Brownwood Commissioners Court met Monday morning to discuss two items that were requested by Suzy Young of the Brown County Elections Office and consider approval of such.
The first item on the agenda was permission to extend the term of temporary employees to help with data entry and election matters.
Previously Young and her staff have approached the court with requests of not only a new database system but most recently more employees on a temporary basis, one full time and one part time employees. This was requested due to the TEAMS database system being, as Young had claimed “unreliable” as she claimed it has lost needed data causing problems with the voter registration process and overall ineffeciency.
During the Republican Primary, voter turnout was higher than expected and which resulted in the elections office having to bring additional ballots to the polls and then those ballots were required to be hand counted. This caused hours for employees to be overages for the weeks and accumulation of comp hours are growing. During the election season, Young and her staff stated that it is hard to take comp time and leave the office short handed.
Commissioners discussed the matter of the temporary employees at length. The previous approval of employees gave the elections office an “up to $10,000” amount to cover the cost of the temporary employees. Young reported Monday that they have spent about half of that amount. Nina Cox, county auditor, figured it more accurately and said there was only about $4450 that was not used. Commissioners discussed further and then approved a motion to extend the term of the two temporary employees until April 30 authorizing the use of the additional $4450. The length of the term for employment will cover the current county elections run off and the preparation for city and school elections. The funds will most likely be depleted by April 30, according to Young and her staff.
The second agenda item was a request by Young to attend summer classes finishing up a degree that she has been working on for over three years. The classes would be at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. Most of the cost would be airfare and a rental car for travel to and from the University. The estimated cost, due to airfare prices fluctuating, would be $1800. Commissioners Gist and Adams commended Young for furthering her education; however, they brought up the point that the temporary employment just approved was over budget. The question of whether these classes were mandatory to do her job was asked, to which Young stated that it was not.
The question of how long Young had to complete the degree was asked. She stated 12 years and that she had been taking classes for three of these so far, hoping to finish up this summer.
“We are searching for dollars to keep the Elections Office in the budget, so it makes it most difficult when it only benefits you at this time, although I commend you”, stated Gist. To this Young replied, “Then I will take it out of the contract funds”.
Commissioner Adams then stated, “Under the circumstances, with the Elections Office, we are going to need every penny. It is my recommendation to look at this next year…not to approve this, even through the contract funds”. Commissioners then agreed to make no motion to approve at this time.
