The Knox County Finance Committee approved a pay increase for election judges at Wednesday night’s meeting.
County Clerk Scott Erickson requested a pay bump from $120 to $150 for certified judges and $100 to $110 for judges who do not go through the county’s training.
Erickson said that if all election judges were to go through certification, the budget impact would be small, “If we fill up the judges – we have a full staff of judges, and they all go to the training class – the potential impact in the budget will be increasing by about $5,000.”
He said often not everyone goes to the training class so a lot would be getting the smaller amount.
Erickson said that the County Clerk’s office has lost a few election judges to the City of Galesburg – who had already paid $150.
He says that legislation passed by the state to make it easier for municipalities looking for election judges wasn’t enough to ease the county’s shortage.
“There are all kinds of factors that are involved with it. So, they passed the legislation trying to help us as election officials because of it was tough in the odd number of years to find judges to work – cause a lot of time, in our situation, those judges are actually township officials.”
The county can run with three judges for each precinct, instead of five, but Erickson preferred rolling with five because it makes everything work better.
He also told the committee that in the November election, the county will be short.
The measure now moves to the full county board who will meet on Wednesday, September 26th.
