Luzerne County manager elaborates on election consultant decision

Bringing in an outside consultant to help with the November general election turned out to be a wise decision, Luzerne County Acting Manager Romilda Crocamo told council this week.

“I’m going to say it publicly. In July of 2021, when I took over as acting county manager, there was no one in the county that could successfully run an election. I’ll say it. It’s the elephant in the room. It’s the elephant that has been in this room for a long time,” she said during Tuesday’s 2022 proposed budget presentation.

Crocamo said she hasn’t for “one second” regretted the decision to retain The Elections Group for $70,000 — an action some county officials had criticized.

In its consulting role, The Elections Group crafted an extensive project calendar to track tasks and deadlines and recommended new procedures, including a system of segregated stations with color-coded bins and tickets to better track paper ballots as they were processed, Crocamo said. The consultants were on site throughout the general election and will be providing a report on their observations, she said.

“Anybody who came and watched how the election took place and how the process took place under their advice as opposed to previous elections, you know it was night and day,” Crocamo said.

There were “a lot of problems” in the election bureau, and the county “made significant inroads” in addressing them, she said. In her view, the general election was a “step in the right direction.”

The election bureau had been plagued with turnover since Marissa Crispell resigned as director in September 2019 following criticism over her participation in vendor-funded advisory board trips.

Her successor, Shelby Watchilla, left for another position last December, after a year in the position. Bob Morgan, the next director, resigned this September after six months on the job because he obtained a federal government position.

Councilman Harry Haas thanked Crocamo for her candid appraisal of the situation. He said the next election director must get a grip on addressing needs and asked if she has selected someone for the vacant position.

Crocamo said interviews are underway this week. The position has been advertised at $64,500, which is the compensation that had been paid to Watchilla and Morgan. Minimum qualifications include four years of proven elections management experience and two years of supervisory experience in an elections bureau environment that includes direct experience with electronic voting machines.

Councilman Walter Griffith said “the shame to the whole thing” is that improvements came from an outside consultant instead of a salaried election director.

“Well, that’s going to change. That will change,” Crocamo said.

In reviewing the budget, Haas and Griffith questioned how the consultant was paid.

When announcing the consultant hiring in August, Crocamo said the expenditure does not require council approval because budget/finance confirmed $70,000 was available in the election bureau budget, which is part of the administrative services division.

However, budget/finance representatives said Tuesday there were no longer funds available in the bureau or administrative division when the bill had to be paid after the election. Instead, the payment came from the law division, with the expectation it will be eligible for reimbursement from a state grant, they said.

Griffith said the administration should have obtained council approval if a different division is covering the expense of another.

Crocamo said Griffith is correct, and she accepted responsibility for failing to notify council.

Budget

Crocamo’s proposed, no-tax-hike 2022 budget seeks $1.48 million to cover election bureau expenses, or an increase of $647,344. She agreed to furnish additional information on added expenses after Haas and Griffith questioned the amounts.

The increases include funding to add two new positions — a non-union election operations staffer and a union administrative assistant. That would boost the staff from six to eight employees.

Council Chairman Tim McGinley asked for an explanation of the new positions.

Crocamo said staffing shortages had been discussed during past meetings of council’s election inquiry committee and the county’s volunteer citizen election board, and the administrative assistant will help address some of the needs.

The operations employee would oversee the many logistics involved in running elections throughout the year, she said, adding there is a “popular misconception” that election bureaus have little to do outside the time periods of primary and general elections. For example, she said the operations employee would make sure the county starts proofing ballots and reconciling vote tallies sooner.

“We have a lot more work to do to make sure that the elections are done fairly and transparently and to reinforce to the voting population in Luzerne County that our system works,” she told council.

Griffith asked if Dominion Voting Systems Inc. ended up compensating the county for the mislabeling of county Republican ballots as Democratic ones in the May 18 primary.

In addition to supplying the county’s voting equipment, Dominion programs ballots onto the devices at the county’s request. The company said human error had caused the data entry typographical mistake, and the county administration also acknowledged it did not independently test the ballots after they were programmed into the machines.

As compensation, Crocamo told Griffith Dominion did not charge the county for approximately $75,000 in work it had performed.

Haas noted Crispell had programmed ballots when she was director, which saved the county money and reduced reliance on an outside contractor. Crocamo said she is exploring ways to perform more election-related duties in-house.