SIDNEY — Interviews are planned for this week with candidates who applied to be the next director for the Shelby County Board of Elections.

Following an executive session Monday morning, Chairman Chris Gibbs reported two qualified applicants had applied for the position. Director Dawn Billing was instructed to set up interviews with the pair for either Wednesday or Thursday.

The successful candidate will replace Billing who is retiring Feb. 16.

The board also discussed establishing an open records policy. The matter had been discussed in July 2016 but no action had been taken.

After reviewing what had been done in 2016, the board also looked at the open records policy established by the Shelby County Commissioners. The board decided to model their policy after the commissioners’ policy and adopt it at the next meeting.

Billing said a lot of the open records information is email to those requesting it. If a person requests a hard copy of the records, then they are charged per page, she said.

Billing also discussed entering a contract with Ballot Sync, which sends emails to board of elections when a overlapping school district or election should be on a Shelby County ballot.

She said in 2017 the board was able to use the software for free. The cost in 2018 would be $1,582.

Billing said the county has overlapping voters in Miami, Logan, Darke, Champaign, Auglaize and Montgomery counties.

Prior to using the software in 2017, Billing said she would have to call, fax or email other board of elections to see if they had issues or candidates that needed to be included on the local ballot.

“This is just extra security to make sure we’re getting all the overlaps,” said Billing.

“It seems like a good insurance policy,” said board member Jon Baker.

Billing said in odd election years all board of educations have candidates on the ballot.

The board approved asking Dan Shebesta, of Ballot Sync, to give a demonstration on the software before a decision was made whether or not to enter into a contract.

Billing also discussed testing of ballots with Unity to make sure they are reading correctly. Shebesta handles the testing and will be asked to share information with the board.

The board also approved the bills that have been filed for audit.

The board’s next regular meeting will be Tuesday, Feb. 20, at 7:30 a.m.