Jerry Holland, Duval County Supervisor of Elections, is always a busy man. Of course, what would one expect from someone holding such a position? But recently, Holland has been working overtime due to the countless budget hearings and two elections that weren’t on his schedule at the beginning of the year.
“My biggest focus is on the budget,” Holland says. “It tells me where and what I need to focus on.”
Holland is adamant about cutting his budget by 3 percent. He would like to cut back on the internal services he doesn’t use, but he realizes that may be difficult.
“I’m trying to cut 3 percent to save salaries, but I can’t cut internal services to achieve that,” he says. “There’s a disagreement there.”
So not only is Holland dealing with the stresses of the budget, he’s getting ready and trying to put everything in place for the Sept. 15 elections.
“We’ve already started training poll workers and managers,” Holland says. “We have 530,900 registered voters as of now.”
Holland says part of the routine during non-election time is going through each voter’s registration information to make sure it’s accurate, there are no duplicates and that signatures are clear.
“We’re on the last three letters of the alphabet now and we started at the beginning of the year,” he says.
Once the dust has settled and the stress lessens, Holland can move on to something he looks forward to each and every year — speaking in various schools across Jacksonville.
“We play this game similar to ‘Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?’ where we ask the kids questions and facts,” he says.
Holland, a former City Council president, says he enjoys promoting the elections office and teaching about local government to the younger members of the community where he himself attended middle and high school in Jacksonville.
“I enjoy interacting with young people, but especially during the registration drives,” Holland says.