Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

And only mode. Good

morning. I'd like to call to order the board of supervisors informal meeting of 04/06/2026. Madam clerk, would you please start with the with the roll call? Thank you. Good morning. Supervisor Gallardo. Here. Vice chair Lesko. Here. Supervisor Galvin is absent today.

Supervisor Stewart. The now open. Cycle known as the election ELE one from the elections department and the recorder's office. Let's start with the elections presenters, Zach Shira and Scott Jarrett. And for those listening online, would you please introduce yourselves

starting with Zach. Thank you, madam chair. Yes. My name is Zach Shira. I'm the assistant county manager for election and external affairs.

Hello, madam chair, members of the board. I am Scott Jarrett, the elections director that reports up to the board of supervisors.

Thank you. And I have confirmed with madam county manager that we have as assistance on this if requested or if needed, Mike McGee and Kirsten Prindle from our budget department. So would you gentlemen please proceed with the handout?

Thank you, madam chair. I'll start real quick before handing this over to Scott. I just wanna

Is your mic on?

How about that, madam chair?

Better. Yes.

Thank you.

Just wanted to say that we greatly appreciate being in front of you today to walk you all through the ELE one budget. As you may know, the ELE one budget is the mechanism that we use to fund each election cycle. This is separate and apart from the Elections Department operating budget, which we use to fund the day to day operations. The ELE one budget is specific to the actual cost of running elections, for example, the temporary election workers, the printing of ballots, or the logistics of running in person in person voting. The fund operates as a sinking fund, meaning that each year we make contributions to ensure adequate resources are available to cover all expenses associated with the administration of elections.

This approach allows us to plan proactively and maintain stability in our operations regardless fluctuations in yearly needs or unforeseen challenges. As many of you know, the ELE one budget presentation typically takes place in January when we hold the rest of the budget presentations in front of the Board. However, with so much of our operation in flux, we felt it was prudent to delay our budget presentation until now, allowing us to incorporate changes that this Board has made to elections. You'll notice that our budget request is increasing this year. There are several factors contributing to that change that mister Jarrett will go through in his presentation in detail.

As the cost of running elections continues to expand, the elections department endeavors to balance access and efficiencies, understanding the need to care for the taxpayer's dollar. We believe these adjustments present presented are necessary to ensure that our department is equipped to meet upcoming challenges in the 2026 cycle. Finally, I want to acknowledge that the ELE one budget has been carefully adjusted to accommodate operational changes required by your recent resolution and elections, and we've worked diligently to align resources and strategies with the board's directives. And we look forward to discussing those changes in this presentation. With that, madam chair, I'll hand it over to mister Jarrett.

Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, madam chair, members of the board. And before I get started, I just want to acknowledge that while it's Zach and myself up here presenting and we have this wonderful slide deck that we'll go through, really a lot of the hard work was from my finance team and led by Berta Ramirez, our finance manager. She goes through and crunches all the numbers, does work with the recorder's office to get them the information they need as well. So we can present this this information for you when you're considering the broader budget later in May.

Like to always start with just the driving principles that really impact every action that we do in the elections department, and that's our mission and vision statement. And these aren't just words that are put on a piece of paper. Right? We really live and breathe by them within the elections department. And in our mission, have we're really striving to provide accessible, reliable, secure, transparent, and efficient elections.

And that word accessible, right, that means it could mean a multitude of things, but it's making sure that we're serving every single one of our voters no matter how they're wishing to participate, including any of those voters that may have a disability, but also providing adequate access for people to be able to get election services. Reliable. Right? If we expand and we have too many election say if we have too many vote centers out there that we're providing and we can't reliably open them, then we're not providing access. So I highlight those two things because when those are basic tenants that drive the elections department.

And if you lean too hard into any one of those sometimes, you end up harming another. So another basic principle is we try to keep these in equilibrium, a good balance between all of those tenants. And the other item is our vision. And with that, we're always looking to promote a culture of service, continuous improvement, accountability, collaboration, and integrity in every single action that we do. And we'll be able to highlight some of those elements as we go through this presentation today.

So one of the first items are basically factors that drives the election budget is voter participation. How many voters are gonna be participating in the upcoming election cycle? So we go through and do a model to try to identify that. And that's what this chart is showing, and it's showing actually historical voter turnout going all the way back to 1970. So the red line shows the percent of turnout, and then the blue bar charts, besides the one red one shows the number of voters that participated in gubernatorial elections going back to that 1970.

And so for this twenty twenty six gubernatorial election, we're anticipating around 65% turnout. That would be the highest turnout going all the way back except for 1970. Right? And we're also looking about 1,700,000 ballots that our voters will return in the general election. So that would be a record.

Record. The closest was in 2022 where we had about just shy of 1,600,000 total ballots returned at that point in time. So a significant increase in the number of voters. For the primary election, voters do participate in a much lower turnout rate, so we are anticipating about 33.68% turnout for the primary election this summer. The highest primary election turnout ever was 35.4%, and that was back in 2020.

So just four years ago that we had the highest turnout percentage. We do like to compare ourselves to see how we compare to other jurisdictions of similar size, and so we do that through some benchmarking. As part of that benchmarking, we do include cost analysis. So if you take some of the largest jurisdictions around the country, you can see that Maricopa County comes in at $9.36. This was based on 2024.

Right? The last time that every jurisdiction across the country was having a large scale election that was a presidential year. So that was for all the elections that we administered in well, the primary and general elections that we administer in 2024 was $9.36. I think you'd be hard pressed to go out to any fast food restaurant these days and get your meal, your your value meal less than that. So what voters spent and this is not residents, this is voters.

The number of registered voters is at $9.36. So a pretty reasonable cost. And then the cost breakdown from comparing, how voters participate, so whether it's through the mail or in person. And, if voters are tending to vote in person and this is really what in 2024, the cost breakdown between the recorder's office at that point in time in the elections department. So but it's $14.32 for in person voters and $6.19 for voters to vote through the mail.

So now on to our budget request, and this is a very detailed chart. And essentially, it breaks down the big high level categories of what the elections department will be requesting as far as funds to run the primary and general election. Essentially, our budget breaks down to about 50%. It's 50.3% into staffing. So that's something that mister Shearer had mentioned earlier.

So all those temporary workers that are working out at our voting locations will be hiring somewhere between three to 4,000 temporary workers to work at voting locations. Also, we'll be hiring over 800 staff members to work at the central counting facility. Those will be the ones that are processing all those ballots, helping us count those ballots. There are also our warehouse work workers that are driving out those trucks delivering all of our equipment, helping set up our voting locations. That's what's totaling about 50% of the total budget at 9.961 $9,600,000 $9,900,000.

Sorry. As far as supplies and services, this would include printing the ballots. So the board of supervisors is responsible for printing all ballots within the election cycle. That includes the ballots that get mailed out to voters that go into the recorder's mail packet, but also, any ballots that are printed at any early voting location, emergency voting location, or election day voting location. That's the statutory responsibility of the board and the elections department.

Also, because the county will be having a ballot question before voters in November, the elections department is responsible for creating a publicity pamphlet. So that's included in our supplies and materials. Other costs that goes in to this area are any of the rentals. So we only own one box truck. So we are having to rent upwards of 40 different box trucks every election cycle to be able to deliver all of that equipment out to our voting locations.

Also, couriers that go out and drive and pick up all the ballots at all the early voting locations or on election day or emergency voting period, we have to rent those vans as well. So those are significant costs that really drive up our supplies and services. The last item here is a contingency budget. So we're budgeting $600,000 for our contingency, and this is actually a very valuable line item. In 2024, we were not aware that we are gonna have to go to a two page ballot when we first presented this ELE one budget, and we included a contingency.

So because we included that contingency, we did not have to come back to the board to make another request. We're able to use that contingency to help pay for that additional page of a ballot. Right? And so that's why we include these for those unforeseen things that we may not be aware of today, but may impact us as we get closer to the elections and the election days. Now I wanna highlight.

Mister Scherer said that our budget is going up. Right? And I've got several slides that are gonna highlight our cost drivers. But for perspective, in 2024, our primary and general election, we spent our actual expenditures were $17,200,000 in the elections department. So we're asking for a $19,700,000 budget this year.

So that is an increase. It's about just over a 10 percent increase over what we expended. Now if we prior to the board's resolution and it did not account for transferring costs to the recorders for that in person early, our request would have been about $2,320,000. So this budget does reflect that transfer of those funds that we would have used for in person early to the recorder's office so that they can run those early voting locations. We can go to the next slide.

So here are the things that are really driving those costs for the elections. I mentioned one of those is the publicity pamphlet. So that cost just over $1,100,000. Right? If the county was not gonna have a question on the ballot, this would not be a cost that we would have to include in the ELE one budget, and it represents a significant increase. About 5% of our total increase is just this publicity pamphlet. Also, this time for this two page ballot. Right? With the increase in number of voters, we're estimating that that's almost a million dollars right there, $973,000. Also, our rental trucks and our vans, we've got a new contract.

The rate to rent these has gone up a little bit, but also with the primary election moving up two more weeks, one of the things that we found is when we rent these delivery vehicles, we have to rent them for the entire period, the primary and the general. Because in the past, we had returned those in between the primary and general, and we weren't able to get some of them back. So now we just keep them. So this is adding a couple extra weeks to that period that we're having to rent our our trucks. Also, mailing out the sample ballot.

Because we're anticipating a two page ballot for the general election, that means the sample ballot gets much larger. And now we have to actually put that into an affidavit envelope to mail our not envelope to mail that out to voters. Right? So that increases the postage related to that and also as an inserting fee of a $180,000. Other cost drivers include just the city of Phoenix sales tax increase.

So anytime that we're paying for any supplies, that adds a little bit of a premium. Postage increase for that sample ballot, just inflationary increases in general, and then the number of registered voters has gone up over the last couple years. But there's two other major cost factors, and that is all of our temporary workers. So total before the board's resolution, the the elections department was anticipating a $3,000,000 increase in our poll worker pay. A large part of that was due to minimum wage increases.

