ITEM FILE PHOTO
Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy.
BY THOR JOURGENSEN
LYNN — Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy and city councilors are in a standoff over funding a $72,900 deputy election commissioner job even as the clock ticks down to the fall election.
With 38 years of city service under her belt, City Clerk Mary Audley is eligible to retire. She has made it clear she does not want to oversee the September primary election or the November final election featuring presidential candidates.
As clerk, Audley has managed elections since 2003 when the clerk’s office and the city Election Department were consolidated. But Audley said elections have become increasingly complex, with city polling location changes and early voting provisions increasing the workload.
“I just can’t see one person doing this whole job,” she said. “The people of Lynn deserve a city clerk and someone doing elections.”
Councilors agree. They approved a clerk’s office reorganization ordinance to create the new election job. Kennedy vetoed the ordinance only to see councilors vote 8-0 on Tuesday to override her veto.
As a result, the mayor lost the fight over creating a separate city election office. But the city charter gives Kennedy sole authority as mayor to initiate spending initiatives. In her veto message to the council, Kennedy wrote “significant financial uncertainty” faced by the city means now is not the time to designate someone other than the city clerk to oversee elections.
“I’m not going to fund it,” she said this week.
Kennedy is juggling significant city spending challenges, including $7 million in school net spending obligations spread over three years and ongoing negotiations with city employee bargaining units, she said.
The mayor confirmed earlier this week that city negotiators reached an agreement with the Lynn Police Association, one of the city’s biggest unions. That settlement, still being finalized, could set the stage to complete negotiations with other city unions.
Kennedy confirmed pay raises for union workers are a component of negotiations. Peter Caron, the city’s chief financial officer, said each 1 percent raise for all municipal employees covered by collective bargaining agreements will cost the city about $500,000.
“The city faces potentially significant costs to settle its collective bargaining contracts in the next several months,” Kennedy said in her veto message to the council.
Council President Daniel Cahill said money is available to pay the salary for the election job. He said a fund dedicated specifically to covering municipal election costs and paid for with city and state money totals $110,000.
He said a $15,000 stipend Audley receives to oversee elections could help pay the deputy commissioner’s salary.
“This is a critical position,” Cahill said.
Kennedy in her veto message acknowledged money is available to pay the election job salary this year, but she noted “the taxpayers will have to absorb the cost of the position’s benefits … moving forward.”
A job notice for the deputy commissioner’s position is posted in City Hall. It lists the position as a council appointment making the deputy responsible “to set and complete all work necessary to meet mandated deadlines” for the annual city census, street listing publication, elections and election-related work, including training election workers, ballot printing, voting machine testing and polling place preparation.
All of that work must begin soon, warned Audley and Cahill, for the city to meet its Sept. 8 election obligations.
“The position has been posted,” Cahill said. “We need someone there to conduct the election.”
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
