BUFFALO, NY-- When you see the people working at the Erie County Board of Elections downtown, it looks like pretty much any other county government office setting.
But when you pull back the curtain, what you find is that when it comes to who gets recommended for jobs, who gets hired, and who does the hiring, it's a department of county government like no other.
WEB EXTRA: Click here to see a list of employees and their salaries.
The same rules don't apply -- and who you know, or are related to -- is often more important than any qualifications you may have.
Here are just a couple of examples of the "friends and family members" working at the Board, uncovered by a 2 On Your Side investigation.
On the Republican side:
- The father of former Republican County Chairman Jim Domagalski has a $57,000 a year job.
- The mother of Jeff Bochiechio - an aide to former County Executive Chris Collins - has a $49,000 a year job.
- And Grant Loomis, Collins' former spokesman just got a $72,000 a year job.
On the Democratic side:
- The son of former state Assemblyman Arthur Eve has a $72,000 a year job.
- The mother Jeremy Zellner, who was the right hand man of Democratic chairman Len Lenihan, has a $28,000 a year job.
- And former county legislator Robert Reynolds got a $19,000 a year part time job, with health benefits, after he was defeated for re-election.
And we found many more employees at the Board who either work in party politics or have relatives who do.
Dennis Ward is the Board's Democratic Commissioner.
Scott Brown: "Coincidence that these people who are related to someone are on the payroll here?"
Dennis Ward: "I don't think it's a coincidence, I think everyone at the board understands that the Board of Elections by it's very nature is political, it is politically organized, that is how it's done."
Ralph Mohr is the Board's Republican Commissioner.
Ralph Mohr: "I'm not going to deny that we're in the political realm and we're not covered by civil service exams, people don't have to have particular requirements to work here."
You heard him right, by law unlike in almost every other county department, there are no civil service exams for Board of Elections jobs.
Scott Brown: "Jobs that come open here, are they posted somewhere?"
Dennis Ward: "Not necessarily no. They're discretionary hires so they're no requirements, no civil service, it's not even allowed."
Scott Brown: "So if I was Joe Smith on the street, I would have no idea what jobs are open at the Board of Elections?"
Dennis Ward: "No, not automatically. Most people in the position you're referring to would simply call in or drop a resume off.
Scott Brown: "But it's kind of a closed society?"
Dennis Ward: "It's much more closed to the civil service where there's postings, there's a competitive exam, there's no competitive exams, no postings that's correct."
Here's how the Board of Elections "society" works:
The two party chairmen recommend their choices for commissioner to the county legislature, which then typically rubber stamps them.
The commissioners are basically then beholden to the party chairmen and legislators for their jobs.
And so that's how the mother of a former top aide to Democratic Chairman Lenihan got a job at the Board.
Scott Brown: "Did her son call up and say 'my mom needs a job?'"
Dennis Ward: "He didn't call, but I knew through him that his mother was out of work and I had a position at that time."
And it's also how the Marvin Domagalski, the father of the former Republican County Chairman, got his job.
Ralph Mohr: "That recommendation came from the party. Mr. Domagalski was working for the Peace Bridge Authority and was looking for a change in a position. I had a vacancy in the position of the Assistant Deputy Commissioner for a considerable period of time."
As a result of the county's red-green budget fiasco back in 2005, the size of the Board was cut by about a quarter, to 34 full time positions.
Scott Brown: "Were you able to run elections successfully back then?"
Dennis Ward: "We ran elections and no one challenged them. As far as successfully, I think it had to do with the quality of the services the board was able to produce. In particular, we were unable to get a lot of the changes in registrations in to the system. Then when petitions were filed by certain candidates addresses of people were wrong. You may have people unfairly thrown off the ballot because the registration didn't match their actual residence. We simply couldn't perform many of the functions we are required under law to do."
Scott Brown: "But elections went on, none were challenged, Democracy worked?"
Dennis Ward: "Democracy worked, not as well as it should have, but yes."
Since that time, 26 full time positions have been added to the board and its personnel budget has grown by 50% from $3 million to about $4.5 million.
But Ralph Mohr says there are good reasons behind the growth.
Ralph Mohr: "I think the duties of the Board of Elections have changed over that period of time too. We have done a lot of stuff in house now that we used to outsource. We used to spend about half a million dollars a year printing ballots and now that's done by our own personnel in house. In addition, the old lever machines have been replaced by the electronic voting machines and that requires personnel to maintain those quarterly. There were millions of dollars that were being outsourced that people are doing in house at a much cheaper cost."
Scott Brown: "Is there a way you could get by with five fewer full time employees?"
Ralph Mohr: "The difficultly we have is our job is very time sensitive, we don't delay elections, we have a specific date and we have to meet that regardless because you ramp up for those periods of time, you have other periods where employees aren't working as hard or have as much work to perform. One third of my staff are part-time and I think that's recognition of that fact that come September, come October, come November we're going to be very, very busy and in January and February and March it's not so much."
Scott Brown: "Would there be a way to reduce payroll or people in those slow periods?"
Ralph Mohr: "You could lay off individuals and hope they're still available by the time you need them to come back. When you trade the cost of training a new individual to do it, recognizing you have a very short time period to do it, I'm not really sure there's a cost savings in letting that person go during those slow months."
Dennis Ward: "The key question is when the patronage hires are done, are they quality? And I will stand behind the quality of the work here - not only the way we've handled the workload, but the budget- I will stand behind that 100% and I'd be happy to compare it to anyone else, any other department in the county."
Scott Brown: "I think you fired three or four people after this past November's elections right?"
Dennis Ward: "Yes I did."
Scott Brown: "And why was that?"
Dennis Ward: "Well those are personnel matters and we don't discuss personnel matters."
One of those fired by Ward was a Democratic employee who was suspected of tampering with absentee ballots during last year's County Executive's race.
By law, the Republican and Democratic staffs must mirror each other, so there are two commissioners, two deputy commissioners and so on.
Scott Brown: "Is it fair to say that's so both sides can keep an eye on the other?"
Dennis Ward: "I think it's exactly what it is. It is kind of the mutual gun at each other's heads and that's the essence of the bi-partisan system. Everybody says it's not a good system, there are many faults to it but it's better than the alternative - which would be a very single partisan political system run by a single person who may not have the interests of the other political party at heart."