So just our poll workers alone for one election, that's a four hundred and eleven thousand hours at our voting locations. So between the last two years, minimum wage has gone up nearly a dollar. So that's about $800,000 just to account for the minimum wage. We're also looking to add additional vote centers to our primary election as well as our general election, so that will increase the cost. And then the recorder's office was looking to add additional twenty eight day sites, so we budgeted for that increase here as well.

And then one area that we're looking really a new innovation is state law is now allowing for voters with their mail in ballot to be able to come in, bring in that mail in ballot, check-in, and during emergency voting, skip signature verification. Right? They can just put in a drop box and come come back to MCTAC, and then it doesn't have to go to the recorder's office for signature verification, but on election day, to have that ballot tabulated. Right? But for us to be able to accommodate that, and we've gone through some recent mock elections where I need to add three different additional poll workers per site.

So this is driving up our costs. Also, we found that we really need to provide additional training to our poll workers, so that's five hours per poll worker. So all of that is what's driving up that $3,000,000. However, because the elections department post the board's resolution is transferring early voting to the recorder's office, it actually almost nets that entire entire amount. So the elections department post resolution increases only $73,000 because over 3,000,000 of that is being transferred to the recorder's office. And then similarly, election worker pay. This also a cost driver related to this is minimum wage. So when minimum wage on

the next oh, got it. Thank you.

So when minimum wage increases, that also then drives up those hourly rates for our election workers. This also accounts for pre tabulation processing. So those are the individuals that separate the ballot from the affidavit envelope. In 2024, that function was under the recorder's office. The 2024 SSA moved that to under the board of supervisors to align with how statute structures and assigns that responsibility.

So that's about a $850,000 increase just to move that function under the elections department. And then also, we do provide a retention pay. It's in the form of about a thousand dollar a thousand $200 for our temporary workers. If they work both elections, primary and general, fulfill their complete assignment, they will get a bonus pay. This is very similar.

Sometimes you see cities having a tough time recruiting lifeguards in the summertime, and they end up giving them a bonus to be able to come out and work at at the polls. We found that this is very successful in being able to retain those individuals to work both elections. And we want people to work both because the ones that come and work the primary, they get that experience. They get that knowledge, and it makes them that much better when we have that much higher volume of voters participating in the general. So it's a great tool.

This will be something that will be for the board in early May when the elections department presents the formal plan for the upcoming election. So after the other piece to this is we are transferring half of the couriers. So those couriers are the individuals that go out and pick up those ballots from early voting locations or drop boxes or emergency voting locations or on election day or running out supplies to all of our voting location. We're gonna transfer half that cost to the recorder's office. So they will be getting one of the the couriers.

We will be retaining one of the couriers, and so that's what that transfer is. So after that transfer, the elections department budget request for this area Well, the increase will be about $651,000. In the last slide, I would just want to highlight is our twenty twenty six vote centers. We've pretty much finalized all of our voting locations for the primary election. We're still trying to finalize a few contracts with some of those locations and then also the general election.

So for the primary election, 02/2030 to 240 vote centers is what we'll have on election day. In 2024, we had 222. So this will be an increase in the number of voting locations we had in 2024. For the general election, we're having hope to have close to 260 total voting locations. We had 248 voting locations, and the areas that we've identified is where we wanted to add locations were where we felt we had a little bit of a shortage in 2024, a presidential year with a two page ballot.

And one of those areas was actually out in the Tolleson, Avondale area. We really, really are thrilled to be able to use the Tolleson Civic Center, but the room is very, very small. So sometimes that creates longer lines. So in the on election day in the twenty twenty four general election, we had lines about seventy two minutes at that Tolleson Civic Center. So we're looking to use the Tolleson Unified High School or the La Jolla High School, which is just south of that, to provide a different additional capacity for those areas.

We've identified a few other areas around town as well. But in 2024, when we had 246 total voting locations, our average distance between voting locations was 1.18 miles. So we're adding even more. So our that distance will drop even further. It's just we don't have all of those finalized yet, so we can't do that actual analysis. We will have that for you when we present the plan in early May. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Mister Stewart.

Thank you, madam chair, and thank you for that presentation, and and to Berta for putting this together. That's that's a tough tough sled to pull. Hey. On the I appreciate you adding the comparison to the other large counties as it relates to the overall cost. But is there anything in the budget that will help us sort of communicate to the public that we don't want them to hold their early ballots and then drop them off on day of? Is there any marketing plan or any budget set aside for that?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Stewart, yes, we do have a marketing budget set aside, and we'll have a a plan that we will come to the board of supervisors with at some point so that you are familiar with the messages that we'll be putting out there.

Fantastic. And and so do you know, Scott, off the top of your head, how many of those early ballots were dropped off on on election day? And then what did that create as it relates to the delay or the logjam for us as it relates to having to pull them out of the envelopes and all that? Do you do you have an estimate on how many days that took us?

So, madam chair, supervisor Stewart, so in 2022, we actually had a record number of voters choose to drop off their ballots on election day. So that was just north of 290,000 total. In 2024, a presidential year, that actually dropped somewhat, and it was down to 220,000. Total ballots dropped off on election day. And so if we've staffed up appropriately so in 2024, because of the two page ballot that did create a little bit of a backlog in the ballot processing.

So that's that separating that ballot from the affidavit envelope. That function has now come over to the board of supervisors. So one of the things that we're doing to try to minimize the impact of that is we're creating a second shift. Well, for the general election. We really won't need that for the the primary election.

I think we're gonna plan on working a double shift the day after election day to try to get as many of those ballots to be able to report it at the end of the night on election night. So our goal is to have then upwards of 99% of our ballots reported by the Friday after election day. The reason it's not a 100% is because there's state laws that allow for like, if the recorder's office and maybe he'll be speaking a little bit more about this in a in a moment. But if the recorder's office questioned the signature, right, for that voter, they have a several days for them to be able to contact the recorder's office and cure that signature. So in a general election, that's gonna be five calendar days, so Sunday after election day.

So we can't close out the election till all of those are processed. Likewise, if someone shows up on election day and they didn't have sufficient ID, right, then they're issued a conditional provisional. They also have that five day period post election day to be able to cure that provisional ballot. But 99% is what we're hoping to have reported on that Friday after election day, and then this budget does include the second shift. So us for us to be able to work that.

But even better, if some of those voters, like something you were mentioning, drop it off that Friday before election day, then it's already will be included in results on election night. But the last thing I do wanna highlight related to this, if we have very incredibly close contests, which we've had in prior elections, right, the media won't be calling those results until every last ballot is counted. Right? Even so that may take all the way until that Sunday or Monday or Tuesday, a week after election day before the media will be calling it. And then if they are really, really close, it's gonna go to a recount.

And then the media still won't call it until we get before a judge. The judge orders a recount. We can recount those ballots, and then the judge unseals those final results.

Thank you. And madam chair, so that's really good background. So do you feel like we are going to market this well enough? And do if the numbers start do we we continue to see the trend go down to where more people will get the mail early or they will decide to to vote in person? How do you feel about that in general? And is there anything else you would do to improve that?

Madam chair, supervisor Stewart, you know, I am not I think every election is very unique and has different drivers on impacting how voters turn out and participate. So I'm not sure that there's enough data out there to show that there is a trend. We did have a fewer number that did it in 2024 than did in 2022. I don't know if that's gonna progress. We will make them aware, voters, of their options.

We hope that they drop off their ballot earlier in the cycle, so it can be included. But I at this point in time, there's not enough information. We need to make a projection on that. So I did have on one of my slides an estimate that it'd be somewhere in the range of two over 200,000 dropped off on election day.

Okay. Well, madam chair, if if I need to if I need to, maybe I could do one of those sign guy things where I could stand on the corner and say, get your ballot in early Mhmm. Because I think that would help us a lot. And then my final question, madam chair, if you don't mind.

You're hired, mister Stewart.

Thank you. Do we have a plan in k we were down at the legislature. I was there with vice chair last week, and there were some rumblings about a number of referendums that were coming through. Do we have we considered what happens if there's a three page ballot? I know. That's kinda scary. Madam chair, supervisor Stewart, it is on

our radar, and we have been considering that. We're hopeful that it doesn't get there. We have some space. We also have the ability to make our ballots a little bit longer. So in 2024, we have a 17 inch ballot. We can go up to a 20 inch ballot, even a 22 inch ballot. We don't like those options, but those are options that we can implement in case to try to keep it to a two page, but we're really hopeful that the legislature doesn't refer and so many that it does push us to that third page.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you. Vice chair Lasko.

Thank you, madam chair, and thank you for the presentation. If we go to the slide that says cost per voter in 2024, and it's a comparison between the different counties out there, do any of these other counties have as high of a percentage of early voters as we do? Because where are we at? 84%?

Madam chair, vice chair Lesko, we will have anywhere between 80 to 90% depending on the election return their ballot early. Now that may be through a drop box even on election day, so using that early ballot. Yes. Many of these counties, especially those California counties, have a very robust early voting program. There's multiple reasons why different cost drivers that go into these factors, but one thing that we've been back to that mission, efficiency.

Right? Efficiency means speed. Right? We wanna be as efficient and quick as possible, but we also cognizant of what the cost is that we're putting on the taxpayer of Maricopa County. So we always factor that in as we're making decisions about presenting the plan to to you all.

Thank you. And, in that vein, I don't know if you know the answer or not, but on that same, slide, it would have you compared the turnout? Because that would affect the cost. Right? What the the turnout is, like, we're we're expecting 65% turnout. Correct? Do you know if these other counties are near that or or not?

Madam chair and madam vice chair, usually, we're one of the highest turnout counties and states in the entire country, and some of that is just the nature of us being a swing state. So voters get out. Others are we make it very easy for voters to be able to participate, but we are a higher turnout than a a lot of these other counties that are on this list. I don't know specifically the turnout for each one of these off the top of my head, but I can get that for you if you'd like.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. The next slide I wanna go to is this one, If if the staff could bring that one up. Thank you. On there, could you give us a little bit more explanation on the board of supervisor resolution reductions? Like,

how many workers are gonna be transferred over to the recorder's office? Madam chair and madam vice chair, so for the vote center staffing, that is going to be well, it's really budget, and it's gonna be a journal voucher that goes over. It's a percentage of the total number of costs related to supporting early voting locations. Because a poll worker that works at an early voting location also works at election day as long as we're doing this jointly. So that individual works for both the recorder's office and the board of supervisors.

