BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- The Centre County commissioners continue to disagree on several topics. On Tuesday, it was housing out-of-county inmates. Thursday, it was regarding paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for training and operating the newly purchased voting machines.

The commissioners recently approved the purchase of new paper-trail voting machines at a cost of about $1.2 million. This week, they had to decide whether or not to spend close to $300,000 to have the company, ES&S, run the elections in both 2008 and 2009. That money would cover delivering and picking up the voting machines as well as printing, proofing, and delivering the ballots.

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The commissioners voted 2-1 Thursday to approve a $90,000 contract with ES&S. The company will be running the elections this fall. Commissioner Steve Dershem was the only one opposed to accepting that contract. Jon Eich and Rich Rogers said there isn't enough time before November to successfully run the elections in-house.

But when it came to voting on a contract with ES&S worth $188,000 for help with 2009 elections, Eich's motion for approval wasn't even seconded. Dershem and Rogers both want to explore other options.

"You've asked me before if I was completely comfortable with ES&S, and I do have reservations with them," said Rogers. "I'd like to take a look elsewhere and look in-house to see what we can do a reduced cost for taxpayers."

The positive news is, ES&S plans to buy the county's old touch-screen voting machines - at about $1,095 apiece. That means the $1.2 million cost for the new paper-trail machines could technically be cut by about $430,000.