At City Council’s July 24^th meeting, political activist Lisa Cauley and Councilman Rick Mohrig, both members of Milton’s Election Feasibility Committee (EFC), respectively estimated elections cost savings of (at least) $200,000 and $250,000 for Milton self-running its municipal elections.  At a July 29^th blog post, I explained how such cost savings are an impossibility.

Exposing Exaggerated Elections Cost Savings Projections at Milton City Hall

Mohrig’s savings projections are nearly 120% higher than the EFC’s estimates from December 2022.  In reality, Milton’s elections cost savings have been steadily and substantially shrinking as Milton’s costs for running municipal elections have been steadily and substantially rising . . . despite service levels being drastically reduced.  The City’s current cost estimates for the 2023 elections are 57% higher than the EFC’s estimates . . . and this is without including any costs associated with city staff time expended on elections tasks, which I conservatively estimate at $100,000 (1000 hours at a fully loaded rate of $100 per hour). 

If current cost trends continue and all costs (including city staff time) are included and accurately estimated, I project that in 2023, the City of Milton will break even at best–and likely will lose money–by running its 2023 municipal elections.  Following is my logic.  The City’s current cost estimates are over $113,000 (and rising), but do not include any costs for staff time.  If you accept my estimate of $100,000 for staff time, then current election costs are approximately $213,000.  Compare this to Fulton County’s best estimate of its costs to run Milton’s election:  $212,040 . . .  or Fulton County’s maximum (i.e., capped) cost to run Milton’s election:  $235,600.  And remember that to achieve its mythical cost savings, Milton cut service levels by 1) reducing polling locations from eight to three, 2) reducing the EFC’s recommended early voting hours from 206 hours to 149 hours, and 3) eliminating the option to early vote in Alpharetta or any other Fulton County early voting location outside Milton.  (You could also argue that Milton has shifted some costs to citizens, who will have travel further and expend more time to vote.) So Milton could end up spending more money (than would have been charged by Fulton County) for much lower service levels (than Fulton County would have provided) . . . paying more for less . . .

. . . and that is why I requested through an Open Records Request that Cauley and Mohrig substantiate their cost savings claims.  Cauley provided no substantiation.  Following is the response from Cauley’s attorney:

Mohrig’s response was more interesting and frankly just garbage.  Mohrig provided two largely irrelevant documents . . . neither of which substantiated his cost savings estimates.  The first was a January 22^nd article from the Milton Herald that provided various now-outdated cost estimates for Fulton County to run Milton’s elections.  Mohrig used a yellow marker to highlight a cost of $9.38 per registered voter.  However, in February, Fulton provided a revised and final estimate of $6.93 per registered voter and capped its maximum cost at $7.62 per registered voter, so Mohrig is using old information (that even if accepted, would not substantiate his savings estimates). 

Mohrig’s other document was a hodge-podge of 7 pages that only provided cost figures for voting machines . . . the relevance of which is lost on me.  (Both documents are provided are the end of this post.  I encourage citizens to examine both documents to understand the obvious ridiculousness of Mohrig’s response.)

Mohrig’s vastly exaggerated cost savings fit into a long pattern of dishonest and unethical behavior by Mohrig (and Paul Moore).  For two years, Mohrig and Moore have led the charge for Milton to conduct its own elections.  As a member of the EFC, Mohrig was steeped in the business case for Milton self-running its elections.  Mohrig should be able to solidly back up any cost savings claims he makes.  However, once again, Mohrig has engaged in falsehood.  His latest deception is just further evidence that the EFC’s work was shoddy and dishonest and the EFC’s recommendations were not worth the paper they were written upon.  The long history of dishonesty in Milton’s elections initiative also casts serious doubt on whether Milton can actually run a free, fair, and honest election.  Milton deserves much better from its city government.

Advocating for Truth From Our Elected Representatives,

Tim

Note: See source materials below and source excerpts within the post. I always provide source materials so readers can draw their own conclusions about the issues facing Milton.