Mhmm. So we're not transferring a person to the recorder's office. We're transferring the cost associated with paying for that person.

Right.

Right? And so that ends up being and I think the percentage is right around, 40% of the total cost. But as far as the number of individuals, it's based on twenty twenty four numbers. 18% of the number of poll workers that worked at an early voting location also worked at an election day location. So I would say responsibility, about 9% of those individuals are the recorder's office. However, those poll workers work, some of them, for a much longer period of time, and that's what drives up that cost.

And, on this same slide, if we go down to, supplies and services, printing of ballots, sample ballots, publicity pamphlet, and materials, in the in that, you know, it's 1,200,000.0 for the primary and 3,900,000.0 for the general. Does that include the assumption of the two ballots or is that in the contingency?

Madam chair and madam vice chair, the fact that the general election is 3,900,000, the reason that's much higher is the assumption of a two page ballot. And I think we're already at based off of the number of referrals that were referred by the legislature last year, the numb number of citizens initiatives that typically usually make it to the ballot, and the number of referrals that we're hearing have a high likelihood of making it to the ballot this year. We're in that two page ballot territory already.

Alright. And so, also on then when we go down to contingency, reprints, change cards, operations, I think you said part of that is for extra pages of ballots. Is that the contingency in case there's three pages of ballots, or does that not include this?

Madam chair, supervisor Lascaux, it's the contingency potentially for that. Yes. We use that contingency in 2024 to help pay for the second page ballot in 2024. This could be used if we went to a third page this election. It could also be used for we're implementing that brand new program for a voter to be able to bring in that mail in ballot on election day and have that tabulated off on-site.

We went through our mock elections. We're enhancing our training related to that. But if we go through the mock or the primary election and we feel like our poll workers need a little bit of a refresher, especially a two page ballot now being removed from an affidavit envelope and inserted to two tabulators, we might wanna add additional training for that. So we'd be able to tap into the contingency fund at that point in time.

Okay. And then if we could advance to the next slide, the 2026 budget increase. Hold on a second. Rental fees, trucks, more trucks. Hold on. Oh, on the cost let's go to the next slide. Poll worker pay. Alright. On the poll worker pay, can you go over again why that's increasing? Part of the reason you said was the minimum wage increase, and I thought you said it went up a dollar an hour, or is it more than that?

Last two years.

Madam chair and vice chair, this is comparing to back to 2024, so it's almost a dollar between the last two two years. It's not quite a dollar, but when you factor in FICA over time, all of those types of things, it gets to be right around a dollar an hour. And in 2024, we had four over four hundred and eleven thousand hours of poll workers pay for one election. Right? So that would be upwards of between two elections, right around $800,000 just for the minimum wage increase.

Alright. That's where I was because it's a two elections. So you take the four hundred eleven thousand hours times two, and that's how you came up with the 800 some thousand.

That's correct.

Okay. Alright. Then on the bullet point where it says transfer three point you know, 3,000,000 over to recorder for early voting, can you expand on that a little bit more? Is that, all staff? Like, what is that for? Expand on that some more, please.

Madam chair and madam vice chair, so for the poll worker pay, that is just the pay that we were anticipating paying poll workers for working at those early voting locations. So and it's so if it's a twenty seven day site, our location, twenty seven days before election day and election day. We took the number of days that they were open during early voting and took the payroll for that to then transfer that to the recorder's office, and then we maintained the payroll for those poll workers that were working emergency voting weekend and election day with the elections department. So that's that's part that's totally what that transfer is. So any voting location that is a twenty eight day voting location or a twelve day voting location or even a four day voting location, the days that they're open during early voting, that cost is being transferred to the recorder's office.

And so then the next one where it says election worker pay let me just so you have poll worker pay, election worker pay, transfer 423,000 to recorder for early voting. These are people that are working at the and and and what what will these people be doing at MCTAC for the recorder?

Those are the couriers. So those individuals that go out bipartisan team, Republican and Democrat that drive out to all of the early voting locations and during emergency voting, emergency voting locations, as well as on election day, they run out supplies for for us. So half of that cost were assigned to the recorder's office so they can have one of those individuals and the board and the elections department can have the other one of those individuals. Right? Statutorily, the board has to approve the drop boxes, right, in those voting locations, and then we're all the board is also then responsible for all the courier activities that happen during emergency voting and election day as well.

Okay. And then if you go to the last slide, the voting center heat map, I think you said in 2024, there are 248 election day sites, and now you're projecting about two sixty on election day. Is that correct?

Madam chair, madam vice chair, I think I misspoke. The 246, not 248

Okay.

2024. Yes. Our target is 02/1960. We currently are in contact with about 264 voting locations for the general election. Some of those are probably not gonna pan out or they're duplicative.

Like, we've we're trying to finalize a contract between two locations that are very close to one in one another. And so we'll end up saying once both sent we'll do an inspection, we'll find out which one has the larger room, the better parking lot, the better lights, and then we'll finalize one of those contracts. And I'm anticipating it to be somewhere in the range of 255 to 260 total voting locations. And one of the limiting factors that we have there as well is the number of voting booths and the number of equipment that we have for our voting locations. We really can't go beyond that 260 number. And some of that too is our warehouse just isn't large enough to be able to store all of that equipment.

Right. And so are you able to share with us how many of these voting sites have been confirmed?

So, madam chair, right now, we have confirmed for the primary election 200 and you know, I don't have the exact number. I'll have that for you in May. It's just over 230 for the primary election, over 245 for the for the general election. There's 14 voting locations that will be used at least 14 that will be used in the general that won't be used in the primary. That two week move resulted in those locations telling us no, they were not no longer available, but we'll be somewhere in that range by May 5.

We've already entered all the locations into our system. We had to run those jobs so our poll recruiters could begin recruiting. We've just said, don't recruit for this location because it's not a 100% confirmed yet.

Well, that's good. You've confirmed quite a quite a number, so that that's good. Can you share for the public in case they're listening how difficult it is to get these voting centers because I know I've been working a little bit in the Sun City area because we didn't have any in Sun the original Sun City originally. And I I don't know if you've got any in the Waddell area yet or not, but there was some shortages in my district. And it's hard to get people to commit. Can you share that so that people understand how difficult it is to get these voting centers to commit?

Madam chair, madam vice chair. Yeah. And you mentioned the Sun City area. So we actually had four locations in 2024 that were Sun City locations, and they canceled on us for this for valid reasons. One, sold their there was a church and they sold their church to another entity. Right? Another one started offering preschool within the church and so it was no longer available and couldn't use their room. Another one was going through a remodeling. Right? So because of the construction, it was no longer available.

Right? So not only it's finding, but retaining locations as well because of all those different things that where we're really reliant on our community to provide these locations for us. Also, back prior to 2020, about 80% of our voting locations used to be schools. Mhmm. Right? And schools are really and they have some valid concerns. Right? They have some security concerns. Sometimes they have space concerns, but they're no longer willing to be voting locations. So our current mix up of our voting locations is right around just over 30 are willing to be schools.

And pretty much all the school districts in the East Valley, Chandler, Gilbert, Scottsdale, not willing to serve as voting locations. Right? So that eliminates a lot of locations that are available to us. And then you add in our mix. Right?

We've gotta make sure that they're ADA compliant, that they're available not only to serve all day on election day, but also to allow us to set up the day before or the weekend before. And then we can't pick up all the equipment right there the next day because, well, our truck drivers are out late at night bringing everything in. So sometimes the equipment needs to stay on-site for a couple days, and that starts really eliminating a lot of the people that are willing to serve as voting locations. So that has been one of the things that I've been working with mister Shira and the government relations team to see if we could add back in government facilities as a requirement, including schools, to be a building location. I know that other states, do require that, and they don't give those schools an out.

I know sometimes even those other states have considered making it a holiday, right, to allow those those facilities to be able to be used, but we are in need of more people willing to wanna provide voting locations.

Thank you, madam chair. I'll yield yield back. Supervisor Gary Rodno.

Thank you, madam chair. First of all, thank you, Scott, for the great information. A couple of questions. And just to kind of go back to the the other counties and and the cost that that it has for for their elections. Many of the California cities, I mean, they have, like there was one, I looked it up, there's like 14 different languages, so that adds to the cost when it comes to the California cities.

I mean, it's it's interesting. I you know, it shows you really how diverse some of these areas in California is when you you have 14 different languages and 14 different ballots to to be able to allow people to vote, but that's one of the main focus. I'm sure there's other things that contribute to their high cost, but I do know when I was in the legislature, we always looked at what could we do to, one, you always want to be cautious. This is taxpayers' money. You want to be cautious.

You want to be able to to increase voter purchase. You want people to vote. You wanna do everything you can to get people that that right. I I've always said this is the most fundamental right we have, the right to vote, and how do we encourage and and engage voters and get them to participate, at the same time, really start looking at that bottom line because it it is expensive. We we understand it.

So I know as a legislator, I would always look, how do you increase your participation and try to reduce costs as much as you can? And I think, to be honest, I'm not gonna get into them, but there are ideas out there that could be done to do exactly that, increase voter participation, reduce the cost of conducting an election. Unfortunately, politics gets in the way of everything down there, and and those ideas never see the light of day. But nonetheless, it's always on our minds. I mean, we just we, you know, we're it's called being fiscally responsible in making sure that we're spending taxpayer dollars correctly.

We wanna extra we wanna maximize voter participation, but at the same time keep an eye on that. I do wanna go this way, I have a better understanding because engaging voters is always not only just voters, just constituency has always been kind of the thing I've harped on as as a county supervise. How do you engage the the the constituency or, in this case, the voters? How do you get them? I think mister Stewart brought up how do we encourage people to turn in their ballots earlier and so on, And and I think it's always on our minds.

