By Sara QuamRock County is among a minority of counties to get more money for roads in 2006. County Engineer Mark Sehr shared the apportionment for county state aid roads at the Tuesday Rock County Commissioners meeting.In all, the county will receive almost $2.5 million, a 1.5 percent increase over last year for construction and maintenance. Of that total, $199,545 goes toward maintenance within cities of the county and $299,317 goes toward construction within cities of the county.Rock County will receive $183,785 in bridge apportionment. The average 2005 township bridge cost was $167,452.Only 21 of 87 counties in the state received an increase in funding for road work.In other Highway Department news, Rock County Commissioners approved spending up to $2,400 for a study of whether Heartland Express should be an addition to the Highway Department Building, or get its own new site.Heartland Express received a $500,000 grant for a new facility and the study will determine needs of both departments and gauge whether an addition on the Highway Department building is feasible.Sales tax paid to South DakotaCounty Attorney Don Klosterbuer recommended the board not to pursue getting refunds for sales tax the county paid to South Dakota.Klosterbuer was asked to look into the matter after the county was audited and found the county paid some sales tax to South Dakota, when the county is actually exempt there and should have paid those amounts to Minnesota. The law stating that started in 1992. Prior to that, government units didn’t pay any sales tax.The county had to pay Minnesota $8,000. The state suggested the county contact South Dakota and try to get the sales tax back, but considering the staff time it would take and the likelihood of South Dakota cooperating, Klosterbuer said, "We’ll just change procedures in the future."The state is slowly auditing all counties, but many haven’t been visited yet. Border counties are the most affected by the sales tax audits.Sharing costs for voting machinesThe board directed County Attorney Klosterbuer and Auditor Treasurer Gloria Rolfs to draft an agreement between the county and its various precincts for cost sharing expenses related to the new voting machines. Under a new federal law, every voter in a federal election must have the opportunity to vote privately and independently, regardless of any disability which may have in the past required the voter to seek assistance in order to vote.Further, every voter must be provided with the opportunity to correct errors on a ballot, which may otherwise void that person’s vote. A big part of the election changes are new voting machines and ballot counters that the federal government has mandated be purchased. Federal grant dollars of $241,420 will be available for Rock County to purchase the election equipment.One of the machines, a computerized voting machine called AutoMARK, is designed for people who have a disability or have difficulty voting on standard ballots.In some cases, even a broken arm or mobility issue makes voting difficult. With the AutoMARK machine, non-English speaking individuals or the blind may vote because the terminal assists them through the process, which is still private.Voters won’t notice new ballots with the new election system. How votes are tallied will vary from the past, however.People used to slip their ballot into a box to be fed into a counter later. Now, people place the same ballot into a counter, which tells them immediately if there was an error on their ballot that they then get the chance to fix.The new counting system is supposed to be faster.Improving roads for school busesThe board reported that it had positive meetings with school officials who were concerned about adequate road clearing being done for buses to transport children to and from school.The county shared route information, contact numbers and policies and procedures. School officials did the same so they could work together and communicate during snow storms.