Speaker 1 opened the Nov. 24 work session by saying the meeting's purpose was to align commissioners and staff on budget questions and to brief the Board of Elections on upcoming facilities and staffing reviews. "Do we combine them?" he asked, referring to the elections office and an offsite storage/training building the staff identified as "Gargas/Cargas Hall."

The commissioners said a recently approved space-study will assess county facility efficiencies and asked elections staff to cooperate when the consultant visits. Staff warned the offsite building is in disrepair and that the county may not want to invest in space it might not retain. "The building is in disrepair," Speaker 5 said when describing earlier site visits.

Commissioners pressed staff to separate regular payroll from election-day costs and security. Elections staff said poll workers are recorded in a separate expense line labeled "booth worker services," while part-time and seasonal staff appear in the employee account. The office said sheriff deputies are hired for on-site coverage during larger, more contentious elections, and that deputies are paid through overtime. "When you do have a deputy on-site, it all goes away," Speaker 5 said, describing how a visible deputy reduces confrontations outside polling locations.

Commissioners asked for a line-item breakdown that isolates security costs so the board can evaluate whether the county's general fund is subsidizing what might more properly be called security or contract services. They also discussed chargebacks to jurisdictions: staff estimated precinct-level costs when the county runs a local election at roughly $3,000$4,000 per precinct depending on poll-worker hours, printing and legal-advertising costs.

Staff identified a special-revenue EISA account that appears to hold "about 400 and some thousand dollars" and asked the county's budget director (Casey) to determine allowable uses and whether any of those funds could offset election security or polling costs. Commissioners said they expect staff to return with a clearer accounting of which funds can legally be used as offsets.

On budget trends, commissioners and staff noted election-year volatility: personnel and absentee-voting demands rise in presidential and gubernatorial years, equipment and leasing costs increase with aging hardware, and hospitalization and benefits line items account for a substantial portion of personnel growth. Commissioners asked the elections office to explore consolidation and other economies to try to hold the 2026 ask to the 2025 benchmark where possible.

The space-study vendor visit and follow-up line-item breakdown requested from staff are the immediate next steps; commissioners said they will revisit the elections budget after staff provides the requested costing and allowable-use information for special-revenue accounts.