It's just like, do you how do we do it? And but but I do wanna go into and just kinda more curious, we have, I guess, a a forecast or whatever. I don't know the term. I can't think of the term right now. We're anticipating 1,700,000 voters participating in this election. How do we get to that number? I'm always curious. How do we get to this number? I mean

yeah. Madam chair How

was that decided?

Madam chair, supervisor Gerardo, well, so we usually look to history. So if you look at the chart, you can see that actually one of the most common voter participation numbers is 64%. It occurs over and over and over again. And then we're not in the business of precise turnout. Right?

Usually, we try to overestimate because it's much easier to plan for a little more than to find out you've planned for too few, right? And then I have to come back, scramble, come back to you all, make a budget request and try to find more. So we say, okay, what's in all likelihood the highest turnout that could participate? And then what we go through back so we looked at prior election histories. We also look at voter registration increases month to month to month, and we look at how what what happened back in 2024, a presidential year, the monthly voter registration increases.

What happened in 2022, the monthly voter registration increases. And then we anticipate, okay, what is it gonna look like this year based on those prior years, right, to try to estimate, well, how many voters are gonna participate based off of history. Right? What is happening historically? And then again, try to on the side of a little bit overestimating because it's easier to plan for more than plan for too few.

And and and the polling sites on election day, how is that decided? Because that's always been I mean, mean, let's I mean, all five of our supervisor districts are equal in population. It's in the constitution. We gotta draw them the districts that way. I had to give up areas to give to District 3, and I think I had to take up parts of District 4 because District 4 is growing leaps and bounds, so we had to juggle.

The supervisor districts are equal in population, But when you look at and this is me putting on my election hat as not only a candidate, but as a supervisor. My area is probably one of the lowest in terms of participation. Even though we're equal in population, the voter participation is low. I'm not gonna suggest, I'm almost pretty certain that there's many factors that determine the low participation. One, there's a lot more challenges in District 5, and it's in all of ours, but more so on 5 than others from from transportation issues.

It's harder for folks to get to the polling sites only because the family may not have a vehicle. They rely on public transportation in my area. Or if they do, they have maybe one vehicle, and they gotta share it going to work and and and doing errands and all that stuff. Two are the hours. The hours that that the parents or the voters may work.

You know, they may have different hours. Have there's a lot of factors that go into, I believe, many of the people that live in District 5. A lot of factors. And we could tie it all down to to to a language barrier, could tie it down to just an economic side of the the the coin as well. But how is that decided in terms of election day sites?

Where they are located and and how they're located and all that good stuff. I know there hasn't a map. I know you're still working on it, and we're gonna have this this debate at a later time. You can almost guarantee I'm gonna raise a lot of questions when it comes to that, but how is that decided as you're moving forward?

So madam chair and supervisor Garado, there's many different factors that we're using. We try to make sure that we have locations both serving our very, very rural communities, like one example is Gaka Village. Right? There usually, sometimes, are only ten, fifteen voters that turn out there, but if we didn't provide a voting location in Gaka Village, they would have to drive well over two hours back into the valley to get to their closest location. So we'll make sure we identify those Aguila is another example of putting a location way out in a very remote rural community.

Other factors are looking at we use these heat maps. Right? Just saying, okay. Where do in person voters live and that turnout? And then we plot those on, and we're able to go back and look at prior similar elections, 2024, 2022. Any person that voted in person since 2022 all the way through 2024. Any voter that's newly registered to vote that's not signed up on the active early voting list, we add them to that heat map. Right? And then we identify, okay, here's where we have a very high likelihood of a in person voter wanting to participate. And so then we say, okay, how many site books, check-in stations do we have?

How many voting booths do we have to serve those based on the size and the space of the voting location? And we then do a ten minute drive time analysis around each of those voting locations, and we look to see do we have capacity, Right? Or are we gonna be overrun and this is gonna cause long lines? And then again, we look to history. 2024, what voting locations had the longest lines? Do we have another one? Maybe something we didn't anticipate. The the location, it seems large enough. It seems 2,000 square feet. Right?

But there's some odd shape, right, that causes bottlenecks within the voting location. So then that one is not sufficient enough for us, and we have to find another one. Those are the types of things that we go through to identify placement. Right? And then the other thing is trying to keep them along transportation corridors, bus routes. We overlay that over our maps to make sure we have enough to provide access to all those voters.

Madam Chair, I know that's later on. They're gonna be presenting a map to us to have this discussion, but these are some key areas that we wanna make sure our map is definitely fair to all voters. We wanna be able to make sure that everyone has access to the ballot box. And and in the past, what we have done as a board, I believe we've done a pretty good job, a pretty good job, but not a great job, to be honest, in making sure that that is available to all voters, that we have sites, and we're taking in all those different criterias and situations. Cockavillages is a perfect example, madam chair.

I remember for the first time, I think it was like in '96, I don't know if Ray went with us, that very first time to Cockavillages. I had no idea where we were going. Karen Osborne just said, get in the van. We're going to go vote some people. And, we got in the van and it took us we had to go into Pinal County and then come back in to Maricopa.

We went on a dirt road. We went into a small community center that was made out of mud for the most part, adobe, and there was no electricity. We had to have an extension cord going all the way to this they had a small little Catholic church that extended the the extension cord so we can have power in the facility, and that's how we voted. At that time, I wanna say it was around 60 or so members of that small village to be able to cast their ballot, and I know you all have done just tremendous work out there. Saw the new center that we use as a polling site.

This is a site in which I believe I don't know if it's still the case, but we have to bring an AT and T type to have just WiFi out there? There's no WiFi, by the way. There's none. Your phone is done. You have no access out there, but is that still the case in that little village?

Madam chair, supervisor Garda, yes. So we want them to be able to check-in just like every other because we use the vote center model, we don't wanna those to force those voters to have to vote provisionally. So we've purchased a AT and T satellite on our I forget the exact service on it. We use HAVA grant funds for it and then we set up a network connection so that they can vote, get a live ballot and then they can even tabulate that ballot on-site that no longer has to go into a provisional ballot with that use of that technology.

Thank you. But but, anyways, so as we get closer to that, I know we wanna be careful in terms of the cost of the election. That's it's on everybody's mind. We have to be fiscally responsible. At the same time, we wanna make sure that everyone, every voter throughout the valley has the right to cast their ballot. And, madam chair, I believe that's all my questions.

Thank you. A follow-up. Vice chair Lasko.

Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. Can you tell me the total extra cost you're asking for, total extra money? Because it's you said I think you said it's 19,800,000.0 is what you're asking for this year. And in 2024, the cost was 17,200,000.0. So if I'm doing the math right, that's about $2,600,000 increase plus what is the savings, for transferring costs over to the recorder? You know? So for instance, if you weren't transferring costs over the recorder, how much extra are you getting over 2024?

Madam chair, madam vice chair, we would have requested $23,200,000 if we had not transferred in person early voting based on the board's resolution to the recorder's office. So that takes us down to the net. What we're requesting is $19,700,000. I don't know if I have the exact calculation that you're asking for. I have this math that I can get you and I can

That's

get

you that helpful though. So it would have it would have been 23,200,000.0. And in 2024, it was 17 17. 17,200,000.0. The actuals.

That's correct. So

you're asking for $58,000,000 no. $6,000,000 more.

6,000,000. It would have been 6,000,000 if we were using.

Okay. That's what I needed to know. Thank you.

But it is up to that point, madam chair. So with that making that transfer, how much is your budget going up?

With making the transfer? Yeah, making that transfer. It's going from 17.2 to 19.7.

So 2,000,000.

2,500,000.0 ish.

But without doing the transfer 6.

It would have been 6.

That's right.

Okay. K. It's nice to have people go first. They ask all my questions. But I do have a few more, if I may. You had referenced a sinking fund, mister Shireh. How much was in your sinking fund that you are carrying into this election?

Madam chair, board members, thank you for the question. And I think Kirsten Prindle from Budget is on, if I make a slip

up here. I have the same question for the next presentation.

We have historically planned for, I think it's $13,000,000 a year transferred to the sinking fund. So part of the costs expanding in elections is us working with budget and finance to sort of rethink how we're funding the sinking fund, because the cost around elections have gone up in recent years, and that 13,000,000 a year transfer is not sufficient to cover that increase year over year. So that's something that we are cognizant of now with this request, and also preparing for future adjustments to that funding mechanism.

So so miss Pringle, you're online?

Madam chair, yes. That is correct. Can you hear me?

Yes, please.

Madam chair mister Scherer is correct. We currently transfer $13,200,000 into our sinking or reserve fund every year to be able to fund the cyclical nature of elections. Prior to the fiscal year twenty seven request submitted by elections and recorder, we had about $17,400,000 in the reserve balance. We're transferring in that additional 13,200,000.0, so we are currently in a shortfall of $188,800,000.0 dollars, which we're working on evaluating as we prepare the fiscal year twenty seven budget on how to cover that shortfall and to be able to continue to have the funding available for recorder and elections to fund them.

So thank you. And so the intent of a sinking fund is to smooth out the every two year disruption in cost. Does that include both offices, miss Pringham? Yes. Thank

you. Madam chair, yes. It includes both offices.

Thank you. Next question. The wonderful May statute. You may decide you wish to become elect and I understand why it was done, but it creates that awful uncertainty that is difficult to budget around in terms of voters converting to election day voters. What percent are you anticipating under the May statute? And will they make their appearance then on election day?

So, madam chair, from our mock elections, what we've tested from a throughput would be 30% of the election day voters would be voters choosing to take advantage of this option. I do not anticipate it will be anywhere close to that factors. Oh, maybe in the primary election because well, we are we're using one single line. Right? The reason we need to use one single line at a voting location is the sidewalks outside of the voting location usually aren't wide enough to accommodate multiple lines.

Right? Posting this information on the elections website, which line and the wait times related to each line. Multiple factors, and I can go through a whole long laundry list of those. So because we're using one line, in the primary election, we rarely have lines.

