Breaking down Williams' budget

Supervisor of Elections Annie Wiliams maintains she cannot trim any more from her $1.056 million budget.

"It is what it is," Williams said recently when asked about the overall state of her office.

But what exactly is "it?"

Hernando Today broke down her budget and discovered the following:

One-tenth of it goes to pay Williams' state-set $101,684 salary.

$339,230 is paid out to her 12 employees.

Williams has allocated $64,600 for poll worker salaries.

Williams has an overtime line item of $18,345.

$2,500 goes toward professional fees; $13,000 for office supplies; and $6,000 for training and travel.

Williams pays out $107,300 to have her department's software and hardware maintained or repaired.

Williams said she has already taken steps to reduce her budget by cutting 2 percent from her $101,718 salary. She also required her 12 staffers to take 12 furlough days, which amounts roughly to a 5 percent pay cut.

County Commissioner Jeff Stabins said Williams should be fair and cut another 3 percent of her salary to show solidarity with her employees. And maintaining that large of a work force is also open for debate, he said.

He also suggested she renegotiate or rebid her contract for hardware and software maintenance to lower that $107,300 expenditure.

In an earlier interview, Williams said it is difficult not to schedule overtime because of the nature of state election laws.

Budget Director George Zoettlein said Williams came in over budget at $1.09 million, which county commissioners deemed was too much.

They approved a final budget of $1.056 million and have said they will not budge from that amount.

Using those figures, Zoettlein said it costs Williams about $88,000 a month to run her department operations.

Lynn Stewart, finance-human resource specialist with the supervisor of elections office, said she preferred Williams answer questions regarding the budget. Williams was unavailable Friday, Stewart said.

Meanwhile, in Citrus County, the supervisor of elections office breaks down its budget into two areas: the elections budget and the administrative budget.

For fiscal year 2009-10, both those budgets totaled $1.28 million, according to Ann Johnson, administrative services director for the Citrus County elections office.

Johnson said her office's line items for overtime and poll worker salaries are $10,000 and $105,790 respectively.

Johnson said the 10 staffers in her department, which includes Elections Supervisor Susan Gill, are not taking furloughs this budget year.

Elections' offices are run differently than other constitutional offices, she said.

"We are bound by state statutes," Johnson said. "Some things are hands are tied (and) some people don't understand that."