Board hears budget update; county moves $36,000 of elections requests into contingency

Victoria, presenting the Board of Elections' budget update, walked members through the budget timeline and said feedback from the county assistant county manager resulted in moving two items into county contingency and reducing the elections' formal request by $36,000. "The first is our training space. We've requested 21,000," she said, and the second was a $15,000 portion of the board's outside-legal-counsel request; Victoria said $5,000 remained in the operating budget to continue work on the MOU and routine needs.

Board members asked how the elections office would secure outside counsel if outside counsel were required beyond the $5,000. County legal/ACM representatives said they would raise conflicts and could support the request to obtain outside counsel where necessary, but the final decision rests with county leadership and budgeting processes.

Victoria listed the office's prioritized needs as: 1) a provisional-research team to reduce the risk of missing a new statutory requirement while allowing thorough provisional review; 2) in-house seasonal staff with an increased entry pay rate to address recruiting challenges; and 3) an election-day poll-worker pay adjustment for fairness and recruiting but noted it is a less immediate operational need.

Members discussed budget trends showing early-voting costs approaching election-day costs and asked for a follow-up educational session with the county budget and HR teams to clarify how salaries and benefits are allocated under the MOU adopted in 2022. The board agreed to continue that conversation in the scheduled education session with budget and HR staff.