Okay.

So I think voters that may have their mail in ballot will show up at a voting location, and they might try to take advantage of it, which actually will be a good thing because then maybe they'll do it again for the general election. However, for the general election, I am anticipating there being some lines. Right? When you have 250 to 260,000 voters turning out, you will have it's normal to have ten, fifteen, twenty minute lines. And for most people, convenience rules the day. Right? So they'll show up, and they'll see 30 people online

Right.

And they'll say, I'm just gonna skip it and drop it off in a drop box.

So I noticed in my neighborhoods with my voters, the late earlys were somewhat shamed. Mhmm. So they sent their ballots in earlier, but that's it's changing voter attitudes. And I can reserve this question for the recorders or the recorder's office may choose to to comment. Does that practice that's also allowed during early voting?

Madam chair, it is a May for early and emergency. That's correct. When the tabulation on-site is just election day. But to to be able to skip the to check-in and skip signature verification verified? Yeah. Mhmm.

Okay. Next question. Regarding the additional vote centers, and thank you for your hard work and the teamwork on the part of the recorder's office, I'm unclear as to how many you actually are gonna get confirmed. I know you have asks out. What happens with those budget monies, those staffing monies?

Madam chair, are you if we don't get the right now, we budgeted in the budget request is sufficient for us to add all the ones that we haven't asked out for those, so that would not be an additional request. If for some reason we fall slightly a bit short, then that would be a little bit of money that would go back into the sinking fund.

Thank you. And you had mentioned shortages in the Tolleson, Avondale areas. I think you used that as an example of looking for more sites because the one site you do have has logistics issues in terms of where the voters stand. It's very small. Are you addressing any of the others shortage of sites in the West Valley? And what is that a function of? Because I have a chart here that shows where the highest percentage of voters likely to turn out here, but and that's not necessarily in those areas. But I still would like to know what you're doing to address obvious shortages.

Madam chair, you're right. I used that as an example. There were some locations across the entire valley that had similar type situations. So we went through, identified every single one of those voting locations based on that heat map analysis, that drive time analysis, looked at 2024, what were the lines there, and then attempted to identify additional locations. And all of those were high priority for us to find new locations in those.

Then we had well over 40 locations that were available for us in 2024 tell us, no, they're not available for us, either for the primary general or both. And so then we had to backfill all of those locations. And I think we've been fairly successful in every area of town with Sands being the one area that I still have a concern about is the Waddell area, and looking for an area out there, to serve those voters. We had a school that we used to use, and that school is no longer available to us. So it's not that we needed more locations in there.

We just need to find a replacement location for that school. We've got several different fillers out there for different so we've got actually that school in our books. Right? And we haven't published those locations, but and that was that's one of the locations we told our recruiters, don't hire for that because they've told us no, but we've gotta find something else out in that area.

Thank you. And so we'll to mister Gallardo's point, we'll be having that conversation down the road. Then the difference between and this is straying over into the recorder's territory. So if you prefer to defer, but you have jointly recruited site selections for early and election day voting. Can you talk about the ebb and flow, the need for a twenty eight days voting site versus the shorter cycles, like twelve days or the weekend before? How do you analyze that?

So, madam chair, for this election cycle, I've really left that analysis to the recorder's office. I'll ask We provided them the framework for what we've used in the past, but the decisions about their leaving locations were the recorder's office.

Thank you. Hearing no other questions, thank you very much. Stay on call in case I you're needed back. And we will now proceed to the second part of this presentation, calling on the recorder's office presenters, Justin Heap, Richard Green, and Ray Valenzuela. And mister Stone, I don't show you on the list.

Yeah. One we're substituting mister Green.

I'm so what?

We are substituting for mister Green. I am substituting for mister Green.

Okay. Good to know.

Thank you all. I'm very glad to be here.

Please turn on your microphone, and would you be so kind for those who are listening on line to introduce yourself and your staff?

Absolutely. I am Justin Heap. I am the Maricopa County recorder. To my left is Sam Stone. He is my chief of staff. And to my right is Ray Valenzuela. He is the director of early voting.

Okay. Please proceed, sir.

Thank you. Just wanted to give a just one quick side note. We did present a much longer, more in-depth presentation At the request of the of county admin, we were asked to pare that down just to the numbers and to the new locations. That's the reason for the relative brevity of our presentation. So but we can make that other presentation available if

And may I ask the county administrator brevity to explain?

Thank you, madam chair. I believe the clerk's office reached out to the recorder's office because the item was agendized only for the ELE one budget.

There you go. Thank you.

There we go. Okay. So, as to the two slides on our ELE budget, both for the primary and the general, as was stated by Mr. Jarrett in his presentation, There is an increase in cost. That cost is primarily though a transfer of funds and duties from the election department over to the recorder's office.

That's about $3,400,000 in additional. Those aren't additional over the cost. We're simply moving them from one department over to another. I will state also, in addition, we worked hard to make sure that this would be cost neutral, that we would not be going above our baseline from what we initially submitted. And so we do have some additional costs.

We have been which for those new early voting locations, which we'll discuss in a future slide. But we did just wanna put we were able to cover those costs through the contingency fee that we requested, so we are not requesting any additional funds be added. Just on the contingency, our margins are a little bit thinner, but we should be able to stay within those margins, so there won't be additional costs. There's our general primary. You can see the breakdown.

The primary cost driver is gonna be in the temporary workers and the truck drivers. Those are, again, just things that were handled exclusively by the election department that have been transferred over to us. So we estimate after the contingency that we are using a total budget of $8,276,000. On that, for the general, the same breakdown is there. Again, the major cost drivers are the staff that is being and purchasing of temporary workers that's being transferred over.

We anticipate for the general election a total cost of $12,074,047 and 806. I'm sorry. I didn't advance the slide. Forgive me. There we go.

And there's our general breakdown, and then we'll discuss the location. So this was handed off to us a little bit late in response to the resolution. So our team began working immediately with the elections department and their team. I do want to extend a personal thank you to Brittany Johnston and her team who have done who have been very professional and helpful in assisting us in the in the transition and working with our staff. So some of these locations that we are we are adding.

So what we what we did was to take a look at the map and try to identify areas that have lots of potential voters, but have not been served and have not had a voting location in previous elections. So we added two twenty seven day locations in the Mesa area. The reason for doing that was that in mister in supervisor Galvin's district, District 2, we did not have any twenty seven day sites. And we felt that that in Mesa. And we felt that that was underutilized.

So and the reason for that is simply by by population. Mesa is the second largest jurisdiction in the county. It has a larger population than Tempe, Scottsdale, and Queen Creek combined. And we felt that having only one voting location was was insufficient for that, and we wanted to make sure that we were opening up another position. Mesa is also very large.

These locations that we had were in the Far East Valley, so we thought the addition of a downtown location would make it easier. That's where a large percentage of the population of of Mesa lives. And we also expanded several twelve day locations there in the East Valley. These are also areas that have not had a location. Oh, I'm sorry. In the Southeast Valley. Yep. These are areas that have not had a location in several voting districts. Number five in Chandler, we added a twelve day location. I wanna say thank you to supervisor Stewart for helping us to secure that that location.

We've also added a location in what what was the Cesar Chavez Center. I think that name is now in Flux. Added that in Levine and also in at Mountain Park Church, that's in South Phoenix. These are also areas that have not had a district. Our reasoning on on this was to give more voters opportunities to vote.

Those are population centers where we think that there are a lot of potential voters that would like to have a site in those. And I I do want to extend a a thank you while we're on the record to representatives Anna Hernandez and Keisha I'm sorry, not representative, councilwoman's Anna Hernandez and Keisha Hutch Washington. Also, the the Phoenix clerk, Denise Archibald, for helping us to secure that additional location in South Phoenix. These are, I I think, areas where we have potential voters that would vote early at an early voting location if they had had one. We tried to do this based just on where we think there's population centers that have not had them, and we did this as best we can to do this in a bipartisan manner and make sure there wasn't.

So we are adding location in East Mesa and in Chandler. I would say those are largely red areas. However, in South Phoenix, that's a deep blue district that has not had a location for quite a while. Lavigne, I say, is purple, and Downtown Mesa is sort of a swing district that's that's purple. So we didn't We we certainly didn't have any goal to make sure that either party would have any advantage.

We opened locations based purely on where we could find them and where we think. Just as I can see on the map, you'll notice sort of in that central district, I believe most of that is in District 3, madam chair. It has been notoriously hard to find election workable election locations at that place. I think if we'd had more time, we we probably could have found one in the Anthem region in North Area. We will continue working on that, and we expect we'll be able to find that for future elections.

Unfortunately, in the time frame we had, we just weren't able to secure any sites and get them on board. So these are the additional sites. As I said, we have tried to defray that cost using our contingency basis. You know, in the future, when we go into future elections and have more time to work collaboratively together to get more sites, I think we would like to kind of expand the number of maps. I think that for most of us, I think offering early voting in person locations is a a good map because I agree with representative Gallardo that I'm sorry.

I keep saying representative. Supervisor Gallardo that we wanna make sure that that everyone is given an equal opportunity to vote. And we're we're not really sure at this point. We don't have full access to GIS and to create the heat maps, but we certainly don't wanna create a situation where it becomes sort of a self a self perpetuating error where certain areas don't vote in person because they don't have a location near them. We want to give everyone an equal opportunity to vote however they feel is best in their interests. So that's my that is our presentation of what we're planning to do. I'm happy to take any questions.

Other questions? Mister Stewart.

Thank you, madam chair. Is the window for early voting locations is that window closed now? Or if you saw an opportunity or somebody came forward and said they'd be willing to open an early voting location, would that still be an option?

Sam, would you like to do that?

So the the limiting factor at this time is contracting and assuring that the facility meets all the required standards of the county ADA and so forth and so on, which is still a function of the elections department, that question would need to be directed to them.

