Medaryville and Monterey will be handling their own General Elections this year, without the direct involvement of the Pulaski County Election Board. County Clerk JoLynn Behny told the rest of the county election board Tuesday that she’s received a resolution to that effect from the Town of Medaryville, and she expects Monterey to send one soon.
“The Town of Monterey and the Town of Medaryville are holding their own town elections, forming their own election boards, and holding their own paper ballot elections,” Behny explained. But Board Member Jessye Gilley pointed out that Monterey may not need to hold an election at all, since so far, there are no contested races. Candidates have until August 1 to file.
With the towns holding their own elections and the lack of May primaries, Behny estimated that the county will save over $30,000 this year. Board members authorized Behny to use $490 of the $5,000 that had been budgeted for election day IT services for the installation of a new computer that was obtained for the election clerk. “I just got new computers at no cost to the county through Indiana Trial Court Technologies,” Behny explained. “We do have to pay to have them installed. So DeGroot Technology has been here installing them.”
The election board also discussed the possibility of using some of this year’s budget to stock up on supplies for next year’s presidential election cycle, such as envelopes, security tags, and postage.
The county council is asking all county departments to look for ways to cut their budgets for next year. Behny noted that the election board doesn’t have much room to do that, especially heading into a presidential election year. The clerk and the election board are scheduled to start discussing their 2020 budgets with the county council Monday night.
