V oters usually want to know more about people running for office, but when it comes to a half-dozen races at the bottom of Tuesday’s ballot, what many people need to know is more about the office.
Register of probate? County treasurer? Sheriff? What the heck do those people do?
With that uncertainty in mind, the Monitor put together this short primer on the county positions you’ll see on the ballot.
First, a little history.
New Hampshire was divided into counties in 1769, largely to make the courts more accessible in the days when travel was tough. In 1855, county governments were formalized to handle other functions that were too expensive for towns, but not suitable for statewide government. They included jails and the “county farm,” which housed indigent people.
In recent decades, the role of counties has shrunk. The state has moved many of its functions, including welfare, away from counties and shifted them to towns and cities, while courts have shifted to oversight of the state.
The process hasn’t been neat and tidy, however, as can be seen most obviously in the register of probate position.
When New Hampshire unified the courts in the late 1980s, the 10 probate registers (one for each county) were made part of the state government even though, in a holdover from constitutional changes made in 1877, they remain elected on a county-by-county basis. The reorganization of the courts in 2011 removed virtually all work from the position; the probate registrar’s primary job is now the preservation of files that have “the potential for historical significance.”
There have been attempts to either give some duties back to the probate registrar or else eliminate it, but it remains in this legal limbo.
Then there’s the vexing question of elected versus appointed.
Why, for example, are the folks running the county nursing home and the county jail appointed by county commissioners, while the folks running the county sheriff’s office and county attorney’s office elected by the public?
There’s no reason, really, except for legal and constitutional changes made over the decades. There have been numerous efforts to tweak parts of this in the state Legislature. In 2007, for example, a bill was filed to make all county positions appointed rather than elected, but it failed.
The main argument against having elections is that some positions require specific skills and knowledge but state law doesn’t require candidates to have such knowledge. The county treasurer, for example, isn’t required to know anything about accounting, and the sheriff doesn’t have to have any law enforcement background.
Here are some details about the positions in Merrimack County, courtesy of Michael Rivard, finance director for the county.
All 10 counties have the same positions. All are two-year terms. The positions are presented in the order they appear on most ballots.
JOB: The sheriff’s department provides a variety of law enforcement tasks, including providing security in all courts and transporting prisoners from jails to court hearings; providing dispatch services for police, fire and ambulance in many smaller towns; serving warrants and finding fugitives from justice; and serving civil papers for many types of cases, including evictions, child custody and domestic violence suits.
SALARY: $78,400.
EMPLOYEES: 70 – consisting of 39 full-time and 31 part-time and per diem positions, including deputies, court security, administrative support and dispatchers.
BUDGET OVERSEEN: $1,034,683 revenue, $4,380,297 expenditures.
JOB: Prosecutes felonies and misdemeanor appeals in state courts. It does not handle federal cases, which are taken up by the U.S. attorney’s office in Concord.
SALARY: $95,000.
EMPLOYEES: 47 – includes 32 attorneys and support staff, as well as 15 employees in the Adult Diversion/Pre-Trial Services office.
BUDGET: $198,594 revenue and $4,251,422 expenditures.
JOB: Charged with collecting the county property tax from municipalities, overseeing financial accounts and investing county funds.
SALARY: $3,000; part-time position. The position is part of the business office.
JOB: The office processes and keeps records about the selling and buying of land and buildings, including plans, foreclosures and the like.
SALARY: $71,066.
EMPLOYEES: Seven full-time positions.
BUDGET: Revenue $1,307,000 and expenditures $785,012.
JOB: The Probate Court has jurisdiction over wills, trusts and estates, guardianships and involuntary commitments, adoptions, name changes and partition of real estate. The Merrimack County Probate Court has five full-time staff. The Register of Probate has virtually no duties since a 2011 court reorganization.
SALARY: $200.
JOB: Three commissioners are elected by district. District 1 covers Concord, Boscawen and Webster; District 2 covers north and east of Concord, including Boscawen, Canterbury, Loudon and Pembroke; District 3 covers south and west of Concord, from Bow out to Newbury and Danbury. They oversee the property and real estate belonging to the county, notably the jail and nursing home, and the various departments and the county budget, which in 2018 is $102.6 million.
SALARY: $9,800 (chairman).
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
