April 10, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
The DeKalb County Election Commission is seeking more funding in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
During Tuesday night’s first county budget committee meeting for the year, Administrator of Elections Dustin Estes presented the proposed election commission budget which includes an increase in pay of $25 per meeting to the five election commissioners, who meet monthly, and a two dollar per hour adjustment for the people who help hold elections. Plans are to expand early voting to six hours a day, four of the five days a week during the early voting period and to make the daily hours more uniform.
“I am requesting an increase of $2,500 to pay the election commission for their monthly meeting from $75 to $100,” said Estes.
“For the election commission workers, I am requesting in total (for 2024-25) an amount of $42,000, an $8,000 from the 2023 budget. I would like to make mention based on how the fiscal year operates, every other year we have one election and then the other year we have two elections. We are coming out of one year that has one election and going into the next fiscal year that has two elections. In our 2023 budget, we had $34,000 so in total this is an increase of $8,000. This increase is to help pay for the early voting workers’ hourly rate increase from $10 to $12 that was approved last year, and for extended early voting hours” explained Estes.
“If you are not aware of our early voting hours, they are a little irregular. Mondays are 1-5 p.m., Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., and Thursday hours are 2- 6 p.m. There are four hours each day Monday – Friday. The thought process was that (by having irregular hours) we were capturing different times of the day throughout the week (for early voting). The election commission is now requesting that we have more standardized hours for early voting that helps voters in a way they are not so much confused. We are requesting enough pay increase (for election workers) to cover extended regular hours each day either from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. or 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. for four of those five days throughout the week,” said Estes.
Saturday early voting hours would continue which in the past have been 9 a.m. until noon.
The budget committee has not yet acted on the election commission request.