Counties await action on special election costs

More than a month after voters statewide cast ballots in a special election that generated little enthusiasm, local elections officers are still waiting on the state to pay the bill.

The May 19 special election, in which voters rejected five of six measures touted as reform for the state’s budget, was paid for by local governments with the understanding they’d be paid back.

That was the pattern with two previous special statewide elections in 2003 and 2005, said Kathleen Moran, Colusa County’s clerk-recorder.

But as of yet, a bill in the Legislature to pay for costs associated with the election has yet to form, she and other elections officials said.

“I think we probably would’ve heard if we were not going to be repaid,” Moran said. “But listening to the problems that the state is having, you’re hoping their problems won’t be passed down to us.”

Because the election wasn’t part of the election offices’ budgets in 2008-09, paying for it came out of the general funds.

That’s no help during a time when most counties are in the midst of deficit-ridden budgets of their own, the public officials said.

“It’s still something we’re anticipating being reimbursed on, and we’re still hopeful of that,” Sutter County Clerk-Recorder Donna Johnston said. “We’re not the only ones.”

Moran said her county supervisors don’t blame her the hole caused by the lack of reimbursement so far.

“Right now, every dollar is important,” she said.

State legislators who represent the Mid-Valley said Monday they’re sympathetic, but as of yet they haven’t proposed any legislation to fix the problem.

Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, said the problem is with the state looking at a nearly $25 billion budget deficit, that issue has to take precedence.

“It’s absolutely imperative that we don’t pass that cost along to the local governments,” Logue said of the statewide election. He added he hopes to push through reforms this year to give more power to local governments and less to Sacramento.

Bill Bird, a spokesman for state Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, said the letter by Gov. Schwarzenegger that called the special election stipulated the state would pick up the tab.

“Our position is that if the governor called for the counties to hold a special election and said the state would pay for it, the state should pay for it,” Bird said. “The senator is not a fan of unfunded mandates.”

A bill to do so would have to come out of the Legislature, though it was unclear whether legislators have received a full tally of the costs statewide.

H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance, said he didn’t believe a final report on election costs was complete, though estimates ranged from $60 million to $80 million. Paying the counties back, he said, typically would come either as a part of the still-unfinished 2009-10 state budget or a separate appropriations bill.

Contact Ben van der Meer at 749-4709 or bvandermeer @appealdemocrat.com.