The Putnam County Election Commission has approved its budget for the next fiscal year.
Administrator Michele Honeycutt said the $463,602 for operations is a slight increase compared to the last one election year.
“Last year our budget covered two elections,” Honeycutt said. “This time it is just going to cover one. So, it is down from last year. It is up a little bit from two years ago, which was a one election budget. Only because we’re not sure in the election May 2022 are we going to be doing a lot of absentees again.”
Honeycutt said the extra $20,000 is mainly allocated for a new printer, copier and preparing for absentee ballots. Honeycutt said the increase also allows for more election workers to count votes.
“We end up with more stamp and postage stuff,” Honeycutt said. “We end up with a lot of paper, because we have to mail out requests and the ballots. Things like that we are just unsure about how that election is going to go. (…) We do have a little more in there for an extra copier and printer. Turn November, we ended up replacing three of our printers.”
Honeycutt said the budget also include preparations for redistricting this year. Honeycutt said the commission must run legal ads in the paper and mail new voter cards in this process.
Finances for the next fiscal year was unanimously approved Wednesday. The budget has to be approved by the County Commission before being implemented.
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