Published: October 11, 2008 09:38 pm            

Vigo County Clerk Election Preview

TERRE HAUTE — The current Vigo County clerk, who is running for re-election, says the office is running as efficiently as it can under the circumstances, while her challenger for the office says he has plenty of ideas for increasing efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

The clerk develops, maintains and stores all court documentation for Circuit, Superior, and Juvenile courts. The clerk’s responsibilities include collection and disbursement of court costs, fines, judgments, restitutions and various other fees. The clerk also collects and disburses child support payments, issues marriage licenses and conducts all elections. The annual salary for the clerk is $43,155, with an additional $4,500 from the Election Board.

Patricia R. “Pat” Mansard, the Democrat incumbent, said the main issue in the clerk’s office is that the office is understaffed.

“We have a tremendous workload and we are having our staff reduced at the same time,” Mansard said during a recent interview. “We have lost three full-time employees because of the hiring freeze. We do the work of keeping the courts functioning … We are the financial officer of the courts. So that is a tremendous job. In addition to that, we have our child support and marriage licensing, a tremendous records problem, and then of course another full-time job of conducting the elections.”

Mansard added that the issue of efficiency is compounded by problems of staffing space and layout of the office.

“It’s not a matter of efficiency,” she said. “We’re as efficient as we can be. It’s just that we operate under very difficult circumstances; unlike many other clerk’s offices — because of tradition and because of layout of the space provided to the clerk’s office — we have people scattered all over the courthouse, and down at the juvenile center, over in City Hall.”

She added that records and voting equipment are spread around different offices, some of which need to be accessed daily.

“We are really fragmented,” she said.

Mansard said she has long-wished for a single office space for all the deputy clerks so that they all could work together, fill in for one another, and help one another.

“We have to have our clerks that work in the courts stationed in the individual court offices. That doesn’t permit that kind of working relationship,” she said.

When asked what she would like to see happen, Mansard said now that the courthouse renovation is complete, she doesn’t expect any change.

“I just have to work with the situation as it is,” she said. “The courts have very good space but the spaces we’ve been provided for election functioning are totally inadequate.”

Bill Treadway, who currently works in voter registration and serves as chairman of the Vigo County Republican Party, is the Republican nominee for clerk.

Treadway says two main issues for the clerk’s office are reducing costs and improving safety at polling sites.

“Number one, the cost of our elections is way out of control,” he said during a recent interview. “We’ll have to find ways to reduce costs because we’re going to have less tax revenue, and tax revenue will be decreased by the governor’s restructuring plan, property tax relief — which is a good thing — but also, apparently, we’re either going to be in an economic downturn or recession, so we’re going to have less money to spend.”

Treadway gave a few different suggestions for saving money in the clerk’s office.

First, he said, he is in favor of satellite voting and reducing the number of polling places.

“We don’t need as many polling places as we have,” he said. “We should start reducing those by eliminating … the schools [as polling places] to begin with.”

Treadway said a loophole in Indiana law allows registered sex offenders to vote at school polling places during school hours while children are present.

“Right now, a child predator can walk right in to any Vigo County public school on election day, and that needs to be changed,” he said.

Treadway admitted that the odds of “anything happening right there” are low, “but all it would have to be is just, they’d happen to get a glance and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got some xBox games to give away.’ It’s just too big a risk. The schoolkids are there, the schools are open, and you can have a child predator just walk right in.”

Treadway added that changing state legislation to reduce the number of polling places and opening voting centers that would accommodate several precincts would solve the problem of child predators voting in schools, and would save money.

Three counties currently are trying voting centers as a pilot program through the state Legislature.

Treadway said voting centers would be “sort of like super polling places. That, along with satellite voting, should accommodate everybody.”

He added that the cost-savings would come from a reduction in the necessary manpower as well as the rental costs associated with all the polling sites.

“It’s not a simple process of just doing it,” Treadway said. “You have to work with state legislators to get them to okay your plan, but my plan would be to reduce those number of polling places.”

He added that the rules about the number of polling places “were drawn up in horse-and-buggy days. It’s very outdated.”

Mansard said she has not decided yet whether she is in favor of voting centers.

“That’s not anything I have really spent the time investigating as yet, because we’re so busy doing what we have to do every day … Until [the Legislature passes a law about voting centers], that’s not anything that is possible,” she said.

She said she would have to “weigh all of the downsides.”

“The obvious thing is that precincts allow people, in many cases, easy walking distance to a polling site, whereas vote centers would be farther away and probably would have to have transportation to get there,” she said. “However, it might save us some money to have the vote centers, but we’d have to look and see if it would save money and if it would be worthwhile.”

Mansard added that there will be more information next year after results from the pilot counties become available.

Treadway said he wants to make the clerk’s office more efficient by improving record-keeping for circuit court judges.

“I think they would much prefer an electronic system that has a lot less paper,” Treadway said, “And that would save money with storage issues.

“I would love to work with the judges to get a better system, and really, if I’m elected, sit down with them on January 1 and ask what the clerk’s office can do for the circuit court judges to make that system work better,” he said.

Treadway said he would not criticize Mansard’s record in the clerk’s office, but “in general, any time you’re in a position for a long period of time, there’s a tendency to get very comfortable with a routine, maybe be kind of resistant to change, and that’s just sort of a general comment, that’s human nature,” he said.

Mansard, who has been in the clerk’s office for 20 years, 12 of those as clerk, the other eight years as deputy clerk, said she brings to the office extensive experience.

She said her strengths also include, “My devotion to good government and my work ethic.”

Treadway said, “I look forward to serving if elected clerk and I would have an open-door policy; anyone could always come in and talk to the clerk if they had an issue or problem or question.”

He added that he has a long history working with both Democrats and Republicans.

Deb Kelly can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or deb.kelly@tribstar.com.





Candidate Bios

Bill Treadway

Age: 41

Education: Terre Haute North Vigo High School, 1985; B.S. from Indiana State University in geology, 1991; M.S. in history from ISU, 2006.

Experience: Republican board member on the Board of Voter Registration (2004-present); chairman of county Republican Party, 2005 to present; teaches history for Indiana Wesleyan University and ISU; land-use planner at the Area Planning Department

Family: Wife, Angela; three children.



Pat Mansard

Age: 70

Education: Wiley High School, 1956; attended Indiana State University.

Experience: 20 years in Vigo County government; worked for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency; spent several years as a full-time mother.

Family: Late husband, William; four children; 10 grandchildren.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.