County signs off on recommended salary for new elections director

All but one Pasquotank commissioner voted to support the Board of Elections’ recommended salary for the county’s new elections director on Monday.

The commissioners voted 6-1 to pay Janae Hedgepeth a salary of $65,813, plus an additional $2,500 reimbursable moving expense during Monday’s Board of Commissioners’ meeting.

Commissioner Sean Lavin, who represents the county’s Northern Outside district, cast the lone no vote. Lavin objected after voicing concerns over Hedgepeth’s experience in conducting county elections work.

Hedgepeth began as the county’s top elections official on Monday, Sept. 9, after the elections board announced the previous Friday that she had been hired. A press release at the time stated Hedgepeth had some experience as an elections worker.

“For the past three years, she has worked in a part-time role with the Hertford County Board of Elections as an elections official/administrative assistant,” the release stated. “In that role, she conducted voter outreach, evaluated voter applications for completeness, processed registrations and provided elections day support.”

Hedgepeth could not be reached Wednesday morning for comment.

Lavin said he understands the amount of attention surrounding the hiring of a new elections director, given former director Emma Tate and deputy director Troy White both resigned in July. Their last days on the job were one week apart in August. With early voting for the Nov. 5 general elections set to begin Oct. 17, finding replacements for Tate and White was a priority for the five-member Pasquotank Board of Elections chaired by Jacquelyn Brown.

In response, county commissioners held conversations and expressed interest in helping to ensure the elections board had the resources and support, from local and state sources — including hiring outside election day workers — “all to help them conduct an organized and fair election,” Lavin said. The county also agreed to spend nearly $11,000 to assist with election day operations.

“I know we got some calls about the applicant,” Lavin said, before the commissioners moved the discussion to closed session. “I know throughout the entire experience we were getting the story from staff that we weren’t getting any qualified applicants in the (hiring) process at all, and I think some information has definitely come out since then concerning people who did apply, who didn’t participate in the process.”

Neither of the other commissioners said publicly that they received calls from concerned residents about Hedgepeth’s hiring.

There are “a lot of questions over the experience and what we did to confirm the employment history of the person who was hired and offered the position,” Lavin said. “So I think we do have a lot to talk about in closed.

“I’m extremely concerned that the information passed down to us is not holding up, once it’s starting to come to light,” Lavin said.

In his comments, Lavin was referring back to an August commissioners’ meeting when Pasquotank Manager Sparty Hammett updated the board on the search for a new elections director. At that meeting, Hammett said it was unlikely the county would be able to hire anyone with elections experience to fill Tate’s position.

“And that was what was conveyed to (County Attorney) Mike Cox and I by the (N.C.) State Board of Elections,” Hammett said Monday.

At the time of Tate’s resignation, she was the 63rd county elections director to vacate the position since 2019.

Commissioners’ initial conversation about Hedgepeth’s hiring happened during the meeting of the board’s finance committee, which includes all seven commissioners. The committee then went into a closed session to further discuss the matter.

Coming out of closed session, Lavin made a motion that the finance committee decline the elections board’s recommended salary for Hedgepth. After that motion failed, Commissioner Lloyd Griffin, who represents the county’s Northern Inside district, made a motion that the committee approve the elections board’s recommended salary for Hedgepeth.

Prior to voting, Commissioner Jonathan Meads, who represents the county’s Southern Outside district, said he would approve the salary request based on the Board of Elections’ recommendation to hire Hedgepeth and the county’s recommended salary.

Commissioner Clifford Shaw, who holds the Southern Inside seat, echoed Meads’ comments but also said he was voting to approve the request because the N.C. State Board of Elections also signed off on hiring Hedgepeth.

Lavin said he would vote no because the commissioners “don’t have enough information to prove that we actually do have the experience here.”

“It doesn’t sound like we’re ever going to get that,” he said. “I’ll be voting against it.”

The item was next moved to the agenda of Monday night’s regular commissioners’ meeting, where it passed with a final vote of 6-1, with Lavin again voting in opposition.

According to the Board of Elections, Hedgepeth’s career background includes varied experience, including 10 years as an assistant manager in retail sales. She holds a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies from Elizabeth City State University.

During the commissioners’ comments portion of Monday’s board meeting, Meads referred to a recent article in The Daily Advance. The article featured Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper outlining his outright opposition to the state Legislature’s plan to expand Opportunity Scholarships, otherwise known as school vouchers, to an additional 55,000 students. Parents use the vouchers to help cover the cost of tuition for their children to attend private schools that participate in the vouchers program.

“I guess there’s been a lot of discussion here lately about the Opportunity Scholarships; I want to take an opportunity to talk about it. The governor had a good comment in the paper. I wish the paper would have showed the other side, too, but they didn’t, they chose not to,” Meads said. “But I think anytime that parents are able to have a choice in their child’s education, is very good. And you say, ‘Well Commissioner Meads, the state is taking money from our schools.’ No, the parents are choosing to send their kids elsewhere. Maybe you should find out why that is.”

According to Cooper, the Republican-led Legislature’s decision to spend an additional $625 million in new funding on Opportunity Scholarships will be “devastating for education across the board,” but will have its most severe impacts on rural school districts. Cooper’s office said Pasquotank County, which has six participating private schools, stands to lose more than $490,000 in state funding because of the voucher program expansion.