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`34 POLICY OBJECTIVE 35 Shifting election responsibilities to Ramsey County would ensure that Roseville residents have 36 the best voting experience while minimizing financial burden on taxpayers. 37 This is a contract for one election cycle. Roseville can review the experience following the 2012 3,,,i election and decide whether to continue the relationship in future years. 39 Contracting with Ramsey County would provide several benefits, including.- 40 °11 0 Puts the responsibility for elections with a County division whose only function 42 and purpose is to coordinate and manage elections 43 0 Potential cost savings through economies of scale as more communities contract 44 with the County, the overhead for each decreases 45 0 Provides for consistent budgeting from year to year 46 0 Allows staff to focus on key work responsibilities that suffer during election 47 seasons 48 0 Eliminates sending multiple staff to multiple election training sessions 49 0 Provides flexibility in staffing, allowing employees to focus on their primary responsibilities and other duties as assigned 2 By shifting elections responsibilities to the County, this would free up a considerable amount of 3 staff time to dedicate to records retention,, which ranked a much higher budget priority (970) 54 compared to elections (999) in the Priority Based Budgeting that was completed by the Council this spring. 56 FINANCIAL IMPACTS 57 The proposed contract would be for $,107,500 for the 2011-2012 election cycle. This is a cost of approximately $,4.55 per registered voter in Roseville. 59 In 2009 and 2010,, Roseville budgeted $,113,230 for elections. Costs charged to the Election 6o account were $, 101,315 for the two years. Roseville also spent approximately $,2,960 for 6'i elections' postage that is not included in the budget, nor does it include approximately 4�4�O hours 62 that other departments/staff expend helping with elections. This includes staff from almost all 63 departments — administration, parks and rec, payroll, police, fire, etc. Based on actual salaries 64 and hours worked,, a conservative estimate puts the employee salary cost at $,13,000. 65 Under the contract with Ramsey County, the County would incur all costs for election judge 66 salaries and training, printing ballots, publication of notices, telephone, transportation,, rental,, 67 storage and other costs. 64, In addition,, the City would have more than 900 hours of staff time to direct to other essential 69 services — more than 500 of the election coordinator's time and more than 400 of other staff's '7 0 time. '7 1 In comparing budgeted costs to this proposal, the biennial costs for outside services and charges '72 would increase slightly, but the cost of City staff time would decrease significantly. '7 3 While the budget will increase slightly, staff time required for elections that is not reflected in 74 the budget will offset most of that increase. Page 2 of 3