At this morning’s meeting, the Indiana County Commissioners approved some election-related grants and applications.
One application is for the Election Integrity Grant Program, which can be used for payment of staff to pre-canvass and canvass mail-in ballots, equipment maintenance, ballot printing, training costs, payment for polling staff, and other related items. Indiana County is requesting $254,807 from the state Department of Community and Economic Development. This represents a roughly $19,000 increase over last year’s allocation.
The commissioners also filed a notice of intent to accept a provisional ballot affidavit redesign envelope grant of $500 to reimburse the county for the purchase of new versions of provisional ballot envelopes. The county’s chief clerk Robin Marayi said that the new ballot envelopes are easier to work with.
She added that while it may not seem much, the $500 will pay for around 2,000 envelopes. Any other envelopes that will be purchased will use grant money and interest earned from the election integrity grant. No general fund money will be used for those purchases.
Commissioners also approved a bid from Horizon construction group for $807,314 to rehab the Kintersburg Covered Bridge in Rayne Township. The bridge would be disassembled, undergo repairs offsite and be reassembled. The bridge has suffered failures of several truss members and the work needs to be done in a historically-sensitive manner.
