During the budget process this past spring, I took the opportunity to attend the meetings between the Board of Aldermen's Budget Subcommittee and the various Department Heads throughout Waterbury. For the most part these meetings were quick and painless, a discussion of what had been cut from the budget to try and make ends meet, and if there was anything else that could be cut. However, the discussion between the Registrars of Voters and the Budget Subcommittee gave me an interesting idea for how the city could save a little money in the future.
Currently in Waterbury, the Registrar of Voters spends $90,000 per year on "Temporary Salaries". When Mr. DeCarlo and Ms. Mulhall were asked why their office used so much temporary help, it was revealed that the State of Connecticut requires that each polling place be staffed by a certain number of individuals.
These are the people that sit at your local polling place and check your ID against the voter lists, hand out the ballots, make sure the machines are working properly, and so forth. Considering the fact that a person who applies to work on Election Day has to commit to the entire 14+ hour shift, I can understand the need to compensate them for their time.
However, this discussion reminded me of a post I had written back in
November, 2009 discussing the dropping voter turnout in Waterbury. In my research for that post I noticed that some of the polling places in Waterbury had several thousand registered voters, while others only had a few hundred. This disparity in the number of voters made me wonder if it would be possible to consolidate some of our voting districts, thereby saving the Registrars Office some money?
To illustrate my point, below is a list of registered voters at each precinct, as of July 26. (Information provided by the Registrar of Voters)
| DISTRICT | LOCATION | VOTERS |
|---|
| 71-1 | Kennedy High School | 3128 |
| 71-2 | Portuguese Sport Club | 2366 |
| 71-3 | Tinker School (Congress Avenue Entrance) | 3895 |
| 72-1 | Mount Olive AME Zion Church | 2229 |
| 72-2 | WOW/NRZ Community Learning Center | 3112 |
| 72-3 | Woodrow Wilson School | 534 |
| 72-4 | Regan School | 2670 |
| 72-5 | Edward D. Bergin Apartments | 1770 |
| 73-1 | Our Lady of Loreto Church Hall | 3786 |
| 73-2 | Silas Bronson Library (Branch) | 972 |
| 73-3 | Kingsbury School | 2706 |
| 73-4 | Waterville Recreation Center | 2675 |
| 73-5 | Blessed Sacrament School | 1152 |
| 73-6 | Chase Park School | 646 |
| 74-1 | Chase School | 3732 |
| 74-2 | Crosby High School | 4141 |
| 74-3 / 74-4 | St. Peter and Paul School Gym | 3823 |
| 75-1 | Willow Plaza Community Center | 3212 |
| 75-2 | Washington Park Community House | 1808 |
| 75-3 | Maloney School | 3172 |
| 75-4 | Hamilton Park Pavilion | 1135 |
| 75-5 | Washington School | 1772 |
Using the numbers above and
this map from the Waterbury website as a starting point, I see three areas where we can consolidate polling places and save some money.
(The map is a rather large [5.56 MB] PDF file.)The first area of consolidation is in the 73rd District. At the moment the 73rd has six polling places, ranging in size from 3786 voters at Our Lady of Loreto Church (73-1) to 646 voters at Chase Park School (73-6). I feel that 3 of these 6 polling places can be consolidated into 1.
If we combine the Silas Bronson Library Branch (73-2), Blessed Sacrament School (73-5), and Chase Park School (73-6) into one voting district, the resultant district would have 2770 voters. This new district would still be smaller than Our Lady of Loreto, and would be less than 100 voters larger than Kingsbury and the Waterville Rec Center.
Furthermore, the three districts I recommend for consolidation are contiguous, so the remaining 3 districts could remain unaltered. As an added bonus, all three districts are in the 15th State Senate District as well as the 5th Congressional District, so there would be no need for separate ballots or voting machines.
The second area of consolidation is in the 75th District. At the moment the 75th has 5 polling places ranging from 3212 voters at the Willow Plaza Community Center (75-1) to 1135 voters at Hamilton Park Pavilion (75-4). I feel that 2 of these 5 polling places can be consolidated into 1.
If we combine the Washington Park Community House (75-2) and the Hamilton Park Pavilion (75-4) into one voting district, the resultant district would have 2943 voters, which would still be smaller than both the Willow Plaza Community Center and Maloney School.
Furthermore, the two districts I recommend for consolidation are contiguous, so the remaining 3 districts could remain unaltered. Unfortunately, the consolidated district would be split between the 3rd Congressional District and the 5th Congressional District, however, the 74th district has two voting districts (74-3 and 74-4) that both vote at the Sts Peter and Paul Gym despite being in separate State Senate districts. Even if the districts themselves cannot be consolidated, the voting locations can be merged.
The third and final area of consolidation is in the 72nd district. At the moment the 72nd has 5 polling places ranging from 3112 at the WOW/NRZ Learning Center (72-2) to 534 at Wilson School (72-3). Unfortunately, in this situation the two districts that are the best candidates for consolidation are Wilson School (72-3) and the Bergin Apartments (72-5). These two districts do not connect with each other, but I still managed to find a way to reduce number of voting locations in the 72nd from 5 to 4.
My solution for the 72nd District involves consolidating the WOW/NRZ Learning Center (72-2), Wilson School (72-3), and the Bergin Apartments (72-5), and then splitting this consolidated district into 2 voting locations. By combining 72-2, 72-3 and 72-5 you wind up with a district with 5416 voters. (This is obviously too large to be an effective voting district.) However, if we then split this consolidated district in half, we wind up with two voting locations of approximately 2700 voters each.
These 2 new districts would match up quite nicely with Mount Olive AME Zion Church with its 2229 voters, and Regan School with its 2670 voters. Also, as with the 73rd District, the three locations I have marked for consolidation all are in the 15th State Senate District and the 5th Congressional District.
As an added bonus, by splitting up the current 72-2 voting district, you could remove the WOW/NRZ Learning Center as a polling place. Having been to that building several times this summer, I realize that while it's a very nice facility, it does not have the parking that I believe is necessary to accommodate the 3112 voters that are currently registered there.
I realize that this is not a perfect solution, but I hope it will give people something to consider as we look towards future budgets. Even this small reduction on voting locations (from 22 to 18) may help the City finances in the future.
Also, when you consider that the State Legislature is currently drafting new maps for our State House, State Senate, and Congressional districts, now may be the perfect time to petition our leaders in the General Assembly to reduce the number of required voting districts for the city of Waterbury.
If you have any thoughts, or ideas on this issue, please let me know.
