Jefferson County, While Bankrupt, Relies On 'Volunteer' Staffers For Election

In bankrupt Jefferson County, Ala., the financial situation has grown so grim that the county does not have the money to hire enough elections division staffers to run the state's March Republican primary.

Since filing the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy in 2011, Jefferson County officials have slashed more than $95 million from local government spending, cut 750 workers and initiated the process of laying off another 180 employees. Even with these cuts, Jefferson County -- home to Alabama’s largest city and about 660,000 people –- faces a projected $40 million budget shortfall this year.

If any more cuts are made, the county risks violating state and federal election laws during Alabama’s Republican primary, warned County manager Tony Petelos in January. The county's election division now has only about 90 employees, compared with nearly 250 workers last year, Petelos said. The county has a total of 182 voting sites, which will make covering the polls with adequate staff a challenge on Election Day, March 13.

"What I said then is true now,” Petelos said Wednesday in a phone interview. “We just don’t have the manpower we need. But we’ve worked on it and with some teamwork, I think we’re going to make the election happen.”

What’s happening in cash-strapped Jefferson County represents an extreme version of the crisis facing municipalities around the country. The huge shortfalls in tax revenue in the aftermath of the Great Recession -- and the cries for small, ruthlessly efficient government, for that matter -- don't always jibe with the services that public agencies are expected or legally required to provide.

To staff the upcoming elections in March, Petelos will use employees from other divisions who have volunteered for election duty and who will be paid at their ordinary rate. Petelos will send his administrative assistant to the election division, and staff from other county offices, including the land planning and storm water divisions, will also pitch in, he said. The precise number of staffers to be redirected is not yet clear. They will receive limited training on details like, say, which church-based polling sites require a call to the pastor before election machines can be placed in the fellowship hall. To pull off the election, the county staff, on loan from other departments, will not do their usual jobs.

"Roads and Transport will be delivering election machines a few days before the election," Petelos said. "So, yes, they won't be out there cutting grass or repairing roads during that time."

Jefferson County also does not have a chief accountant, a finance director or a chief financial officer. But this week, county commissioners approved a plan to hire a capital structure and investments manager to oversee its $4.2 billion debt and investment portfolio.

The county’s new capital structure and investments manager -- someone with a deep understanding of the bond market, municipal finance and debt management -- will play an essential role in helping the county emerge from bankruptcy protection, Petelos said. The manager’s $130,000 salary, about $85,000 more than the area's median household income, represents less than a quarter of the $600,000 that the county had paid a team of outside investment consultants each year, Petelos said. The county commission fired the outside team in 2011.

“Maybe if we had somebody with knowledge of the bond market in-house years ago, Jefferson County would not be in the position that it is in today,” said Petelos, referring to the county’s bankruptcy and a high-risk bond-financing package that has mired the county’s finances.

Jefferson County was forced to declare bankruptcy in November. The move followed years of legal wrangling. Last year Alabama's Supreme Court declared invalid a tax that brought about $66 million in annual revenue to the county, about 45 percent of the general fund. Jefferson County could no longer cover debt payments associated with a massive sewer-improvement project that had been initiated in the 1990s.

County officials approved the sewer project after pollution was discovered spilling into area rivers and a group of area environmentalists filed suit. In the early years of the past decade, commissioners also approved a complicated refinancing deal for the bonds used to pay for the sewer system project. The deal was supposed to lower the county’s interest rate payments. It has had the opposite effect instead.

More than 20 Jefferson County officials have faced political corruption charges in connection with the refinancing deal.

This story has been updated to add more detail about Jefferson County's elections division.

 

 

Comments

[RumiSouth]

03:48 PM on 03/08/2012

Background is important: JeffCo was all about suburban sprawl and expansion during the white flight of the 1980s, but the sewer system was never upgraded to accommodate all the new commodes. So the EPA had to step in and order JeffCo to improve its sewer. Succeeding city administrations kept finding new ways to punt the costs down the road, in part because the state was being absolutely no help. (Anti-urbanism is a feature of Alabama politics, especially when the Caucasians have all left the urban area in question.) The state is still no help today. Things didn't actually crash until a judge struck down the city's occupational tax in 2009; by 2010 the city didn't have enough money to feed kids in lockup or bury dead paupers. Now, there are only two locations to renew a car tag where there once were seven.

