Lax oversight found in audit of elections board

By MATTHEW SPINA

News Staff Reporter

1/28/2006

Auditors examining Erie County's Board of Elections in recent months found lax oversight, $13,000 in checks collecting dust as they awaited deposit and a staff which, for the most part, is not overworked.

County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz said Friday the 36 full-timers - all political appointees - should be enough to carry out the board's current mission, as long as they can be supplemented by part-time or seasonal workers. But the board still will need more money, he said, to phase in the voting reforms ordered by the federal government and to stage a special Senate election Feb. 28.

The board disagrees with many of the findings the new comptroller made public in his first audit of any government unit, and with his implication that part-time workers can be as useful as career employees during busy campaign seasons.

"They think that what happens is, when we get real busy that we are just busy moving boxes or pushing carts. That was 30 year ago," said Dennis Ward, the board's Democratic commissioner who says his workers need computer skills and a knowledge of state Election Law.

"Are you going to turn over your election process to people who are here today and gone tomorrow?" Ward asked. "Are you going to call in Bob from Accountemps?"

Poloncarz on Friday also reminded County Executive Joel A. Giambra and the new Legislature of a problem: This year's budget ignores more than $1.6 million in elections needs that should have been anticipated last year.

"This did not come out of nowhere," Poloncarz said. "Everyone knew this was coming."

He referred to the cost of a special election to decide the State Senate seat vacated by Byron W. Brown when he became mayor in January, and to the demands that the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) places on counties which can no longer rely on municipalities to store voting machines or to set the pay for election inspectors.

The act will cost Erie County $1.4 million this year, Poloncarz said. Officials will have to take that money from a shallow pool of reserves, even though some dollars will eventually be reimbursed by cities, towns and villages for the costs of their elections. The special Senate election Feb. 28 is expected to cost up to $200,000.

Once again, it appears less likely that Erie County's taxpayers will escape a tax increase next year. To remain within their means, officials must save $40 million in operating costs this year and protect $30 million in sales tax income from demands it be shared with other local governments. Both goals are proving difficult.

Auditors, working under former interim county comptroller James M. Hartman, began reviewing the elections board late in 2005 and went back to its operations as of Oct. 1, 2004. Giambra had wanted the board's efficiency scrutinized if he was to sign off on another $234,000 that commissioners said was crucial to the November general election. County lawmakers agreed.

Giambra spars often with the elections board, calling it a haven for patronage appointees whose largest concern is protecting the political powers that gave them their jobs. But state law lets the major political parties decide who gets elections board jobs in New York's counties, and for every Republican there must be a Democrat.

Poloncarz said the report was conducted by civil service auditors, and he was not present when they told the two elections commissioners of their findings.

e-mail: mspina@buffnews.com

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