Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. This is my weekly article on election statistics and related topics. These articles give insight into the data and statistics that make up our home, Onondaga County and New York State. Each week I investigate a different election event or political subdivision that can give us clues into our rich and diverse electoral tapestry. This week I take a look at some of the data in our 2023 Annual Report that was released at the end of August 2024.

The Onondaga County board of Elections is mandated by law to make a written annual report t detailing the previous year’s activities. This report is delivered to the County Executive, Clerk, Comptroller, and every member of the Onondaga County Legislature. The report details all of the aspects of the Onondaga County Board of Elections. Much of the data in the report is like electoral information on registration. Turnout, and voter behavior is already detailed in my post-election #weeklywonk. Today I will focus on what we have not covered, namely the workload and financial aspects of the Onondaga County Board of Elections. If you want to read the full Annual Report it is listed on our website at:  https://onondaga.gov/elections/annual-reports-and-meeting-minutes/

The first data point is the number of registration forms processed by the OCBOE. Registration forms are a bule of the work the OCBOE does year-round. In 2023 the OCBOE processed 43,158 forms. Since 2018 we have seen a large surge in registration forms that we process annually as seen by the above chart. This is mainly due to the reforms made in 2019 to make registering to vote easier in New York. The forms in 2023 were down from the 76k forms processed in 2019, the last similar year, but still ahead of our form totals before 2019. The lion’s share of these forms comes from the DMV (36,066). The second form total came from the mail at 3512. A794 forms came over the counter, including online voter registration, 1,366 forms came from New York agencies and 426 registrations came from Affidavit voters who must fill out a registration form on their envelope when they vote.

In 2023 the Onondaga County Board of Elections spent $3,134,217 in actual appropriations and $643,936 in grant spending. Of the actual appropriations $1,153,585.00 was spent in salary and overtime for the two commissioners and eighteen full time Board employees. $715,265 was spent on election inspectors and mobile technicians. $657,930 was spent on supplies and election expenses. 57,297.00 was spent on Employee benefits. $458,130.0 was spent in interdepartmental charges such as IT, Law, And printing services. The Grant spending by the OCBOE was mostly from the TIER grant ($592,278.00) which assisted in the capital project of replacing all voting machines and upgrading to have ballot on demand printers in every polling place. $30,162 was reimbursed on our NYS Absentee Ballot grant to reimburse for postage, printing, and supplies needed for NYS ever increasing Vote by Mail budget. $19,320 was spent on our CYBE security grant, mostly for planning a generator in our building.  Finally we spent $2,175 to close out our nearly15 year old HAVA Shoebox grant that was used for training of election inspectors.

The budget for the Onondaga County Board of Elections is determined by the Onondaga County Legislature with input from the commissioners of Onondaga County. In 2023 the Commissioners proposed a budget of $3.95 million annually. The Onondaga County legislature only approved a budget of $3.13 million. The actual spending for 202 ended up being $3.83 million. In 2023 the OCBOE exceeded our adopted budget, but not the proposed spending by the commissioners at the start of the budget process.

To see why the OCBOE was over budget and where we differed from the legislature it is important to break up the budget into Direct Appropriations and Interdepartmental appropriations. Direct appropriations are the actual spending by the OCBOE and where commissioners have the most control over their spending. The difference between the draft plan of 2.94 million and the adopted budget of 2.45 million were proposed by an additional six employees. Those were not approved by the legislature. The OCBOE, despite facing a county wide hand count, actually came in under the adopted budget only spending 2.36 million. The OCBOE has only gone over the adopted budget three times since 2013. In 2016, 2018 and 2022. 2016 and 2018 were unprecedented years and we still came under the draft budget of the commissioners which estimated the actual election expenses correctly. In 2022 a second primary was ordered midyear causing the OCBO to go over both the draft and adopted budgets.

Interdepartmental appropriations are the reason the OCBOE went over budget in 2023. Interdepartmental spending is out of the control of the Onondaga County Board of Elections. This spending is employee related benefit spending and chargebacks from other county departments such as IT and Law. The office of Management and budget prepares the draft budget on this, and the Onondaga County Legislature adjusts it when they approved. The spending itself is only reported in the final books the Onondaga County Comptroller puts together. The entire average of the OCBOE budget this year is from interdepartmental spending that came in at $1.47 million after only being budgeted for $1.05 million.

The final part of our budget is revenue. The OCBOE is not a revenue generating entity, but we do take in some revenue annually. The revenue mainly comes from villages and school districts that reimburse OCBOE for the time of our employees and costs of helping print ballots for their elections. The OCBOE actually exceeded expectations this year, having the best revenue year since 2018. We brought in 18.3k in revenue after being budgeted for 11k. This is mainly due to a cost analysis we have done over the last few years to adjust prices for Villages and School Districts to reflect actual cost to the county for assisting in their elections. Revenue from voters and campaigns in getting lists and mailing labels has all but vanished as the OCBOE delivers data almost exclusively electronically now so there is no need for reimbursement.

One of the ways the OCBOE has found a way to make up for the lack of resources is to be efficient in our use of election inspectors. The OCBOE fields one inspector for every 297.56 voters in 2023. This is the fifth most efficient inspector ratio in the state. NYC averages one inspector for every 165.18 voters. Non-NYC counties had one inspector for every 204.78 voters. Large counties over 100k, the most similar category to Onondaga County, has one inspector for every 206.96 voters. The State as a whole has one inspector for every 187.45 voters. We have done this while still giving great service to voters by investing in technology like on-demand printers and electronic poll books.

Finally, a part of our Annual Report each year looks ahead to the budget of the next election and compares it to other county Board of Elections throughout the state. There are sixty-two counties in NY State, but the 5 NYC counties function as one, making fifty-seven different entities. We adjust for voter population so we can make true comparisons. The biggest source of conflict between the OCBOE and Onondaga County is our full-time employee roster. With twenty full time employees the OCBOE averages one full time employee for every 14k voters. This is the worst ratio in the state, which averages almost one full time employee for every 7k voters. This is nearly the same ratio for non-NYC counties one for 7.2k and large counties with over 100k voters (1:7.2k).

The OCBOE remains one of the more austere budgets in New York State. The 2024 budget intends for OCBOE to spend $11.67 per voter in 2024. This is the fifth most austere budget in NYS. For comparison NYC will spend $54.73 per voter but outside of NY the rest of the state will spend $21.99 per voter, nearly double the OCBOE budget for 2024. Large counties over 100k will spend $23.28 per voter and the state as a whole will spend $34.63 per voter.

That is, it for this #weeklywonk. Next week we return to the political subdivisions as we look at the Town of Fabius. The Town of Fabus is having a contested contest for Town Judge this year. A Democrat has stepped up to the plate to run in what is seen as one of the more republican towns in Onondaga County. Check it out next week. As always you can subscribe to dustincarny.com for all content and election news updates.