The Guthrie County Board of Supervisors recently did something for the first time this year: canvass the recent election twice.

This was due to the state legislature combining the city and school board elections into one this November, in an effort to boost voter turnout for the school board races and have the costs shared between cities and schools, according to County Auditor Marci McClellan. Deputy Auditor in charge of elections Dani Fink told the Board at their recent meeting that this change had no effect on turnout, except for the Guthrie Center School Board race seeing an increase as there was a City bond measure on the ballot. Fink says there were a couple benefits to the new election such as how the Auditor’s Office didn’t have to go through continuous election planning from September through December with Rural Improvement Zone races, like in years past. However, it’s the process leading up to November 5th, and afterwards that have proved most difficult. Fink says they had to issue 19 different ballots to cover school districts that are controlled by other counties, such as Audubon and Exira-Elk Horn-Kimballton.

Fink also comments on the billing process, because in previous years the school districts covered all the costs of their election and same for the cities, “That’s the thing, we have to figure out is how to bill, because now we have to split the cost up between the city and the school and we have to find the right way to do it and the state is offering no guidance on it. They’re basically like, ‘Well, figure it out,’ literally. They’ve offered us nothing.”

McClellan agreed with Fink, stating there is no uniformity of how all the county auditors are billing the elections. For example, the West Central Valley School District will expect three different bills from the counties it covers. Fink says she wishes the state could have tested this new system on just a couple counties, but that it’s possible the format could change in two years.