Voters in Fairfield and Norridgewock have two choices to represent their district on the Somerset County Board of Commissioners.

Incumbent Robert Sezak, current chairman of the board, and Caroline W. Toto-Lawrence are the two candidates running for the District 1 seat in the Nov. 5 election, set to be the county’s only contested race this year.

Somerset County’s five commissioners set policies for the county and play a key role in crafting the annual budget. Functions of Somerset County government, like most other Maine counties, include the Sheriff’s Office, the jail, the district attorney’s office, the Registry of Deeds, the Registry of Probate, the Emergency Management Agency, and the public safety communications center, among others.

Commissioners, who typically meet as a board twice per month, are each paid $9,500 per year. All elected positions in Somerset County, except for district attorney, are non-partisan.

Sezak, 72, of Fairfield, was first elected to the Board of Commissioners in 2016 and is in his second four-year term. The owner of Re-Books bookstore in Waterville and a former member of the Fairfield Town Council said he is running again for a third term because there is still work to do.

“I think we’ve got a good team,” Sezak said in an interview, “and I want to continue helping Somerset County go forward.”

For example, Sezak said, the board has been working to support the Sheriff’s Office as it, like many law enforcement agencies in Maine, has struggled with staffing and acquiring new vehicles. He and the other commissioners have supported modernizing the agency’s equipment, he said, such as the recent decision to acquire body and cruiser cameras that work with artificial intelligence software to help produce police reports.

Sezak also said he was proud of what he called smaller victories in his time on the board, as commissioners worked to update policies and take care of regular business. Some that Sezak cited include granting an abatement for a property in the county’s unorganized territory, which was upheld in court after the state challenged it, and finding a grant to upgrade the lights at the county courthouse in Skowhegan.

“There are those little things that you have to pay attention to and be on top of,” Sezak said.

Moving forward, Sezak said the commissioners intend to continue to look at ways to regionalize certain services to reduce redundancy of efforts among municipalities, he said.

Funding for the jail will also a top priority, he said, as counties across Maine push the Legislature for more revenue sharing to support county jails. Sezak said he has been working on the issue as Somerset County’s representative on the Maine County Commissioners Association board of directors.

“We’re always looking for alternative funding mechanisms to help alleviate the taxpayers,” Sezak said.

Toto-Lawrence, 58, of Fairfield, said she is running for commissioner to best serve her constituents.

“I believe in paving a path of a brighter future for District 1,” Toto-Lawrence said in an interview. “But I don’t serve just the towns; I serve the whole county. There’s always speedbumps and there’s always obstacles, but through negotiation with the other commissioners and listening to what the citizens say as well, we can negotiate and find a way to overcome challenges.”

Toto-Lawrence said her experience as owner of the Fairfield-based home caregiver agency Caring Hands Home Care, previous elected position on the Maine School Administrative District 49 board of directors, and past career as a mental health case manager have prepared her to work on pressing matters with others as a team, negotiate and create budgets.

“I feel that all of that perfectly aligns with the challenges I’m going to face as a county commissioner,” she said.

Supporting law enforcement and public safety is a top priority for Toto-Lawrence. Those services are especially important in more rural areas of Somerset County, she said.

Toto-Lawrence said another of her priorities is improving communication with the public about the budget and the budgeting process.

“All aspects as a county commissioner — you need to be transparent,” Toto-Lawrence said. “Your constituents need to know how your handling issues, especially when money is being spent.”

In Somerset County, the Board of Commissioners first creates a proposed budget, which the 10-member Budget Committee can then change. The Board of Commissioners can only override Budget Committee changes with a two-thirds majority vote, which the Budget Committee can also override with its own two-thirds majority.

In other Somerset County races, incumbent Commissioner Cyprien J. Johnson, of Madison, is running uncontested in District 2. Judge of Probate Robert M. Washburn, of Skowhegan, and Register of Probate Victoria M. Hatch, of Skowhegan, both incumbents, are also running for re-election uncontested.

For register of deeds, Tanya I. Belanger, of Bingham, the office manager for the Somerset County Registry of Deeds, is the only declared write-in candidate. There are no declared candidates for that post.

A referendum question will also ask voters for the second year in a row to change the register position from elected to appointed.