Unanticipated costs of switching from traditional precincts to fewer, more centralized vote centers have helped push the Denver Election Commission 25 percent over its appropriated budget for 2006.
Commission officials today will ask a City Council committee for $768,000 to supplement its $3 million appropriation for the year.
Election commission officials have been signaling that their 2006 budget would not cover all the costs built up in the transition.
“There are no surprises here,” said election commission spokesman Alton Dillard. “They know what is going on.”
But Jeanne Faatz, the councilwoman who chairs the finance committee, said while she knew something was coming, “I was really disappointed in the size of the supplemental.”
Most troubling, Faatz said, was that she was told the commission did not consider costs before increasing the number of vote centers for the Nov. 7 election from 47 to 55.
Election Commissioner Susan Rogers said the extra money is needed because of a combination of incorrect assumptions and unfunded mandates.
The commission originally built its 2006 budget based on the old style of precinct voting – even though it planned to switch to the vote center model with larger, but fewer, voting sites.
“We were making the assumption that the net costs would not be more than we had seen,” Rogers said.
But that budget was ripped by council members at the time. So the commission revised its budget based on vote centers.
Originally, commission officials planned to have 35 vote centers across the city. But this August, the commission used 47 vote centers in the primary. And on Election Day, there will be 55 vote centers.
“As we went through the process,” Rogers said, “we found that there just were not enough large spaces” in the city to house a center.
With each added site came added costs for infrastructure, Rogers said.
Faatz said she asked commission executive director John Gaydeski and Clerk and Recorder Wayne Vaden if they looked at the costs before deciding to use 55 vote centers.
“You can’t blame them for wanting to make sure they have enough places for the election to go smoothly,” Faatz said. “But I really do wish there had been a discussion about budget implications.”
“The alternative is to complete 289 (precinct) polling places to make them fully (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant,” Rogers said, meaning curb cuts, ramps and other modifications at dozens of sites.
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
