Starting on Friday (Jan. 12), Monroe County is again without an election supervisor.
In an email responding to a B Square question, county clerk Nicole Browne confirmed that Ryan Herndon’s last day as election supervisor was Thursday. That was just one day after the four-week window opened for candidates in the 2024 election to file their official paperwork.
According to Browne, Herndon resigned to “pursue outside interests.”
The first day of early in-person voting for the May 7 primary falls on April 9, which is about 90 days away.
In her email message, Browne wrote: “Monroe County’s elections will be fine. When one County Clerk needs assistance, all County Clerks come together to support, uplift and assist.”
Herndon’s is the third departure from the position of Monroe County election supervisor in less than a year. Karen Wheeler served as election supervisor for five years, from mid-October of 2017, until early February 2023.
Elizabeth Sensenstein, who is Monroe County’s human resources administrator, responded to a B Square request for information about the recent history of the election supervisor’s position by listing two more employees after Wheeler: Herndon, who served from Aug. 14, 2023 through Jan. 11, 2024; and before that Jessica Brown, who served five weeks, from May 8 to June 16, 2023.
Responding to The B Square’s speculative count of four, not three departures, Sensenstein wrote: “I do not have official paperwork indicating another employee was in that position after Karen [Wheeler].”
Herndon’s departure comes at a time when the position of chief deputy clerk is still vacant, after Tressia Martin resigned at the end of July 2023. Martin had worked closely with the election division to help administer elections, and had picked up the duties of election supervisor during the time when it was vacant, through her departure at the end of July.
When she resigned as chief deputy last year, Martin indicated to The B Square that one of the factors affecting the timing of her resignation was a difference of opinion between her and Browne about how to treat employees.
After she resigned as election supervisor last February, Wheeler described her departure to The B Square as voluntary, but only in the sense that she had resigned the position. Wheeler said that she’d been given a choice by Browne—either resign or be “let go.”
When Wheeler addressed the election board about her pending departure from the position, she alluded in a general way to some of the difficulties of the previous year’s November general election, which include delayed reporting of counts from around 6,600 ballots. The counts from those ballots were not added into the overall tally on election night as they should have been. The tallies were from ballots that were cast during the early voting period.
In her email to The B Square, Browne wrote that to fill the election supervisor position, she’s looking for someone with project management experience and experience working with elections.
Browne also wrote that the county council had been notified about the current election supervisor vacancy.
At its Dec. 12 meeting last year, the seven-member county council, as the county’s fiscal body, approved an increase in the compensation for the election supervisor. The council’s deliberations started with the recommendation from Waggoner, Irwin, and Sheele, Inc. (WIS), the county’s human resources consultant.
The WIS recommendation was to reclassify the position from COMOT C to COMOT D, which would have meant a relatively small bump in the low end of the salary range, from $41,624 to $43,790. COMOT stands for “computer, office, machine operation, technician” in the county’s job classification scheme.
But Browne argued for more compensation than that, based on the idea that the responsibilities of the election supervisor are more important than the pay for COMOT classifications reflects. At the council’s meeting Browne read aloud a letter from Indiana secretary of state Diego Morales supporting adequate compensation for those who are responsible for elections.
In her email message to The B Square confirming Herndon’s departure, Browne analyzed some of the difficulty in filling the election supervisor position as related to compensation: “As you know, the pay has been an issue in attracting top notch talent committed to working for Monroe County Government.” Browne added, “Someone with the experience for which I am seeking could make twice what the current salary pays.”
The county council also wanted to increase the pay by more than the WIS recommendation. The council’s decision was to reclassify the election supervisor to a PAT D position, which is the highest among the PAT (professional, administrative, technological) classifications. The entry-level pay for a PAT position at 35 hours a week is $55,674 and the range goes up to $70,525.
As elected county clerk, Browne serves on the three-member county election board—but under state law, it’s the clerk, not the election board, that oversees election staff. There is a provision in state law that allows for an election board to assume responsibility for hiring election staff, but only if it has unanimous support.
From the perspective of one part-time Monroe County election division employee, at least in the last few months of 2023, the work environment there was strained. On Nov. 13, 2023, the employee sent an email to the county’s human resources administrator, Elizabeth Sensenstein—cc-ing election board members and some news outlets—which included as an attachment, a letter of termination from Browne dated Nov. 3.
The employee indicated a reluctance to return to Election Central to collect their personal belongings, without a police presence to ensure their safety.
The Nov. 13 email message includes pasted text from an Oct. 30, 2023 email message sent by the terminated employee to Sensenstein, with the subject line “I need HR to help me” and a line of text in the body that reads “I’m being bullied in my workplace.”
According to Browne, the notice of vacancy for the election supervisor position will be posted on Monroe County’s job webpage next week.
Elizabeth is useless and is of NO help to employees. Her title no longer has anything to do with Human Resources, I believe the county has changed it. Health Department employees found that out when they went to her for assistance and received nothing from Elizabeth in return. An employer the size of Monroe County Government should have an actual HR person that rank and file can get assistance from, not a lapdog who does whatever Angie Purdie tells her to do.
The county needs to provide better training for their managers. You can’t expect a good workplace if you don’t provide your leaders with some training. And we do not have an actual HR department to assist employees.
You should look into and ask the county commissioners how is it that the county has no Human Resources Dept. Employees have no help or protection from bad managers. Trust me the county is full of bad leadership and management. There should be no reason why an employer of 500 plus has no Human Resources!
These articles don’t surprise me. Health department and clerks office have literally been ran into the ground by poor leadership. Employees have ran in mass numbers from both depts.