Election Funding Plan Shorts Salt Lake County

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) After several months of negotiation, the Lieutenant Governor says he's found a way to pay for the special election on vouchers this November. Cities will cover about half of the three million dollar total cost using money they already planned to spend on their municipal elections. The Utah Legislature will come up with the other half. Counties will collect most of that cash to actually run the election and they'll be responsible for any extra costs. But KCPW's Julie Rose reports the plan works out better for some counties than others:

 

Salt Lake County has come up 200-thousand dollars short in the Lieutenant Governor's proposal to fund the November statewide special election.

The plan calls for cities and the State Legislature to split the approximately three-million dollar price tag. Counties will run the election and incur any extra expense. But the plan gives Salt Lake County only 850-thousand of the more than one-million dollars County Clerk Sherrie Swensen says she needs to run the election. Weber County also comes up short 14-thousand dollars. The rest of the 27 counties in Utah will actually get more money than they say they need for the special election.

State elections officer Michael Cragun says the allotments were based on the number of registered voters in each county. Swensen questions the "fairness" of a formula that sticks Salt Lake County taxpayers with a 200-thousand dollar tab.

Cragun says a similar formula will also apply to the presidential primary election in February, leaving Salt Lake County with unexpected election expenses of nearly half a million dollars.

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