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Because of Roseville's aging population and because some people want the feel of going to the polling place, Roseville would continue to administer absentee voting at City Hall in the week before each election. Voted absentee ballots would be delivered to Ramsey County for processing. The City would keep some responsibilities concerning elections. The City would designate a person to be the principal contact with Ramsey County. In addition, the City would.- • Promote filings, elections and voting through newsletter, news releases,, website and other venues. • Conduct official canvass of election results following each City election. • Provide the title and text of City questions to be placed on the ballot. • Provide final approval for polling place locations. • Administer absentee voting in the week or two weeks before an election, depending upon voter numbers. The true impact of Ramsey County administering elections would be felt at the staff level. Administering elections is an extremely time consuming and stressful responsibility. Roseville has one staffperson assigned to coordinate elections. Many cities of a similar size have two or three staff who handle different parts of an election. We have reviewed staffing responsibilities and Roseville does not have staff with time to take on the responsibility of helping to coordinate the elections. Ramsey County has staff solely dedicated to elections. They have the interest and develop the expertise to handle the many aspects of elections — technical, administrative, clerical, supervisory, training etc. They have an adequate number of staff who specialize in specific areas instead of relying on one person to do everything. 66 POLICY OBJECTIVE 67 Shift election responsibilities to Ramsey County and ensure that Roseville residents have the 68 best voting experience while minimizing financial burden on taxpayers. 69 This is a contract for one election cycle. Roseville can review the experience following the 2012 '7 0 election and decide whether to continue the relationship in future years. 71 FINANCIAL IMPACTS '72 The proposed contract would be for $,107,500 for the 2011-2012 election cycle. This is a cost of '7 3 approximately $,4.55 per registered voter in Roseville. '74 In 2009 and 2010,, Roseville budgeted $,113,230 for elections. Actual costs were $,101,315 for the 75 two years. Roseville also spent approximately $,2,960 for elections' postage that is not included '7 6 in the budget, nor does it include approximately 44O hours that other departments/staff expend '7 "7 helping with elections. This includes staff from almost all departments — administration, parks '7 8 and rec, payroll, police, fire, etc. A conservative estimate puts the employee salary cost at '7 9 $1 1 0p000. Page 2 of 3