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Committee weighs making two elections outreach positions permanent after DOJ language-access flag
Summary
The committee discussed appropriating $78,344 for two permanent elections outreach workers to provide Chinese and Spanish language assistance following a Department of Justice letter; the item was continued to the call of the chair pending budget-office confirmation of available salary savings.
The Department of Elections sought committee approval to appropriate $78,344 to create two permanent election outreach worker positions to provide Chinese and Spanish language assistance required under the Voting Rights Act. The Director of Elections told the committee the department previously relied on temporary staff and the Department of Justice had flagged concerns about permanent staffing levels.
Budget staff and supervisors debated whether remaining temporary-salary savings could carry the positions through the fiscal year and whether to annualize the positions in next year's budget. Noel Simmons of the Mayor's Budget Office said her projection suggested the department could fund the positions through the end of the current fiscal year, but supervisors asked for clearer numbers.
Luna Etsu of the Chinese Referendum Action Center urged permanent in-house outreach staffing to operationalize language-access improvements and highlighted the city's linguistic diversity and polling-site language thresholds.
The committee moved to continue the funding item to the call of the chair to allow budget and departmental staff to reconcile the fiscal numbers; the policy/position item (item 9) adding two salary ordinance positions was forwarded to the full board with recommendation.