Okay. Alright. So if it became an opportunity, we would then have to vet through all the things ADA compliance, whether or not they could run it, the space was right. And would we have the budget to even do that? Or is this e l this budget presentation just for what we're talking about? So I guess what I'm asking, are we shutting the door on this and moving to the next, you know, the next next task?

We are we are not shutting the door if additional opportunities arise. Okay. The office would be more than happy to explore them, but the timeline now is very tight and difficult. I just put that out as a warning that the contracting element for securing the contracts for these facilities is probably the single biggest barrier at this time.

Thank you, madam chair.

And to that point, mister Stone, what is the drop dead date, so to speak?

When do you

draw the line?

The the drop dead date was the twenty seventh as it was presented to us. So that date has passed. But as I said, our office would continue to work. It really would be a question for the elections department if they could complete the necessary inspection and contracting in time.

So what I'm hearing you say is it isn't a drop dead date. Are you continuing an active search or do you have asks out? Just so I understand.

We based on the need to cooperate within the boundaries of what the timeline we've been given, this would be our final submission. However, as I said, if there is room, we would continue to be eager to work to find additional locations.

Deadline. Timeline. Help me understand. Are do do you have a different timeline we need to be looking at?

Madam supervisor, the elections department does the contracting for these locations

Mhmm.

And they do the site inspections. Those are the two time barriers at this time, so I cannot answer that question. That would have to be directed to the elections department.

Thank you.

Madam madam chair, if I can add, I think If we could Madam chair, whether whether the the timeline can be can be moved or not. I think the reason why the election department set that date was that if if we're going to open additional locations, we need additional recruiting. We need time to hire people and get them get them trained to fill those locations. So I think that was the reason why it was set at that deadline. I mean, I I think potentially we could possibly find an additional and get it, but it would be very difficult for us to be able to recruit the people and get them trained in the very short time frame that we have. So I think that was the reason. I mean, I think it's flexible, but only flexible to the extent that we can fill those spots.

Thank you. Do you have questions? Vice chair.

Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. I want to talk about the budget request. And so I just wanna make sure I'm understanding this right. So for the primary election, you want 8,300,000.0, and your request for the general is 12,000,000. So about a total of 20,300,000.0. And then I think you said of that 20,300,000.0, 3,400,000.0 was transferred over because of the that you're getting the early voting obligation. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay. And so if you take if I did the math right, 20,300,000.0 minus 3,400,000.0, it's 16,900,000.0 would be, you know, basically it. And so what was how much did the recorder's office have in 2024? So I'm gonna ask the same question of you that I asked of elections so I know how much increase you're asking for.

Well, as I said so I I think we we asked on our 2024 numbers for the our budget for the twenty twenty four primary was 4,600,000.0, and for the twenty twenty four general election, it was 8,300,000.0. So it it is an increase. Like I said, most of those are are things that are being transferred over. And then also the various cost increases that that mister Jarrett laid out, that there's we we have increasing cost for poll workers and and training, postage, and inflationary costs and things that have that have ballooned the cost somewhat.

Okay. And so I think I just heard you say, please, it four point in 2024, the cost was 4,600,000.0 or right. And the primary and 8,300,000.0 in the general for a total of 12,900,000.0. Is that accurate?

Yes.

Okay. And then, I'm probably going to, eventually ask Mike McGee to come forward, but so then it would be 16,900,000.0 was if, you know, you had the 20.3 minus the 3.4, was 16.9 minus 12.9. So you're basically asking for 4,000,000 extra over and above, if I'm doing it right. Do you think that's right?

And to that point, does it does the 2024 do those numbers include contingency, which is already in the budget? So

I'm just trying to figure out just like I did with elections, how much more are they asking for, and how much more are you asking for from

'24? Please come forward. Yeah.

Madam chair, yes. The numbers from last year and the numbers from this year do include the contingency numbers. So the increase of what what were the two numbers?

Well, what I did is I took The 4,000,000? I I what I did is I took the hold on a second. The primary, and I just did it real quick, so hopefully I did it right. But the primary, cost you had was 8,300,000.0 roughly, and then 12,000,000 for the general. Added those two together is 20,300,000.0. And of that 20,300,000.0, 3,400,000.0 was, you know, moved over, because of the early voting. So that leaves 16,900,000.0, and I think you said in 2024, it was 12,900,000.0. And so that's $4,000,000.

That is correct.

Okay.

And those numbers include contingency monies in them.

So what are they without contingency monies? If we're I'm trying to get to an apples to apples.

All e l e one requests have contained contingency monies inside of them. This year, for example, we had included a million. And as we went through our negotiations, that number came down as different costs were discussed between the two elections department and the recorder's office working with your staff. Typically, include around somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 just for our our side of the budget, but I would have to get back to you on the exact number in the twenty twenty four budget. And those numbers are always baked in because the one thing about elections is you can't always can't always predict the costs because there are a lot of volatile, a lot of moving parts going on.

So we always include that in conjunction with the elections department who includes that in their their total numbers as well.

So I know you're questioning, but just to follow-up to my point to my point to her point, does that also have you withdrawn money from contingency last year or this year? I'm trying to get to the bottom line on your contingency fund balance, sir.

So as far as withdrawing our contingency fund monies, that's So in this particular fiscal year that we're presenting before you now, as we went through the negotiations, we had to dip into contingency to make sure that we could include a few extra sites and include certain positions such as TTEC auditors that we both elections and your staff believe would oversee our T tax and that this would be an additional cost. And so what we did was we used our contingency to make sure that our total budget asset we transmitted did not increase, so that we're coming to you with a budget neutral proposal. And past years, I would have to look at what the actuals were for 2024 to see exactly how much we dipped into contingency if we did. Typically what happens is we run the election, make our best estimate based on whatever data that we have. Mister Jarrod provided a lot of detailed information as to how we come to those numbers.

We share a both his team and mine share a spreadsheet, a master spreadsheet that has all these assumptions baked in. And then at the end, we settle up and any monies that are unused, we return to the sinking fund. So the contingency is just so we don't have to come back before the members of the board and have to take another bite at the apple because we want to make sure that the elections run smoothly and that we're not in a situation where they're not funded. So hopefully that answers your question. I can provide any details post meeting on how much if we have eaten into those contingency monies in the past.

And I can tell you that that has been the way that both our budget and the elections budget has been run since I've been with the county for about eight eight or nine years.

Thank you, sir. I yield back. Thank you, vice chair Lasko.

Yeah. Thank you. It's important. My next question is the same question I asked, of the elections department is, how many early voting sites have you confirmed so

far?

So far, all all the early voting sites we have have been confirmed. So the one those that appear on the map are are now locked in. So we'll Do you know

the number? One. 41. Okay. 41 sites. Alright. And oh, I have a question. How much extra so how many extra sites are going to increase to twenty eight days instead of whatever they were in 2024, is it two extra?

Yes. Two extra. Okay. So gonna go

for both of of that?

Do you know?

Let's see. The total cost is about 67 Yeah. About $67,000 a transfer.

Oh, okay. So $67,000 extra for the two sites from what was it at before? Twelve days?

It's around 60 to 70,000 per site. If you if you take into account the cost of the poll workers and the actual business days that they're working. Right. You know, also you have to take into account that we did a proration based on actual business days that they're open that belong to early voting versus belonging to election day and early or emergency voting. So I would say it's somewhere around the $60,000 mark based on those calculations.

Okay. Alright. And that's all my questions. But, madam chair, I'm probably going to ask mister McGee to come forward and help me understand a few budget things.

Thank you. I think we're on the same page, but Supervisor Carrianto.

Great. Thank you, madam chair. Similar to the questions I asked, Scott, help me understand because this this is the discussion I've had even when Helen Purcell was our counter reporter. Help me understand how we decide the number of polling sites, where they're located, what's the methodology, what is that methodology? How do we decide that we need one at Cesar Chavez Plaza for 12? What was what was the thinking behind that?

Well, I think that now the all of the early voting location sites had been chosen by the election department in the past. I think as mister Jarrett said, they look largely at heat maps and voter turnout and try to determine well, where are the most people who are likely to vote in person going going to turnout. So that I think has been the driving factor. When we came in, I mean, also looked at the heat map and the options. But we also try to take into account distance and sort of population.

Look, I'm not this is not to discount anything Mr. Jarrett said or his method. I think one concern that I have is that I don't want us to use data that creates sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. Where, for example, we say, well, we don't put an early We don't have a lot of people voting. They don't have an early voting location.

Do we know that those people wouldn't vote early if they had a location that was nearby? So we tried to look in the short time we had to identify, well, where are population locations that have just not had an early voting location in multiple cycles? And sometimes that may be driven by data and looking at a map and trying to guess. Sometimes, unfortunately, it's driven by just not being able to find a location that's willing to do that. I know that that was the case in the At Levine area that they just couldn't find.

And in the Ahwatukee area, they've had difficulty getting locations to commit to do it. So we think those are areas that may have that certainly have voters that could turn out. So we were looking to make sure that we give that option and we can reevaluate after this election whether that was a valuable use. Maybe it is possible that we open these locations and they continue to have a low turnout and then we can recalibrate. But I know our team kinda went out of its way to work with the elected officials in those jurisdictions to say, look, can you help us find a location?

And so I anticipate that hopefully we'll get a better turnout. But, know, my general feeling on it is that, you know, our our goal as election officials is not necessarily to drive voter turnout. It is to drive voter opportunity though. We should be looking I mean, if if Republicans don't turn out in this next election, that really isn't on the election officials. That's the party's job to resolve.

The only time we should be looking at voter turnout is to see did where we put these locations not give the same opportunity to any groups of people in the valley that otherwise might have voted in turnout. So, we're trying to expand the list and make sure that we have an even spread so that hopefully all voters in Maricopa, regardless of what their party have, have an equal opportunity to vote.

And and and madam chair and and mister Heap, I I just to dive in here, kinda I think you know where I'm going. I mean, if you look at the twenty seven day sites here, you have quite a few of them in the East Valley. I'm not trying to make this an East Valley versus West Valley, but nonetheless, you have quite a few in East Valley. But if you look at the West Valley or even my district that does have, unfortunately, the lowest voter participation turnout in the entire county, you look at the actual numbers, you look at the heat map. So under that methodology that you're thinking, well, how do we try to help people and give them those opportunity to vote?

