by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The Supervisor of Elections Office is asking City officials to approve a fiscal year 2002-03 budget that’s more than double last year’s. But there is a pretty good reason for the increase.
Last year, Supervisor of Elections John Stafford operated under a $2.6 million budget. Monday, he and assistant Robert Phillips asked the City to approve a preliminary budget of $5.4 million. The over two-fold increase is directly attributable to the fact that the coming fiscal year will be quite busy for Stafford’s office.
“Most of that [the increase] was because we have three elections this year,” said Phillips, who had the unenviable task of answering to Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa and a slew of City budget department officials ready to scrutinize every dollar.
“The extra money is also for the optical scanners,” said Stafford. “In the past we used punch cards and if we didn’t use them all for an election, we’d just put them back on the shelf.”
Mousa and his staff will review Stafford’s requests and approve or modify the proposed budget. There were several items short listed for consideration including a car/van for the office.
The City’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 until Sept. 30. Because this year’s gubernatorial primary is Sept. 10, the election’s expenditures were included in last year’s budget. With the general election set for Nov. 5 and two local elections next spring, Stafford’s office will have to open shop three times during the next fiscal year.
Lap top computers and personnel are two major factors in Stafford’s increased budget request. As a sign that Jacksonville is moving into the 21st Century, the Elections Office will employ 300 laptop computers, one at each precinct, and implement the use of an optical scanning voting system this fall. Both tools will enable Duval County to avoid the pitfalls of the 2000 Presidential election in which hanging and pregnant chads and an inaccurate tabulation system combined to put the county in the national spotlight as votes were recounted.
This fall, Stafford will use laptops at each voting precinct and needs a trained employee to monitor each computer. Other personnel expenses include overtime pay for full-time and part-time employees working each election, off-duty police officers and the cost of paying to use precinct sites.
“Some years some of the sites didn’t make us pay to use them and now some of them want to get paid,” explained Phillips.
Other added expenditures for three elections include postage for sample and absentee ballots, advertising and supplies. Stafford’s office would also like an additional vehicle for the upcoming year. With just two vans at their disposal, Stafford and Phillips made it clear that any vehicle would be greatly appreciated. Phillips said the office is currently using a part-time employee to gather voter registration forms from dozens of sites all over town.
“The criticism in the past was they were receiving them through the mail,” said Phillips, explaining that too often registration forms got lost in the mail. “Now, a part-time person goes five days a week to the voter registration sites and picks up the packages.”
These sites include several driver’s license offices, libraries and schools.
Overall, Stafford and Phillips expect the budget to pass.
“I think we did very well,” said Phillips, who made his third budget pitch. “We are always willing to give a little in order to get a little. We work it out and make it pretty clear that what we are asking for is what we need.”
Once a final budget is formulated, it will be sent to City Council for approval and ultimately Mayor John Delaney for his signature before becoming official.