Benton County Officials OK Election Fee

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County election officials agreed Tuesday on charges they will assess to help pay for elections in the county.

The Election Commission voted unanimously to approve charging cities, school districts and other entities $1,500 for programming costs related to elections. The programming charge will be assessed in addition to other costs that vary according to the size and complexity of the election, Kim Dennison, election coordinator, told the commission.

The county began to program its own election ballots this year, instead of paying to have the ballots created by Election Systems and Software, Dennison said. The county still pays the company a flat yearly fee of $15,000 for technical support, but Dennison and the commission staff do the programming.

Dennison looked at recent years and the number of elections held and divided the $15,000 cost by that number.

"I looked at how many elections we've had since you've been on the commission and since I've been in my position and 10 is the magic number," Dennison said. "We do about 10 election a year."

Election records indicate ES&S would typically charge about $3,000 for a small election in the county, but the costs would fluctuate as the company charged on a line-item by line-item basis.

Russ Anzalone, commission member, said he likes the idea of having a smaller, fixed cost.

"I like what I see," Anzalone said. "Any time I can save money for a city of someone else who's holding an election I'm in favor of that."

Anzalone asked Dennison if runoff elections would generate another $1,500 fee. She said they would.

Jim Hall, executive director for community and government relations with NorthWest Arkansas Community College, said he supported having a smaller, set fee and he hoped the commission could keep the cost down.

"Do you think this is something you can sustain over a period of years?" Hall asked.

As long as the election equipment being used doesn't change the costs should remain constant, Dennison said.

Robbyn Tumey, election commissioner, also supported the proposal and made a motion to have the fee put into effect for elections back to April and other elections in the county in the future. Billing for elections held since April have been on hold while the commission debated how to charge for the programming, Dennison said.

"If one of the political subdivisions is here and is happy with it I think we should move to approve it," Tumey said after Hall voiced his support for the proposal.