Charlotte County registrar budget, staff changed by supervisors

The problem was two-fold for the Charlotte County registrar. First, one of the office’s current part-time employees had already left for another job and the other will be departing as of July 19. The second problem is that nobody has been interested in taking the positions, as long as they remain part-time.

“I have talked to several people who are interested in a position there, but they’re only interested in full-time (work),” said Charlotte County Registrar Jenni Booth. She explained the situation to county supervisors during their Wednesday, July 10 meeting.

Booth came to the meeting with a request. She asked supervisors to eliminate the two part-time positions in her office, replacing them with one full-time position. The problem, as county staff saw it, was making the numbers fit.

“Currently, each of those employees are working 24 hours a week, which gives the office 48 hours of coverage a week, plus Jenni’s position,” said Charlotte County Administrator Daniel Witt. Spread out over a full week, that’s roughly 4.8 hours each day.

Witt said that a full-time position would be roughly 37.5 hours a week, so he saw it as reducing coverage in the office. He also pointed to the funding. Combined, the part-time workers make $37,000 with no benefits. Bringing in one full-time employee, at a salary of between $30,000 to $30,200 with benefits would increase the registrar’s budget by $10,000. Witt explained that the county has not budgeted to give more to the registrar’s office and had to reach into savings just to take care of the current budget as is.

“We dipped into the reserve to the tune of $1.8 million to balance the budget this year and this (request) is not one-time money,” Witt told supervisors. If they approved the change to one full-time employee, then the registrar’s office will need that extra $10,000 each year.

“Financially, you haven’t approved (the extra),” Witt said. “Financially, it’s a stretch.”

Looking around the region

Booth actually was requesting more than $30,000 for the position. She looked at other counties in the region, with similar circumstances and the same, if not close, in registered voters. Lunenburg County’s registrar’s office, for example, has a full-time employee with benefits, in addition to the county registrar. Their full-time employee in that office has a salary of $38,000. Mecklenburg County’s registrar’s office also has a full-time employee, one paid a salary of $35,880 plus benefits.

Booth also explained the only reason coverage increased to the level residents are used to now is because she had to come to the county and ask for a slight increase in funds, just to keep one of the part-time employees previously.
“In order to keep one employee, I did ask for her to have an extra day to work,” Booth told the board.

And she pointed out that currently, one of the part-time employees has already quit, with the second planning to do so as of July 19. At that point, there will be no employees in the registrar’s office, part-time or otherwise. And the job needs to be within the range of others in the area, in order to attract candidates.

“What I’m basing it on is what the surrounding counties are paying,” Booth said, also pointing out that this employee will need to be fully trained, in order to run the office in case there’s an emergency and Booth isn’t there.

“This person will be trained to do my job as well,” Booth said. “It needs to be someone you can trust to have there.”

And in order for that to happen, the pay has to be attractive enough to gain interest.

No change for Charlotte County registrar

Booth also said going from two part-time employees to one full-time employee in the office won’t change the hours that the building stays open. The only change, Booth said, will be in the fall. When early voting opens up, she’ll likely get some election officers to come in and help staff that, to make things easier both for voters and workers.

Supervisors suggested a compromise, where they would approve the change to one full-time position, with that person starting out at a $30,000 salary. That way the county wouldn’t have to dip too far past what had already been budgeted for the registrar’s office. Booth said she could work with that and so supervisors approved the change by a unanimous vote.

The new position in the registrar’s office will be advertised in the weeks to come, with the goal of getting someone in as soon as possible.

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