The Board of Selectmen following a strained discussion at its most recent meeting voted 2-1 to increase the compensation for each of New Canaan’s registrars of voters by 3%, to $41,200.
The figure is far less than the $52,000 that one of the registrars, Joan McLaughlin, had been seeking. In addressing the selectmen at their Jan. 7 meeting, McLaughlin said her work doubled with the introduction of early voting in Connecticut last year, as well as a recent shakeup of state legislature districts that resulted in three more for New Canaan.
McLaughlin, who serves two-year terms as the Republican registrar in New Canaan, said during the meeting that she worked an average of 32 hours per week last year (up from 20 to 22 hours per week in the past) and that the higher figure was due to 14 days of early voting.
“I have 14 days of early voting that starts at 10 o’clock in the morning and ends at 6 o’clock at night,” McLaughlin said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “That’s why I’m asking for more money.”
McLaughlin, who participated in the meeting via Zoom, also said she is under-compensated compared to nearby towns such as Darien, where the registrars get benefits, and Wilton, where the pay is $56,000 plus benefits. (The newly elected first-time Democratic registrar, Liz Orteig, was not in attendance.)
In discussing the request, First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll noted that compensation for New Canaan’s registrars has increased in recent years—from $22,000 in January 2017, to $26,000 in January 2021, to $40,000 in January 2023 (“So that’s a big jump,” Karl said)— said that the town pays a lot of money to the registrars’ office when part-time wages are factored in, and questioned why so much money is spent on updating voter rolls in a relatively small town.
Carlson called for McLaughlin to describe the day-to-day tasks of a registrar, saying, “I know that around the election times and the primaries and the caucuses, there are additional duties. Could you go into sort of the day-to-day, what you and your staff are doing? What’s your job? What’s your staff’s job? That kind of thing, because I think a number of us would like a little bit better background.”
McLaughlin said: “What we do in our office and we have to follow state statute as far as upkeeping the voter rolls.”
Murphy Carroll asked whether that’s “a 100% manual process” or automated.
McLaughlin said it’s automated but the state system is “not the most efficient.”
Asked to explain why it takes so long to update a single change to a voter roll, McLaughlin said: “You go into the state system. You find out what the change is. You make the change. That takes a while. You generate a letter. Then you print a new registration card. You clip it to the old card. You pull the old card, you clip it, you refile it into either ‘active,’ ‘inactive’ or ‘off.’ And you send out a letter.”
Carlson asked how the town is notified when someone who still owns a home here moves away. McLaughlin said those people typically call the registrar. Carlson asked whether that’s the only way someone comes off of the voter rolls.
McLaughlin said, “That’s one way. Then the Motor Vehicle Department would maybe inform us … It could come from the Secretary of State’s office that has received information from the state that they have now registered in. But that doesn’t come online. That comes in hard copy, maybe a month, two months, three months after it happens. And it’s not in every state.”
During the discussion, McLaughlin challenged the figures that finance officials had provided the selectmen—in particular, some $90,000 in part-time wages since July of last year, in addition to the registrars’ compensation. McLaughlin also contended that the full earnings for a sort of floating municipal worker (creation of a former first selectman) whose job title is “special projects” had been mis-assigned to her department. The selectmen and Human Resources Director Cheryl Pickering Jones, who presented the item to the Board, pushed back on McLaughlin’s arguments, though the issues went unresolved during the meeting.
Because McLaughlin was to be sworn in, the selectmen could not postpone a vote on the registrars’ compensation to a future meeting, Pickering Jones said.
Carlson suggested a cost-of-living adjustment of 3%, bringing the current $40,000 compensation to $41,200. She and Karl voted in favor of that increase. Murphy Carroll voted against, saying more information is needed.
At one point during the discussion—which comes as the municipal budget season gets underway—Murphy Carroll questioned why so much money is spent “to just keep track of the registration of 16,000 residents.”
“I personally don’t understand why—combined with the two voter registrars and the additional staff—why do we have to spend this much money to just keep track of the registration of 16,000 residents?” she said. “And many of them don’t move. There are some on the fringe that move, but many people, their registration—I don’t understand what it takes. I also, personally, I never thought that the role of voter registrar, that someone went to it because it was a compensated role. To me, I always thought it was civic duty that you would do it … To me it looks like a civic function. And, $40,000 a year is a kind of a lower level part-time job. But you’re not doing it for the pay. I just, I don’t understand. But I also don’t understand if you have two people doing this full-time, it seems like maybe you’re dealing with an old system, but it’s not that many people who are changing the voter rolls. We don’t really have any voter fraud, which is whether it’s up-to-date or not.”
McLaughlin said in response: “We have hundreds of rules and regulations from state statute that we have to follow.”
Karl said as the discussion wound down that “obviously the three of us appreciate everything that your office does.”
“We know you guys are working hard, we’ve seen you working in the office at all hours of the day, especially during election time,” he said. “But, personally when I see the increase in ‘23 at the rate it was and then to ask for another 30% in a year where you’re going to see the three of us struggle mightily as we go through the budget season, it’s going to be a tough. Another tough year. It’s difficult to put another 30% on top of that. So Dionna’s kind of throwing a life preserver here at a COLA [cost-of-living adjustment] increase, which I think is a great compromise. And I know it’s not the full $5,000, but … I thought we were headed to zero. I think the COLA increase is a nice compromise, so that’s where I’m landing on this. But again, we want to thank you guys for everything you’re doing. We don’t underestimate the amount of work that’s being done by your office.”