43
Mahoning County: Elections board asks $3M from budget
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Board of Elections is seeking $3 million from the county’s budget to operate in 2012, an election year that will have two primaries and a presidential general election.
The $3,004,880.34 request for next year is a $358,396.30 increase from what the board spent in 2008, the last presidential election.
Presidential elections attract the highest voter turnout of any election, said Thomas McCabe, the elections board’s director.
Turnout in 2008 was 72.3 percent compared with 43.9 percent for last week’s election.
The board of elections is expected to spend $1,467,813 this year, considered a slow election year.
The main reason for the increase from 2008 to 2012 is the state Legislature’s decision to have two primaries — one on March 6 for all positions available next year except president and U.S. House and June 12 for those exceptions — next year, McCabe told county commissioners Thursday during a budget hearing for his department.
“It’s because of the additional primary that’s being forced upon us,” he said.
But the state is reimbursing the cost of the second primary, about $300,000, probably in August or September, said Deputy Director Joyce Kale-Pesta.
Compared with the 2008 budget, the elections board’s largest decreases are an $87,000 cut in full-time salaries, a $92,000 cut in maintenance and a $58,000 decline in equipment.
The board switched this past election from an electronic touch-screen voting system to paper ballots counted by an optical scanner.
That change caused printing to increase by $277,000 in 2012 compared with four years ago. The other major increase is $170,000 more for the salaries of poll workers.
Those projected increases would be less without the second primary and will be less once the state reimburses the county for that June election, McCabe said.
The county is expected to adopt its 2012 budget Dec. 15, said Barbara J. Sours, the county’s budget director.
Mahoning County’s general-fund departments have requested $64 million for next year. But the county budget commission has certified only $47.9 million in revenues.