Elections chief proposes 8.6% budget increase.
TCPalm.com. May 4, 2005. By Jim Turner, staff writer.

STUART ? The supervisor of elections office has proposed an 8.6 percent budget increase to pay for maintenance on its 767 electronic voting machines and to mail new voter registration cards to more than 100,000 voters in the next fiscal year.

Supervisor of Elections Vicki Davis also has planned a 5 percent raise for employees ? eight including Davis. Salaries will make up almost one-third of the proposed $1.55 million 2005-06 budget.
 
"Last year's budget was up 11 percent over the year before," Davis said. "I'm trying to keep everything to the cost of living, and then we have these maintenance agreements that have kicked in."

The budget doesn't include funding to link a paper recorder to the voting machines.

"Nothing was certified at the state level, they're not available," Davis said.

The county's contract with Omaha, Neb.-based Electronic Systems and Software's iVotronic voting machines does require the county to start paying an annual maintenance fee of $52.50 per machine.

In January, the state will require the elections office to create and send new voter registration cards to every vote, helping to account for a 7 percent increase in office supplies.

Davis doesn't expect major costs if the office is moved from the courthouse complex to a temporary location, to provide more space for the court system. Also, the $160,000 cost of a special election ? the county has proposed asking voters to increase the sales tax an additional penny to raise money for roads, fire-rescue and a new courthouse ? does not appear on her budget because the county would have to put up the money.

Other constitutional officers in the courthouse complex ? tax collector, property appraiser and clerk of the court ? expect to have their budgets ready for the state Department of Revenue by June 1.

Assistant Tax Collector Pat Tobin said the biggest change on her department's budget could be a need for several additional employees to handle driver licenses.

The tax collector's office hopes to receive equipment from the state this summer to would allow driver licenses to be issued at the Stuart office, Tobin said. Driver licenses now are only handled at the Hobe Sound office.

"We've been hoping for that since we opened in Hobe Sound," she said. "They recently had 400 people in one day. That's a lot of people to see when we have only seven clerks down there."