County commissioners cut two districts

The Hillsdale County Apportionment Committee has cut the number of county districts by two in a meeting last Thursday in order to cut county costs. Both county chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties, the county clerk, the treasurer and the prosecuting attorney attended the meeting, which by law must be held after every nation-wide census. 

The committee passed the motion 4-1. County Republican chair Mike Clark dissented, saying he was concerned about setting a number of commissioners without the population number for the whole county. 

County Treasurer Gary Leininger, said the committee had an opportunity to address Hillsdale County's money problems by cutting two commissioners off the current seven-member board. He said each commissioner is paid $20,000  and receives $10,000 in health benefits, totaling $30,000 per year.

In addition, Leininger said future ballot costs will go down "because the more splits you have, the higher the cost to run elections."

County Clerk Marney Kast agreed. She said she must purchase different ballots for each school district under the current seven-member board. She also has to include parents whose student lives in one district but goes to school in another, driving up the cost and adding waste in each election. 

"I have to buy a minimum of 25 ballots, plus coding and testing ballots on top of that," Kast said. "So you would see a tremendous amount of waste." 

Kast said the bigger the election, the higher the cost. She said she expects to pay roughly $30,000 for the August primary election. 

Leininger said with a five-member commissioner board, the districts will be evenly split, preventing the city of Hillsdale from being broken into two districts. 

The committee plans to vote on district lines at their next meeting, which hasn't been set due to problems getting accurate 2010 census data. Kast said she was unable to download the population count in each census tract in Hillsdale County and hopes to have more accurate numbers by the next meeting. 

"We've been urged by the governor and others to do everything we can to reduce the cost of government," Leininger said. "There's an opportunity for us to address that issue right here in Hillsdale County."