Republicans will make every state in the union into Alabama. Write it down, because it's their model. Norquist and Rove were at work here long before they were household names. Alabama has been a national Republican project since 1986. It is your leading indicator.

[rafaelkafka]

08:32 PM on 02/19/2012

Liberals always destroy cities. Birmingham is more liberal than NY.

[lcr999]

10:03 AM on 02/18/2012

"who will be paid at their ordinary rate"-- they are NOT volunteers,they are just employees from other country jobs.

And it is not clear to me why it is the job of the city/county to pay for a primary election, but that is a bigger issue

[chris hatala]

05:18 AM on 02/18/2012

The tpubs and the 1% started this class warfare and now we are seeing what their America will be like, a banana republic with the haves and the have nots.

[chris hatala]

05:16 AM on 02/18/2012

I know the Koch brothers will pay for the vote counters.

[nothingchanges]

12:25 PM on 02/17/2012

Now we know why Republican leaders want the unemployed to be forced to "volunteer" to collect their unemployment insurance?

[Xandal]

09:14 AM on 02/17/2012

Go down to home depot and pick up a bunch of day laborers ......oh wait Alabama....never mind

[tribilin219]

11:54 AM on 02/16/2012

The best thing out of all this? After the 99% of us go down, So will the 1% a short time after that, The 99% did not start this, The 1% did about 30 years ago, And now that the end is near, they'll see the only thing they have done is? Bring us all down, even themselves.

[1oldhippie]

11:39 AM on 02/16/2012

660,000 people
182 polling stations
90 watchers
______________
7 million projected GOP ballots

[IfIonlyknew]

03:33 PM on 02/16/2012

Exactly.

[MrOnePercent2012]

11:32 AM on 02/16/2012

You can not spend more than you take it. Sooner or later it catches up with you.

[K August]

05:45 AM on 02/17/2012

Look up the stories about the sewer project financing. They got shafted just like home owners did. Bankers have NO loyalty to anyone !!

[MrOnePercent2012]

11:30 AM on 02/17/2012

Bankers have loyalty to their shareholders.

[chris hatala]

05:20 AM on 02/18/2012

Wars and corporate welfare also led to these problems not Judy the 1%, you evil bagger.

[fortheworkingman]

11:23 AM on 02/16/2012

Read the Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone.

[William Howell]

11:03 AM on 02/16/2012

Good Morning little HuffBabygressives. Welcome to the United Nanny States of America. You won't believe what happened to me last night. Through no fault of my own, my wife fired me rom my dishwashing job. "I thought I was doing a hell of JOB" Fired me anyway! These are tough economic times. She was paying me $75,000.00 per/year. I have trained for this profession since I was about 13 and really don't know how to do anything else.

Well, living in the Nanny States of America I should be entitled to unemployment for remainder of my life. No way I find a dishing washing job at 75 grant. Also, since unemployment is no were close to my salary, I will have to borrow the difference. I hope no one expects me give up my life style since I lost my job "through no fault of my own." Surely, since I have to borrow this money the Nanny State will pay the loan back for me. "I am entitled"

Since I don't work, my wife and I have time for a lot more sex. Of course, I receive free contraceptives, (The govt. believes I'm too stupid to purchase them on my own) and I would like to thank all the taxpayers of the Nanny States. Just lip service for you tax payers, I really want a reimbursement for all the contraceptives I paid for out of pocket for years.

[Xandal]

11:38 AM on 02/17/2012

What's it like being the smartest guy in the room?

[William Howell]

01:42 PM on 02/17/2012

That only occurs when I am in the room by myself! How about you?

[Lindytindy]

10:42 AM on 02/16/2012

Part of our government's plan to destroy democracy.

[vobox3343]

10:35 AM on 02/16/2012

These TP states aren't prospering? How come?

[rafaelkafka]

08:35 PM on 02/19/2012

Simple. Birmingham is more liberal than Berkeley and more corrupt than Chicago. This is so Detroit...

[MyResponsibility]

10:34 AM on 02/16/2012

V O L U N T E E R S. It shouldn't be too hard to staff up, Id do it for free. Many would.