I would look into more my area of town, even the Central Phoenix area, which has it's it's the second smallest, yet it has the highest voter participation in the county, yet there's no site there. There's a lot of factors that go in, that's why I'm just trying to understand what was the factor, or what were the thought process in the Far East Valley that there's so many twenty seven day sites versus the rest of the county?

Well, I think we only added two additional twenty eight day sites in the East Valley, and that was really a look at the looking at population of where we think we might vote. Now, I think certain parts of it I I think, look, Downtown Mesa has not had a location for multiple cycles. And yet, I think the majority of the population of Mesa lives in downtown or the West Mesa as compared to the Far East where we've traditionally had sites. So we worked very hard. That's not a, you know, deep red district.

It wasn't simply because I live in East Mesa that we we did that. I think that the reason why the focus was there was that we identified that we had a large block of voters. I think most of the places that seemed that they had needed or had not had one simply fell within the East Valley. We're certainly happy to look further in the West Valley and see. But as compared to portions of the East Valley, the West Valley had more locations and broader spread of sites.

Like I said, I I think if there is a gap in the map that we're gonna continue looking for, I think North Phoenix is the area that's the most restricted. But we did add an additional site in in in South Phoenix to try to to reach out because we identified a need there. So

so mister Heaves, then help me understand because I I don't have I know we we're gonna have this discussion at a later date, but help me understand. So how many twenty seven day sites do we have in the East Valley right now under your current draft proposal? How many sites do we have?

Nine.

Nine? And how many do you have in Central Phoenix? Central Corridor type Phoenix.

The nine was was actually kinda just dividing Phoenix in half up through the center. So if you include center, you you're gonna have four three to four that are

Let me put it this way then, mister Stone. How how many sites are in District 1?

I believe at the moment that's three at the moment. I'll have to double check.

Point of clarification. Is that twenty eight day or

Or twenty seven day.

Twenty seven day.

Twenty day location. How many are in we'll we'll go through all five districts. How many are in District 1234, and 5? We'll go through all.

Yeah. I I I We do not have that on a map in front of us. I'd have to plot this out. We saw we'd have to get a map that had each of the the had the the city to the whole the county divided up into districts to place them in each one. I have a general understanding of where the districts are, but looking at a map, you know, aerial view of the whole of the whole city, I can't tell you that.

When I and this is just me looking at at at the twenty seven day sites. And correct me if I'm wrong, I'm adding seven days in the Southeast or seven locations in the Southeast location. The Northwest location is two locations. The Central Central Corridor is two locations. You see where I'm getting at?

You know, how I mean, that's why I think it's so important. I mean, we had this I've had this discussion, again, with every county recorder, Helen, Fontes, and Richards as well. When it comes to these sites, there has to be a process, something not just looking at, oh, okay. Let's throw darts and and let's try to find a location, but what is the criteria? How are we deciding what these locations because I can tell you, I can speak on District 5, this is an area that less likely the voters are gonna have the transportation need to go from one place to the other.

That's why I always push to have certain sites at certain areas. I think that's why it's so key to be able to look at at at at at how far a person would have to drive. Is it one mile, two mile, or even walk or take public transportation? So these are the things that you least for me, that I wanna look at when deciding how the locations are going to be. We wanna make sure, yeah, we wanna make sure everyone has that right to vote, and we wanna be able to ensure that that the sites are in the proper location.

But what I'm looking so far, and it's only a draft, it really does look a little lopsided East Valley versus the rest of Maricopa County. That's my take. And I haven't I haven't done a deep dive yet. I haven't even sat down to look to see exactly the locations. Are they in the proper spot? I'm not I'm not I mean, if you know, I haven't even looked at the Cesar Chavez location and why that was selected. There is the Baptist Church down the street that is also a site, but is Cesar Chavez location the exact right location? I don't know. I'm very familiar with it. I have a lot of community meetings there.

I know I know exactly where it's at, but could could could we perhaps look at Central Phoenix? Could we look at Maryvale? Could we look at the Far Far West Valley where, you know, when you're looking at Buckeye, Tonopah, you're looking at all these areas. Are these other locations that could be looked at as well? That's why I mean, mister Heeb, I think that's why it's so important, perhaps, when we come back to to actually have a full picture of the sites that what are the criterias?

What is it that that had us decide this is it? This is the location? Or even, as I I mentioned to Scott, how do you decide 200 and what was it? 260 plus voting sites on election day? How how did that number come up? How did we decide that? Why two sixty? Why not 300? Why not, you know, two two twenty? What how did we come up with that two sixty? Because that is what is going to this you really play a good factor in terms of if our election is gonna be successful. I'll go back to the nineties or the not '96. I'm sorry. The twenty sixteen presidential preference election. It's the exact same question I asked Helen Purcell.

How'd you come up with the 60 polling sites? How how how how do we come up with 60? Turned out we had a five hour wait line at every one of these sites. It was a disaster. But yet no one was able to tell me how the 60 were decided. I knew deep down this isn't enough. This isn't. And I and then these are discussions I've had with the elections department. I love Karen and Helen, but we were wrong on that. 60 was not sufficient in a presidential preference election. It wasn't. And we had the five hour wait line. So it goes back. How did we decide these sites? What were their criteria?

And and and why not other areas? You have Central Phoenix, higher concentration of voter, more likely to vote in higher numbers than some areas in the West Valley or in the East Valley. Why not a site there? If we're looking at how do we churn out participation, I have a whole list of areas in my district that have lower lower participation, and I've always said the reason because of the lower participation, I think, is is a lot of factors. Anything from transportation to to just the hours of the sites and all that stuff.

Those are all contributing factors in determining participation. So depends on how we wanna look at it. I just have some severe questions. Why the East Valley and not other areas in Maricopa County? And and maybe that's a discussion we can have at a later date when the final map is proposed to us.

Yeah. Look, it is a Look, there's a lot of factors that we we go into. I know that one of the major factors that we were considering looking in is travel time for the various things versus population. So when when we looked at the map and looked at the counts, it was clear the East Valley had a lot further distances to travel in order to get to a voting location as opposed to mostly other parts of the city. And so that that was a major factor, but there's also things, you know, to consider.

It is legitimate with the election department's analysis of where are people most likely to vote. We don't wanna open additional locations in, you know, in sites that have very low in person early voting turnout. And then we've staffed and paid to have a site that's not being utilized in a specific area. Those are kind of And then, unfortunately, we always are under the gun on the factor of can we find a location that is willing to to contract to do it. And that, I mean, as you know, having worked, that really is often, you know, an unfortunate necessity.

I I I do agree. I know in the legislature we when I was in the legislature, we we pushed a lot to to try to get us to declare Arizona to declare election day a school holiday and require the schools to open up because that used to be a deep pool of of possible options that is mostly closed to us now. So unfortunately, we you know, it it takes a great deal more effort to think find locations. This, we think, is the best map we could come up with in the time that we had to make those changes. But I'm happy to continue to discuss this going forward. If you have other locations that you'd like us to consider and see if we can fit in the time frame, we're happy to discuss that with you.

Thank you, mister Gallardo. In my understanding, we're pretty much up against the wall on timing and deadlines.

It would

be difficult.

We have some follow-up questions. I'll start with vice chair Lesko and then supervisor supervisor Stewart. Stewart.

Yeah. Thank you very much. It's not necessarily a question. I just agree with you, mister Gallardo. From what our staff put together, there's seven twenty eight day voting centers in the Southeast Valley, and that's the smallest geographical area of the different areas.

And then there's two in the Northeast Valley, two in Central Corridor, two voting centers in the Northwest Valley, which is the second largest geographical area. So, of course, that's my district. So I will try to work with you guys in the future. It's hard to get these sites, you know, and so maybe you just had better luck over in the Southeast area. I I don't know.

And so, and then in the Southwest Valley, there's three, and that's the largest geographical footprint, but not as many voters show up, but the largest geographical area. So, yeah, it would be ideal if we could have more, you know, more even spread out. But I understand, just from me trying to find these sites, peep there's people don't wanna do it. The schools don't wanna do it. Churches don't wanna do it.

And the churches some of the churches we have, won't allow electioneering. And so then, of course, the candidates don't like that because they wanna electioneer. And so it's difficult. And that's the number one reason I supported some legislation that would require the schools to be voting centers. And especially, there's all talk about going back to precinct voting. If we did that, we would have to require schools, to do this because we get just can't find enough places. So anyway, I I just wanted to say, yeah, I think there's some disparity. I don't know the reasons, but it would be ideal if we could have more equal representation. Representation. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Stewart.

Thank you, madam chair. You know, on this mapping, right, how much of the 2022 map did you use or the 2024 map did you use? Are these what would you say the percentage of these locations are the exact ones we used the last two, four, six years?

Everything except the circled ones that we've been adding in, and and several of those had been used in the past. For instance, if you go back, I think, eight years, I believe, Cesar Chavez was used at that time. So for instance, they would not allow that as a a twenty eight day site. They agreed to twelve. There is concentration of twelve day sites in the Center and West Of Phoenix.

Those in the past, several of those were twenty eight day sites that are no longer fulfilling that that full month long role. So, there is a need, accurately identified, to find more locations that will allow, for twenty seven day sites or twenty eight day sites throughout a number of areas. We had about two weeks in our office to to work on this process. Elections was was gracious enough to extend that. We we to about three weeks for us.

But it this is something we look forward to working on going forward and having really a a full time effort year round at this as elections has done to try to maximize locations in every area.

And so and, madam chair, in these sites from '24, 2220, they were under the oversight of the board. Right? They were under the oversight of the elections department where these locations were chosen?

That is correct.

And then you guys mirrored this map to what the elections department sort of recommended as it relates to space, voter turnout, etcetera. Is that okay. Well, that that makes to me. Then I understood.

