts so the county can program ballots on behalf of townships and pass costs through the county as the fiduciary.
Using Arthur Township as an example, the clerk presented sample costs drawn from last year's workload. She described a range of figures: an example township total cost in a year with early-voting needs could be in the thousands (the clerk cited $15,518 as an example for Arthur Township under certain conditions), while a standard election-year example showed $4,178 for Arthur Township. For county-wide early-voting costs, the clerk said county overtime and extra costs ran about $25,896.28 for the year that included nine days of early voting; after allocating only the extra costs to townships, that translated in the clerk's example to per-election programming fees of $278 and consolidation fees of $480 per election for a township. She also explained that for some elections (non-nine-day early-voting scenarios) the county would charge $278 per local unit and may charge the entity requesting the election rather than the township.
Commissioners discussed logistics and insurance/attorney guidance; the clerk said townships cannot contract directly with an elected official and that any payment would need to flow through the county. The board voted to proceed with developing the contract and to return the contract text for approval at the next meeting so ballot vendors can be notified in time for upcoming elections.
No final contract or permanent fee schedule was adopted at the meeting; the board authorized drafting and return of contract language for a future vote.
