$8,000 sought to rent voting machines
Sunday, October 30, 2005
By DAVID REID    The Republican

HOLYOKE - City Clerk Susan M. Egan has asked the City Council to appropriate $8,000 to pay for the rental of 16 optical-scanning voting machines used in the Oct. 11 city-wide preliminary election.

The money was needed because in August the city's 16 voting machines, purchased about 10 years ago, were discovered to have been damaged by a roof leak in City Hall.

The request will come in the form of a financial order at Tuesday's City Council meeting, which starts at 7:30 p.m. in City Hall.
Last month, the City Council approved the transfer of $100,000 from the city's stabilization fund to a capital outlay line item in the city clerk's budget.

Egan's request would shift money from that account to a line item for purchasing equipment.

Although the new voting machines were originally estimated to cost $6,250 apiece, Egan said yesterday the final cost, determined through a formal bidding process, was just under $5,000 each, for a total of $77,600.

In fact, Egan said, the new voting machines were delivered Thursday and are now being stored in the basement of City Hall. The machines were bought from L.H.S. Associates of Methuen, the low bidder.

Egan said the whatever money remains of the $100,000 by next June 30, the end of the fiscal year, will be turned over to the general fund for use as "free cash" in fiscal year 2007.