BENTONVILLE -- Benton County election officials will ask for pay raises for election workers to keep them above the new minimum wage set to take effect next year.
The Benton County Election Commission discussed the county's 2016 election budget at a meeting Friday. Russ Anzalone, commission chairman, and commission member John Brown Jr. will ask that pay for poll workers be increased from $8 per hour to $9 per hour and pay for precinct sheriffs be increased from $10 per hour to $11 per hour. The deadline for personnel requests is Aug. 24.
The minimum wage is set to increase to $8.50 per hour next year election coordinator Kim Dennison told the commission. The county has about 495 poll workers. The impact on the budget will depend on the number of elections the county has to conduct in 2016, Dennison said.
An initial count shows the county will have at least seven elections next year. Precinct sheriffs are paid a higher rate because they supervise the polling locations they are assigned to. The county needs to retain the poll workers it now has, and training new workers probably would cost the county more than the raises, Dennison said.
"I would rather pay them to keep them than lose them and pay to train new ones," she said.
The commission will continue its work on the 2016 budget at 1 p.m. Sept. 2. Anzalone and Brown agreed to review the county's 2012 budget, the more recent presidential election year, in advance of that session to compare to the election budget for 2016, another presidential election year.
The commission was told Friday that the county will continue to use its current voting system throughout 2016. The state will conduct a pilot program for a new voting system in Boone, Columbia, Garland and Sebastian counties, Dennison said. A letter from Secretary of State Mark Martin's office said election workers in those four counties will be trained to use the new voting machines and equipment in time to have the system in place for the March 1 primary election. The cost of the $2.5 million pilot program will be covered by the state.
Electronic voting machines being used by those four counties will be turned back to the state and be available to other counties, Dennison said. Dennison has asked that Benton County be allocated 100 additional machines to supplement the 261 the county now has but she hasn't heard from the Secretary of State's Office on that request.
"It would speed up the voting process because we could have more machines out on election day," Dennison said. "We wouldn't have the long lines like we did in 2012 and even in 2014."
NW News on 08/15/2015