MILTON, Ga. — Prompted by cost savings when it opted to run its own municipal election this year, the City of Milton will have spent more than it would have paid Fulton County to run the show.
An Appen Media study conducted through open records and interviews shows the city will have spent at least $60,000 more.
Soon after the City Council adopted Milton’s fiscal year 2024 budget in September allocating $102,280 for the municipal election, a dozen more poll workers were hired.
City staff discovered during a trial run that they needed more tabulators to count the ballots at the end of Election Day. Paid at $17 an hour in addition to $40 for training, the 12 new hires increased the election budget by $1,500. Five hours of work was estimated for each.
Milton now has a total of 55 poll workers. That’s not including Deputy City Manager Stacey Inglis, who will double as the chief manager of tabulation, and Lavinia White, the city’s new election consultant.
Some poll workers have also served on one of three volunteer committees, pulled together to cut the workload of election preparation. Two committees, one for training and one for tabulation, are no longer active.
The Training Committee was responsible for assembling the poll worker training manual. The Tabulation Committee helped determine the best way to count votes and helped finalize the tabulation training manual.
Members of the Communications Committee, headed by Milton Communications Director Greg Botelho, have been making recommendations on how to best inform the public on various aspects of the election through website content, social media posts and printed material. They will continue to meet until the conclusion of the municipal election.
Another factor to consider in the city’s election budget, which has not been previously calculated, is city staff time dedicated to…
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