On September 20, 2024 Commissioner Sardo and myself presented testimony to the Onondaga County Legislature Ways and Means Committee on the proposed 2025 County executive budget for Onondaga County. Above is the video portion of that presentation. Below is our formal written testimony.
Written Testimony for the Onondaga County Board of Elections
Budget Hearing September 20, 2024
Thank you to the Onondaga County Legislature for the opportunity to discuss our 2025 budget request. Representing the Board of Elections is Democratic Commissioner Dustin Czarny who has served in that role since 2013 and Republican Commissioner Michele Sardo who has served as Commissioner since 2017. The Onondaga County Board of Elections has 20 full time staff, including the two commissioners. We also have 25 seasonal machine custodians that serve during election periods. Onondaga County has over three hundred and eight thousand active registered voters. To serve those voters we currently have ten Early Voting sites, One Hundred and Forty-Six election day polling places and over one thousand inspectors bi-annually for the June primary and November general election. We also assist the villages who have March and June elections as well as the rural and suburban school districts, along with library and fire districts.
The 2025 County executive proposed budget for the Board of Elections has addressed many of our wishes for 2025. The budget includes an increase in pay rate for our part time mobile technicians from $25.00 to $25.75 an hour. This is the first pay raise for this position in over a decade and reflects pay increases that school districts and villages that run their own elections have instituted over the last several years. The County executive budget also institutes cleaning fees for our private polling sites. We are losing polling places each year, especially among private institutions who find the burden of hosting a polling place to outweigh the civic pride of doing so. This cleaning fee will retain more polling places.
Commissioner Salary Raises
In 2020, a change in the classification of the Commissioner’s title eliminated an annual salary increase. Other elected officials, department heads, and county employees have seen annual 3% raises during this period. In the last four years, we have seen some of the largest rates of inflation in our country’s history. The election commissioners are re-nominated this year, and it is appropriate to address the salary for the next two-year term. We are asking for a 5% raise to $104,971.65. This will bring the salaries more in line with similar sized counties: Monroe ($153,534), Orange ($96,342), Rockland (120,606), Albany ($108,593), and Dutchess ($121,058). It is important to note that the Commissioners get no overtime and have led the department through uncertain election times while maintaining a cost ratio of spending to voter registration of just $11.67 per voter which is the 5th lowest in all of NY State.
Additional Staff
The need for additional permanent staff for the Board of Elections is more crucial than ever. The OCBOE has 20 full time employees and over three hundred and eight thousand voters. That is one full time employee for every 13,959 voters. This is the highest ratio in New York State according to the annual report provided by the State Board of Elections. For comparison of similar sized counties, Monroe County (482,105) has a ratio of 1:9,642.10, Orange (241,849) has a ratio of 1:10,515, Rockland (204,078) has a ratio of 1:8,872, Albany (200,107) has a ratio of 1:8,700, Dutchess 198,801) has a ratio of 1:9,466.
The county executive budget rejected our proposal to add two additional Machine Custodians, and four additional Election Clerk II positions. The Custodians will help safeguard and program the Clear Ballot election system as well as the Knowink poll pads and poll print cabinets. We have nearly 1,200 pieces of election equipment (275 Clear Cast Scanners, 175 Clear Mark Units, 450 Knowink poll pads, 150 KnowInk poll print pads, 150 Knowink poll print cabinets) that needs to be tested and programmed before every election event. The two custodians who hold the positions are overwhelmed and need support to protect our capital investment.
The four additional Election Clerk II positions will not only help with the influx of registrations that we have seen over the last few years, but it will also help us with the influx of vote by mail applications that we have received and are expecting for years to come. Also, next year automatic voter registration will take effect and expected to increase use of online voter registration will continue to burden our staff.
The low staffing levels is causing stress as we must implement voluntary and mandatory overtime as we must have every voter registration processed before every election event. The additional six employees would bring Onondaga Staffing ratio to 1:11,808 which is at a higher ratio in comparison to similar sized counties but will address the immediate needs.
103 Clarification
The County Executive budget allocation in the 103 account is less than our projections for 2025. We estimate $1,072,328.50 in expenditures. This estimate is put together assuming a countywide June primary. It is reasonable to believe the primary in 2025 may only be a city wide primary, however we have no way of knowing that for sure. We won’t know the extent of the 2025 primary until the petition filing period in April of 2025. At that time, we will have a clear estimate of what areas primaries may occur in. We leave it up the Onondaga County legislature to determine the best course of action to accommodate this. The allocated 103 in the County executive budget could be enough to cover a city only primary and may not need adjusting at all.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Dustin M. Czarny Michele M. Sardo
Democratic Elections Commissioner Republican Elections Commissioner
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Dustin M. Czarny 