Supervisor,

yes. So we just need to kinda look dive a little bit deeper into D 5, some of these other areas. But here's a deeper question. How many people vote in these early voting? I mean, it's a month long voting. How many people actually take advantage of that as it relates to 80% early ballot, you know, mail in. Day of voting is what percentage? What percentage are we talking about here of people that need to go vote a month ahead of time that don't choose a early ballot, don't choose provisional or absentee ballot. What are we talking do you guys know? Scott? Anybody?

Madam chair, representative Zuerite, I I don't have the specific breakdown for you. I can get that information for you before the in the next few hours.

Mister Jarrett, do do you know off the top of your head what the percentage of people that use this

is

a huge expense. How many people actually use it?

Supervisor Short, so would you repeat your question? Sure.

Sure. Yeah. So how many people use early voting centers compared to the 80% early ballot? How many people show up and vote in person as as a cross section, what are we talking about? This is an a huge expense for the county and the recorder's office to allow for what is now a month long voting period. How much does that cost?

Madam chair, supervisor Stewart, it changes election to election. So in twenty twenty four presidential election year, the primary election, the first couple weeks of early voting, there were an average of about six, seven, eight voters showing up at each site per And that did progress as you got closer to election day. In the general election, there was more, usually about a 100 or so for the first couple weeks at each of those voting locations. So but again, that shows a disparity between the primary and the general. Also, I think some of the factor is moving the election up.

First couple weeks are right around July 4. A lot of people are out of town, so that could impact that as well.

Okay. So are we thinking 5% of the total vote, 3% of the total vote actually use this month long voting period?

Madam chair, supervisor Stewart, the two week period for the first couple weeks, it's less far less than Less than

a percent?

Yeah. Way less than 1%.

And the lion's share of the expense for early voting is in those two weeks, and then the the second actually, the lion's share would be in the twelve day voting period, which actually could make sense if you're traveling and you wanna vote in person. I get that. But but I I think we're I guess what I'm getting at is that, like, if if I were looking at it from a cost basis and what was effective spend of money, this twenty eight day voting period seems ridiculous from a cost perspective. I understand we have to do it by law, and you guys have done a great job of outlining all this. But this is something that I think is a bigger picture we need to really evaluate and whether or not it's a value that the voter sees, for their cost.

I would imagine the cost per votes in the 200 to $250 range or more versus the $9 that you said earlier.

Mister chair,

super president Stewart, I believe in the primary election, it's closing in on $500 above. Wow.

Okay. Thank you, madam chair.

And thank you, mister chair. So, again, I appreciate all all the questions being asked, but I have just a couple more. You had mentioned an issue with GIS and access to GIS. Is that a problem for you and your staff? And if so, what is that problem?

Not I mean, it's not currently and this gets us into the the team that manages GIS, they produce maps for the county. Now, not just for elections, they actually work all year round, but the those teams were then were transferred in 2024 over to the election So so any data that we get, if we want an in-depth, we have to simply we have to request that as a ticket over from the from the board. But that's that that's another issue. So we don't we don't actually have full access to that team. We can only do it through a ticket process and ask for specific data.

And just to clarify, it's my understanding elections and any other county in the any other department in the county has to use that same ticketing process. Mister Shira? Yes? No? Doesn't matter.

Madam chair, I can answer into the microphone. Yes. We all follow the same process.

Thank you. Next question.

Madam chair?

Please.

But it's also the case that the other counties that for instance, the assessor has his own GIS team as well that that he built. We had our own GIS department. I think if we're another office needs something from county ETI, they need to use that ticketing request. But each other department has their own dedicated IT staff. So And there

we go. And thank you for avoiding that. I got us into it.

So

you had also mentioned, mister Heap, that the East Valley has the longest distance to travel to vote. I don't believe that's true. I think it's the West Valley. I just wrote it down because it's

I think I think we mean that in the average per voter. So for example, if you're in you know, if you're something near Wickenburg, you've got a much further way to drive, but there's also fewer voters. So we have a very dense concentration of voters in Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, Ahwatukee, those areas. So per voter, the distance drove is is there. So we wanna put them in locations where we're serving the most voters.

Okay. So I'm I'm not understanding that, but the question was asked earlier. And later on, you'll be the sites will be confirmed, and we can have those follow-up conversations. I'm really unclear at this point what your criteria is for selecting both twelve and twenty eight day sites, to mister Stewart's point, the twenty twenty seven day sites are way more expensive. So do you have a specific criteria for that? Do you know how much of this budget is dedicated to new twenty seven day sites as opposed to twelve day? That might be mister Green

question. It it is.

So

this is just an approximation based on about a one week marathon trying to crunch the numbers and come up with a the transfer from one budget to another, but I'm thinking somewhere around the 50 to $60,000 because we are just paying for the poll workers salaries during the business days of which these sites are open. So on a twenty eight or twenty seven day site, they're open twenty two days. That's approximately $50.60 dollars for us because we're not getting charged for the emergency voting time and the election day because we're doing like a proration. So there's also leasing costs, that's picked up from the election department side.

So this is amazing back of the napkin stuff. Thank you. What I would like is and not here, but what I'd like is an actual accounting of the difference in cost between the twenty eight day, twelve day sites. And what percentage of this 2027 budget is allocated? You do not have to give me the answer now.

But thank you for explaining at least preliminarily what goes into it. Thank you. And then also trying to figure out the contingency budget and the uses to date on the part of the recorder. And I'm I'm getting some I still don't think I have an apples to apples, and that way may well be on me, but I am asking for an accounting on the recorder's contingency budget, contingency draws, and the purpose purposes for the contingency draws because those are specific specific requests and used to cover last minute unforeseen emergencies. So going forward, I'd be happy to work with you all on that and very much appreciate those responses.

Mister McGee, can you help us with a rundown on contingency budgets so I'm clear? It's a very different methodology in terms in terms of how you employ them. Thank you. And then vice chair Lesko, you can ask your questions.

Madam Chair, I have Kirsten Prindle on the line who did a deep dive into the ELE one budget and all of the requests and also into the growth of the budget. I'd like to see if she's available online.

Yes. I'm here. Madam chair, members of the board, to answer your question regarding contingency, the recorder and elections has always included a contingency line item in their ELE one budget submission to be able to cover unknowns that come up during the election without having to come back to the board to request additional funding. I don't have an exact accounting of how they've been used in the past, but we can work with recorded elections and providing that to you. And then what happened for the fiscal year twenty seven budget is when our office worked with recorder and elections on how to reallocate in person early voting.

A couple of new requests came up for the recorder's office to be able to add additional voting sites and then adding some TTEC auditors and temp staff for hotline representatives, and we were able to offset those costs with the request that the recorder had made for contingency was a million dollars, which was 400,000 than elections had submitted. So we reduced that contingency in order to fund these other items.

Vice chair Lesko, any follow-up questions?

Thank you, madam chair. And mister McGee or Kirsten, I just wanna make sure that I have these totals right for the budget asks. And then, so from what I can tell, the elections department, their total ask is 12 for ELA one

Mhmm.

Is 19,800,000.0. Is that correct? Okay. The recorder's ask is 20,300,000.0. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. And an increase from 2024 elections for the elections department, their increase is 2,600,000.0. Do you know if that's accurate?

That one, I don't know. Kirsten, is that correct?

Vice chair Lasko, the increase was about 3,600,000.0 for elections when you factor in the budgets that you're using, which is post board resolution. And so when we're looking at 2024 election actuals, the total increase from what's being requested in the 2027 budget is $12,700,000. 3.6 of that is elections, and 9,100,000.0 is recorder. However, you do have to factor in that 3,400,000.0 shifted from elections to recorder as part of the board resolution.

Okay. Let's go over that again because it's different one than what I thought. Okay. So before, I thought the recorder's ask was $4,000,000 over the twenty twenty four years, saying it's how much more? 9,100,000.0 over?

Yeah. So there's there's different numbers being given because there's the post board resolution and the pre board resolution. Resolution. And so if we're talking about the recorder and elections budget increase post board resolution, it is 3,600,000.0 for elections and 9,100,000.0 for recorder. If we're talking about pre board resolution, the increase was 7,100,000.0 for elections and 5,600,000.0 for recorder.

And the 9,100,000.0 for the recorder, that includes the transfer. Right? The new responsibilities, which was what? 3.4? I'm kinda going a million. 3,400,000.0. So then their net is is what? You know, it's 9.1 minus 3.4. Correct?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah. I just wanna know what the total how much extra are you guys asking us for?

Madam chair, madam vice chair, so the way I looked like to look at it is pre resolution, the election costs have increased by about 12,700,000.0 since 2024 for the ELE one budget request, and then after post resolution, all it was was a net neutral transfer transfer between between departments. Departments.

And the 12.7 is the total between the elections department and the recorder?

That's the total increase.

Okay. Increase. Yes. I understand. Total increase. Alright. Okay. That's a bunch of money.

It sure is. Alright. Thank you. I think this gets us there, I hope. And I wanted to thank you, mister Recorder, for coming and presenting.

I also wanted to thank our elections folks for coming and presenting, and let's see where we go from here. And I will follow-up through mister McGee and miss Pringle on my questions because I'm still not clear on the contingency budgets and usage. And I know that you're already evaluating because it's creating a disruption. It's creating over ages, so we need to revisit the entire contingency policy. But in the meantime, I will follow-up directly, and any board members, I will, of course, share that information with you. So I want to thank you very much, sir.

Thank you. And and madam chair, if you there's been a lot of questions. If if you wanna submit a list of questions for clarity to us, please do so today, and we can we can illuminate that.

Well, and I so appreciate that. We're focused on budget. So it's my understanding that your office has been working with Mr. McGee and company. So that would be just fine.

Thank you.

For expediency's sake, the board will now consider item number two. Madam Vice Chair, is there a motion to go into executive session?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move we go into executive session.

Is there

a second? Second.

It's been moved and seconded. All in favor will say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We will convene executive session in the Sullivan Conference Room. And I wanted to communicate through the chiefs what our plan is since we've gone later, as usual, than we expect. But I super appreciate, the board members participation and quest