Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Elections And Clerk topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Clerk-Treasurer presents balanced budgets; elections seeks new voting equipment and treasurer requests security cameras
Summary
Clerk-Treasurer Amy Bergens and staff reviewed Clerk, Tahoe General Services, Treasurer and Elections budgets. Treasuer Amy Bergens requested a one-time $11,200 security-camera installation over cash-handling areas; Elections asked the board to consider funding ballot-marking devices (capital request ~$1.84 million) if the state does not provide.
Amy Bergens, Douglas County Clerk-Treasurer, and her staff presented budgets for the Clerk’s Office, Tahoe General Services, the Treasurer’s Office and Elections and described operational changes and one-time and ongoing requests.
Bergens said the Clerk-Treasurer organization provides three distinct functions: clerk services (meeting clerking, records, notary filings), treasurer functions (cash handling, property tax billing and collections) and elections administration. She said Clerk/Tahoe General Services employs seven budgeted positions; the Tahoe General Services office also houses DMV services under a state contract that limits where DMV functions can be offered.
On the Treasurer side, Assistant Treasurer Megan Doris and Bergens described a supplemental request for new security cameras to cover cash-handling stations, the cash vault, hallways and building entrances. Bergens said the cameras would tie into the county’s existing camera system and the one-time cost is $11,200. She said the Treasury already pays annual software and hosting costs and that the cameras are intended to strengthen audit controls for property-tax and revenue receipts.
Bergens and Assistant County Clerk Nikki Leeper reviewed clerk workload and digitization projects: historic marriage-license and notary records are being digitized into the Clerk’s system; passport acceptance remains a sustained revenue source (the office accepted 1,147 passport applications this fiscal year, producing about $40,000 in additional revenue).
On elections, Elections Administrator Georgie Ann Hargis outlined the department’s work running multiple countywide and statewide mock elections after the county switched to a new statewide voter registration and election management system. Hargis said the Secretary of State’s interlocal agreement for the new statewide voter registration system will raise the county’s annual software cost to roughly $51,000 from prior amounts near $7,500; Bergens said that interlocal agreement will be brought forward for board approval.
Hargis detailed a supplemental capital request for ballot-marking devices (BMDs). She described BMDs as devices that produce a printed ballot the voter reviews and then scans at a precinct — providing a voter-verified paper audit trail and removing reliance on legacy printers. Hargis said the county’s current election printers date to 2017 and are showing wear; she asked the board to consider funding the BMD project if the state legislature does not do so. Hargis provided a capital estimate of about $1.84 million for BMDs and cited an ongoing estimated contract/maintenance cost of about $2,900 per year; she said she would not commit county funds if state funding is approved but asked the board to consider the request as contingency funding.
Bergens also asked the board to approve a one-time allocation for treasurer office cameras and described the treasurer’s ongoing digitization and process-improvement work in property tax billing and payment processing.
No final board decisions were made at this hearing; the camera and BMD requests were presented as supplemental requests for future consideration.
