Quorum Court again tables Election Commission Compensation ordinance, questions budget overrun

Members of the Izard County Quorum Court met in regular session last Monday evening with the first order of business being to bring back for a third time consideration of Ordinance 2024-17 amending existing Ordinance 2022-20 which set compensation for county election commissioners and poll workers.

Judge Smith opened the meeting and immediately opened up the floor for continued discussion amongst the JPs regarding the above-mentioned ordinance which was first introduced during the Court’s July meeting.

County Attorney Brad Sipe was asked to provide the results of research he was to perform on aspects of state law which pertained to some components of the proposed ordinance.  Sipe first advised, “the state can require the county to pay even though there would be no reimbursement from the state” for the election related expenditures.

Such a case would be that the state requires election commissioners to be paid $125 per meeting for up to 10 meetings associated with each election within a given year, and $25 per meeting for those that are conducted beyond the initial 10.

JP Miller stated that he had no problem with paying the $125 per meeting as that’s what the law says the county must pay.  His concern focused more on paying an election coordinator if a county employee could also be assigned to serve in that role who is already on the payroll.

Sipe responded that the County could certainly name and existing employee, however that person would have to be approved by a majority vote of the Election Commission.  Sipe then stated that, “right now you’re providing somebody, but the Commission is not approving them.  That’s where the hiccup is.”

Miller went on to say, “and we’re out of budget, but that’s another issue.”  County Treasurer Warren Sanders spoke up indicating that to date, “we are at $119,000 of expenditures by the County Election Commission and have as yet received zero in reimbursements, we budgeted $100,000.  Four years ago, the last presidential election we spent $58,000.  That’s my concern.”

Sanders was concerned that we’ve spent nearly $120,000 and we have not even held the general election yet, we’re probably going to end up spending $200,000 or more for this year.  If so, he indicated that spending would have to be cut elsewhere to make up the shortfall.

There was an attempt to determine why the costs of the primary election cost so much this year as compared to prior years.  A member of the Election Commission indicated that the state now requires that each voting location have two supervisors and four poll workers, and Judge Smith reminded the Court that they had approved an increase in poll worker hourly wage last year to incentivize folks to sign up for the job.

Miller then reminded folks, “we’re double over budget. . . we’re nowhere even close.  This looks like the most expense election we’ve done in history.  And I’m trying to figure out why we have to throw more money at it to get it done.”

Discussion focused again on the election coordinator position, to which there was apparently no job description to determine the skills needed to do the job should the County elect to name an existing employee to fill the role.

Bottom line was that despite identifying various factors that would contribute to the increase in election related expenditures, even when combined they still would not account for the huge budget overage.

The County is expecting to receive $68,000 in reimbursements in association with the primary and runoff elections, however there are no such reimbursements for those expenses incurred for the general election.

Smith then circled back and asked the JPs what they wished to do on the ordinance.  Miller again said that he felt the County needs to pay the $125 per meeting to the election commissioners, but questioned payment for an outside election coordinator and other peripheral costs.

If projected expenses to be incurred for running the general election were equal to those incurred for the primary and runoffs, then the County is on track to exceed budget by over $100,000 and would be the most expensive in history.

Having apparently reached an impasse, the Court remained reluctant to take action on the ordinance to allow more investigation into the cause for the over-budget position associated with elections.  Sanders what charged with the task of preparing an itemized recap of all election related expenses to date for this year.  It is hoped that something would jump out as why expenses exceed the budget to such a great degree.

 

In an offline conversation held by this reporter with Judge Smith the following day, it was theorized that the county payroll system may be double reporting election expenses incurred for labor during the first half of this year’s election cycle.  This points to either a bug or glitch in the software or possibly to a data entry error in which these expenses were double entered into the system.  Further, more detailed investigation should reveal whether or not this was the cause of the overage.

 

Back to the meeting, Judge Smith suggested moving along to the other resolutions on the agenda, beginning with Resolution 2024-20 authorizing the submittal of an application for an Arkansas Community & Economic Development Program grant for funds to be used to address county community development activities should the grant be awarded.  The Court quickly voted unanimously to approve the resolution as read.

 

Next was Resolution 2024-21 which authorized the County Judge and County Clerk to enter into an administrative agreement with White River Planning & Development, Inc. for assistance with identifying and implementing the regulations pertaining to the grant authorized by the preceding resolution.  This measure was also quickly approved by the Court.

The final measure on the table was Resolution 2024-22 formally petitioning that the new bridge being constructed over Piney Creek on Arkansas state highway 56 be named the “Forty Four Bridge”, as had been suggested by numerous citizens of Izard County living in proximity to the area.  This resolution was also quickly approved by unanimous vote.

 

Circling back to the ordinance, Sanders agreed to send a detailing of election related expenses to all JPs for their review and potential identification of the cause or causes for the budget overages.

 

The Election Commission was charged with coming back to the Court with a firm number for how much additional money they would need to pay for running the coming general election so the JPs know what they’re looking at before approving additional funds from somewhere.

 

That said, further action on Ordinance 2024-17 was again formally tabled by the Court until further investigation could be performed to determine the potential causes for the budget overages.

 

Judge Smith next announced receipt of a Hazard Mitigation grant in the amount of $147,000 to upgrade the current low-water crossing to a high-water bridge on Ash Trail.  In addition, the Lafferty Road bridge has been completed.

 

Moving along to his regular Road Update, Smith advised that during the prior month county road crews had graded approximately 165 miles of county roadways, cut 45 miles of right-of-way with the side-arm brush cutter, hauled 122 loads of clay gravel and 50 loads of crushed rock.

 

Sheriff Charley Melton shared some photos of progress on the jail project.  At present the county has expended approximately $695,300 on work done to date.  Melton also advised that the Sheriff’s Dept had moved to a new program for collecting fines and fees working with the Circuit Court which shows a total of $2.9 million are owed to the county.

 

Out of that, $1.5 million are delinquent by 90 days or more.  These individuals involved have been sent letters to get their attention advising of additional legal action of they continue to not pay what they owe.