SIDNEY — The Shelby County Board of Elections declared district 3-C in Sidney official and made the decision to end Deputy Director Andrew Higgins’ probationary period early.

The new district in the third ward of Sidney was formed due to having too many registered voters in district 3-B. According to Higgins, before the redistricting, 3-B had 1,561 registered voters, 161 voters over the threshold required by the Secretary of State.

“By dividing part of that (3-B) into the new 3-C ward, 3-B now has 948 registered voters and the new 3-C has 613 registered voters with plenty of room for growth for that new sub-district,” said Higgins.

The next step is to meet with engineers to create new district maps and to send notification to voters in district 3-C regarding the change closer to the next election, as there is no May election in Shelby County.

Following the regular meeting, the board went into an executive session to discuss matters of employement and compensation. After returning from executive session to board unanimously voted to end Higgins’ probationary period of employement early, effective in the next pay period, with a change in comensation to be the same as that of Director Pamela Kerrigan.

Also discussed during the meeting is the House Bill 458, which changes voting documentation requirements. With the passage of House Bill 458, Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is now offering free state issued IDs to anyone over the age of 17 that does not have a driver’s license. For more information on documents needed to obtain an ID and other frequently asked questions, visit bmv.ohio.gov/dl-id-card.aspx.

In other business:

• The board was informed the deputy director and director will be visiting Auglaize County at the close of election polls on May 2 as observers to learn about election processes in other counties.

• Higgins shared the benefits he received from attending a poll worker training class in Darke County. He attended to learn more about poll worker training before taking on the job of training election workers in Shelby County.

• Kerrigan reminded the board members their Know B4 Training, cyber-security training, needs to be completed soon.

• Kerrigan shared with the board that registration for the Summer Conference is open in the first week of May and the conference will be from June 26 to 28. Danny Cecil and Douglas Pence along with Higgins and Kerrigan are planning to attend the conference.