FILE - Voting booths are set up at a polling place in Newtown, Pa., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Although the recent election is over, the work of the Voter Services Department in bringing polling sites in the county into compliance with American with Disabilities Act (ADA), goes on. Lycoming County Commissioner Scott Metzger pointed out that although the need to make the sites handicap accessible is mandated by the Federal government, costs fall on local taxpayers.

“We want to make sure that everyone has access to vote,” Metzger said.

“However, you also want to note on the backside of this that the federal government is not refunding us for this. So this comes out of our general fund,” Metzger said, speaking to Forrest Lehman, director of Voter Services, at this week’s commissioners’ meeting.

Lehman, who agreed that the work is an “unfunded mandate,” was at the meeting requesting $1,219 for additional work needed on a handrail by H&P Construction at Heshbon United Methodist Church, a Loyalsock Township polling site.

Lehman also announced that the county will be going out to bid for the necessary renovations on 30 more polling places. Earlier this year, a contract for construction at the first 30 sites was awarded. The work on that group is “winding down,” according to Lehman, and so the plans are to move on to the next group.

“We had so much fun the first time,” Lehman said with maybe a hint of sarcasm. “We’re ready to do it all over again.”

So far, the amount spent on these projects has amounted to a couple $100,000, Lehman said.

“I think the total we’ve invested, when you put together the design costs for the plans and the surveys we had to do — we had to assess every one of these sites to get a sense of what was working what wasn’t working, what needs to be changed — and then the construction on this first contract we’re up to a few $100,000 it’s anticipated,” he said.

Costs for the work on the second group of sites is also expected to run about the same amount..

“That’s actually better than what some of my initial estimates were. Thankfully, the requirements that the Department of Justice places on accessibility at a polling place facility, it doesn’t touch the entire facility. It’s not every place where people could go,” he said.

“Their concern and what we have to correct out of these places is, what are the parts that a voter touches? So they’re looking at parking outside, path of travel to the entrance, entrance itself. And how do you get to the voting area? So we don’t have to look at everything in the building,” he said.

He noted that Lycoming County is among 11 or 12 other counties that the Department of Justice has chosen to look at polling sites to see if anything needs to be done to increase accessibility.

“That work they’re doing could continue into the future,” Lehman said.

“For our part we have to make these improvements so that we’re complying with the settlement,” he added.

Metzger repeated that it would be nice if the federal government not only mandated the changes, but also helped to support them financially.

Lehman did offer a “silver lining” to the project.

“The sites we’re talking about that we use as polling places, they’re the building blocks of democracy on election day, but every other day of the year they’re important buildings in their community — the fire halls, municipal buildings, churches, civic buildings,” Lehman said.

“So the improvements we’re making — we have to do them because of elections — but the facilities will also benefit from those improvements all year long, the people that use them. As a county, we made a lot of investments, you know, in area institutions and this would fall into that wheelhouse,” he added.