Richland elections office underestimated cost to fill Washington’s seat

The Richland County Voter Registration and Elections office underestimated by nearly $24,000 what it now says it will cost to hold a special election for Kelvin Washington’s vacated District 10 council seat.

On second reading of the budget for the special election, which is necessary after Gov. Nikki Haley unseated Washington for failure to file state income taxes for three years, council members balked at the updated request.

“We’ve had a calculation error of some type to the tune of $24,000, which is a 40 percent difference from the original amount asked for,” Councilman Bill Malinowski said. “This is supposedly coming from a department that knows what they’re doing.”

When originally presented to council members, the elections office estimated it would cost $62,751 to conduct a primary and, possibly, a runoff election in District 10. An updated spreadsheet provided to council on Monday, however, raised the price tag to $86,362.

“There were, apparently, some calculation errors in the original spreadsheet that was provided,” said assistant county administrator Brandon Madden, who spoke on behalf of the elections office. “There were just a few errors and things that didn’t add up correctly. ... There was some additional information that they needed to include that was not included.”

That miscalculation did not sit well with the majority of council members.

“How do we know that’s not more pervasive in their overall budget?” Councilman Seth Rose said.

The elections office recently tangled with council over a request for more than $1 million to be added to its budget through the end of June. Council denied that request.

In recent discussions, a number of council members questioned the responsibility of the office’s budgeting. The elections office and the majority of its Legislature-appointed board, however, defended their request, noting they were granted only about $1.2 million of their original request of more than $3 million at the beginning of the financial year in July.

Rather than sign off on the $86,362 request for the District 10 election, the majority of council voted Tuesday to approve the $62,571 that was originally presented to them until their questions are answered. Councilman Norman Jackson cast the sole dissenting vote.

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 9:59 PM with the headline "Richland elections office underestimated cost to fill Washington’s seat."