When a former accounting major begins a new job in election administration, there’s one thing her eye immediately zeroes in on: the budget. When Tonya Miller became City Clerk for Tecumseh, Michigan and sat down to review past election budgets, she found an interesting trend. The city was budgeting the exact same amount for elections each year: just $18,000.

“That doesn’t work when you have a different number of elections each year at different scales,” said Tonya. “A midterm year versus a presidential year versus an off year will all have different needs. Shortfalls can happen simply because folks approving the budget aren’t aware of the varying needs. That’s huge, especially when the funding can’t be rolled over year to year.”

A Zero-Base Budget

While overhauling her election budget, Tonya foresaw and built in replenishment needs, from reprinting out of date manuals to pre-emptively restocking her most-used polling site materials. She also factored in items like wages for patrol officers to supervise parking at election sites, and overtime pay for her deputy clerk on election days. Fortunately, some items were covered via other means: Tecumseh’s cybersecurity needs are handled by municipal insurance, its emergency response and special elections budgets by the organization calling the election (for example, schools or libraries), and post-election audits by the county and state.

Tecumseh’s most underbudgeted and variable line item year to year was poll worker payroll. To plan flexibly for the staffing needs of a local vs. a state or federal election, one of Tonya’s accounting innovations as City Clerk was changing poll worker rates from a flat rate to an hourly rate. “We were seeing a large variation in how many hours people were putting in, with some leaving right after the polls closed and others staying much later to come to the receiving board to resolve ballot issues and problems,” she explained.

The dedicated accounting required to execute an hourly payroll is ultimately worth it. “We wanted to fairly compensate people for the work they were doing, because it was ending up that some people were doing extra hours unpaid,” added Tonya. “We also constantly compare rates of pay for poll workers to see how we’re doing relative to other jurisdictions, and we try to stay competitive there. Then of course I take into account the number of people I’m assigning to the precinct, their training hours, and so on.”

Anticipating Change

Tonya began work for the City in 2018, a gubernatorial year, when the office was already extremely busy and expenses were greater than usual — a situation that shaped her thinking going forward. “The number of elections in a year sets the tone for the number of poll workers, the volume of supplies needed, the quantity of permanent mail ballots, costs of postage, to name just a few things,” she said. “Early voting is also a big variable —  if state and federal offices are on the ballot, we have to offer it, so that’s an additional $12,000 expense for this current year of 2026. Jurisdictions may or may not participate with the county for early voting. Either way, early voting impacts the cost of election administration and should be accounted for in the budget.”

Not every line item factors into every year’s election budget. Since the new equipment purchased by the state of Michigan in 2017 had a five-year warranty, repair fees did not become a factor for Tecumseh until 2022. A $2,500 post-warranty bill led Tonya to research annual maintenance costs and to inform herself on regular services needed: software updates, inspection of digital readers and optical scanners, and more.

“I know my machines now,” she said, laughing, “and I know how to plan against that, going forward.” She already knows that every jurisdiction in Michigan will be required to purchase new equipment in 2027.

Part of staying on top of variable budgeting also involves staying on top of legislative developments. Tonya participates in the legislative committee for MAMC (Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks), which keeps her aware of which ballot proposals are coming down the pike and how they might impact municipal budgets. One example she gave: Michigan’s move to a permanent mail ballot option (a single request to receive a ballot for EVERY election being administered by the jurisdiction), which significantly impacted her budget planning.

“This change quadrupled the number of ballots we were sending out, without necessarily quadrupling the number we were receiving back,” Tonya explained. “While this did cut out the application process for many voters, it now means I might be spending $1.16 on a ballot and everything to go with it that might never come back to me, vs. $0.60 for an application alone. That has to be planned for.” For perspective, just one additional election added to Tecumseh’s annual calendar means 1,800 more permanent mail ballots the office must send out by law.

Internal planning is a large part of the story, but not the whole story. Tonya also makes sure the election budget is transparent to Tecumseh residents. “We publish our budget each month showing revenue and expenses, publicly viewable by all,” she said; for 2026, a midterm year with early voting and tabulation, increased poll worker wages, and a mandatory certification year for inspectors, she expects elections to cost $73,000 — a far cry from the $20,000-30,000 that she would budget otherwise.

Funding and Budgets is one of the Standards for Election Excellence currently available for certification through the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence. Learn more about the  Standards and apply for certification today — certification is now open to election departments across the country.