From a County Legislator
by Walt Johnson
Tioga County Legislator, District 4

 The new federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is arriving in Tioga County. This is a federal mandate that new voting processes (voting machines) be used in all subsequent federal elections, starting with the year 2004. This is an effort to ensure that the Florida type fiasco doesn't occur again in any future federal election as well as to ensure the ability of the physically handicapped to participate in the voting process.

 Federal funding has passed both houses of Congress and awaits President Bush's signature. New York State's share is estimated to be $68 million.

 The application for this funding is required by June of this year. The Tioga County Board of Elections (BOE) has prepared several working proposals to assist the individual townships in their participation in this funding process. These proposals will be discussed at a Council of Governments (COG) meeting scheduled for March 20 in the County Office Building's Hubbard auditorium. The facts driving these proposals are:

 1. The county currently has 48 election districts, each with something less than 950 registered voters per district.

 2. Each election district is required to have a separate voting machine. This means the county needs 48 new voting machines and approximately 4 spare machines to address breakdowns and other unanticipated problems.

 3. The individual towns currently own the voting machines for their election districts. The towns store and maintain the voting machines, and select/pay for election custodians and inspectors.

 4. Harvard Custom Manufacturing (Owego), in conjunction with Sequoia Pacific Voting Systems, currently manufacture New York State certified electronic voting machines fully compatible with the HAVA.

 5. The New York State Board of Elections has not yet developed the process for the counties to submit their funding requests. A meeting of all local BOEs across the state to describe the process is scheduled for April 23-25 in Albany.
 The March 20 COG meeting should be an interesting one to attend. It's open to the public and let me encourage all to attend.

 Our newly elected State Comptroller Alan Hevesi has brought more devastating news to the counties. He has estimated that counties and local governments will have to pay 11% of their payroll into the state pension fund. Previously the comptroller estimated the pension costs would only rise from the 1% for 2002 to 4% for 2003. The impact to Tioga County is expected to be approximately $1,513,000. Tioga County budgeted for the estimated 4% increase, but not for the 11% estimated by the state comptroller. 

 The financial issues facing Tioga County at this time make it absolutely imperative that the county exercise strong fiscal restraint. This legislator will continue to work for reduced county expenditures, and will NOT support a $29 million county office structure being built on Route 434.