Municipalities seeking state funds to pay extra costs for voucher referendum
Utah Supreme Court says voters should decide yes or no
Who's going to pay for the election?
Municipalities statewide have already budgeted funds to hold local elections on Nov. 6. The problem is, since it turned into a statewide election, the price tag is going to be more than 2 1/2 times higher.
So Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, whose office oversees elections, is meeting with local leaders to figure out how much the state has to come up with to cover the additional costs of the election.
Right now, a "very, very, very rough estimate" is about $2.3 million, according to Herbert's chief of staff, Joe Demma. That number could change, he said. "There's a lot of people coming to the table right now."
That includes nearly $1.2 million that the state would distribute to counties to run the election. The rest would be needed by the lieutenant governor's office to pay for technical support for electronic voting machines and putting together a voter information pamphlet.
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who set the election date for the voucher referendum just last month, said he wouldn't have chosen Nov. 6 without assurances that local governments would be reimbursed for the unanticipated costs.
One option that's being talked about is dipping into the $3.35 million already allocated for next year's presidential primary on Feb. 5. "That's a pretty easy solution," Valentine said.
Demma said pitches will be made later this month to both the Republican and Democratic legislative caucuses to make sure lawmakers are comfortable with that option — and that that money will be replenished in time to pay for the Feb. 5 presidential primary.
"We're all in kind of new territory here, figuring it out," said Brian Thompson, Utah County clerk and auditor. Thompson said it's only fair that the state make up the difference, since municipalities had no idea they needed to budget for a statewide election.
"It's really not fair for the cities," Thompson said. "They are the ones caught up in the middle of this."
Now costs will go up in cities like Morgan, where leaders budgeted just $2,000 for the November general election. City leaders budgeted so low because they planned to use paper ballots, said Lincoln Shurtz, legislative analyst for the Utah League of Cities and Towns.
To save costs, most municipalities planned to use punch cards or optical scan machines instead of the electronic voting machines. But now with the voucher election, state law requires the use of electronic voting machines.
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