Oakland County, Michigan, October 22, 2009 -- Ruth Johnson, the Oakland County Clerk & Register of Deeds, honored a Michigan senator for her work in helping families in foreclosure and the Oakland County director of elections for his innovations, including one service that is saving taxpayers $180,000 a year.

"It's so important to recognize people who do the right thing, really try hard to make a difference and enhance the world around them," said Johnson, who created the STAR (Serving Taxpayers & Residents) AWARDS earlier this year. "These awards recognize that commitment, ingenuity and determination to be good stewards of public money."

The STAR AWARD winners are:

• State Sen. Nancy Cassis - The Novi Republican has worked tirelessly with the Oakland County Clerk's Office to assist families in foreclosure by sponsoring Senate Bill 350 to help homeowners save their homes. The legislation would restore the ability of county registers to provide "pay off" amounts homeowners need to save their homes from foreclosure. Unfortunately, homeowners today must rely on investors who purchased the home at sheriff's sale, and who often have a very financial interest in not returning the home. Some investors refuse to provide "pay-off" amounts or won't provide a detailed list of charges. Worse yet, some financial agencies are charging the original homeowner as much as $200 to calculate the pay-off - and this to families already in financial crisis.
• Joe Rozell - As Oakland County's director of elections, Rozell led the way when the county Elections Division took over ballot programming from a private vendor, saving taxpayers $180,000 a year. Today, Oakland County is among the first in the state to provide accurate ballots to local communities for local, state and federal elections. In addition, Rozell was instrumental in the launch of the Clerk's new, state-of-the-art online election results reporting system. He also led efforts to launch the Clerk's Absentee Ballot Tracker, which allows absentee voters to track their ballot to make sure it is at their local clerk's office in time to be counted on election day and the county's new Election Reminder Service, which sends out an email to remind voters about upcoming elections. Rozell lives in Huntington Woods.

"I'm deeply grateful for this recognition," said Cassis, (R-Novi.) "Michigan is facing a foreclosure crisis and we must provide whatever tools we can to help families save their homes from foreclosure. With Ruth Johnson's support, we were successful in getting my measure approved by the senate last year."