Election budgets continue to vex Council
By Kathleen Folkerth
DOWNTOWN AKRON — The high price of conducting elections and the rising numbers of foreclosures in the county were discussed in Summit County Council’s Jan. 22 Finance Committee meeting as the body continued to work toward approving full 2007 budgets for some county departments.
Council passed temporary budgets for most departments at the end of 2006, when time was running out and many questions remained about requests and what Summit County Executive James McCarthy was allowing in the budgets.
As in previous meetings, the budget request from the Summit County Board of Elections was scrutinized after Director Bryan Williams defended the board’s need for more funding.
“In the era of [the Help
America Vote Act], conducting elections is more
expensive than it’s ever been,” Williams
told the committee. “It’s our opinion that
the proposal for our budget is not sufficient to carry
us through. We may be short.”
The board requested $6.8 million
to operate this year, but McCarthy’s office budgeted
$5.4 million.
Williams outlined some steps
the board is taking to shave costs — such as trying
to operate more precincts in one polling place and renovating
county-owned space for storage of the county’s
Precinct Count Optical Scan voting systems. But he also
said the board wants to hire additional staff to handle
absentee ballot requests during elections, since that
is becoming a more popular option for voters.
He said 8,000 voters voted absentee
in November 2002, but 32,000 voted absentee in November
2006. For the 2008 presidential election, Williams said
there could be as many as 100,000 absentee voters.
Committee Chairman Tim Crawford
(D-District 7) noted that even with the expenses associated
with last year’s General Election, the board had
$5.6 million in expenditures, $1 million less than it
is requesting for this year.
“It’s out of hand,”
Crawford said.
Other departments appearing before
the committee had an easier time, since their requests
and the county’s budget were more in line.
Mary Lou Daugherty, of the Summit
County Clerk of Courts Legal Division, noted that its
caseload has increased 10 percent in one year. Also,
foreclosures now make up more than half of the department’s
cases, Daugherty said.
“We are working with the
executive’s office to get additional
staffing in that department,” she said.
The title bureau is also experiencing
a reduction in revenue because it receives an amount
from the state based on the sales tax rate, which was
reduced in 2005. According to Annette Baker, chief deputy
of the title bureau, the bureau is looking at ways to
encourage local residents to use its services rather
than going to nearby counties. The department is looking
into using credit cards as a form of payment, as many
other counties do, Baker said.
In other business, Council’s
Personnel Committee examined a substitute ordinance
that addresses the salary for County Council members.
According to the legislation, introduced by Crawford
late last year, Council’s salary has been increased
twice since the adoption of the county charter in 1979,
not counting cost-of-living increases.
Crawford’s ordinance would
dictate that Council members’ salaries be set
at 20 percent of the county executive’s salary,
with the change going into effect in 2009 for district
members and 2011 for at-large members.
Crawford said he has polled Council
members but doesn’t have everyone’s thoughts
on the issue yet. The committee agreed to place the
legislation on second reading.
Council’s Planning and
Economic Development Committee recommended Council approval
of an ordinance to deal with erosion and sediment control.
Public hearings will take place Jan. 29 and Feb. 12
at 6 p.m. regarding the proposed ordinance, which would
establish standards to minimize erosion by wind and
water at construction sites. “Long
after the engineer looks at the site and the building
department looks at the site, we have been left with
a number of problems,” said Nick Kostandaras (D-District
1). “This would protect the builder and the resident
who buys a home.”
Also Monday, in a special meeting
of Council, members approved legislation that deleted
conditional language in the temporary budget passed
in December for Summit County Children Services. The
legislation removed language that specified how money
in certain line items could be spent.
Council member Paula Prentice
(D-District 8) said questions were raised about the
provisos from Fiscal Officer John Donofrio.
“It’s in the best
interest of Council as well as Donofrio to drop the
provisos at this time,” Prentice said.
The vote to approve the legislation
was 8-1, with Pete Crossland (D-at large) voting against
it and Tom Teodosio (D-District 2) abstaining.
Council is scheduled to meet
Jan. 29 at 5:30 p.m. for caucus and 6 p.m. for the regular
meeting in Council Chambers on the seventh floor of
the Ohio Building, 175 S. Main St.
|
