ELYRIA — The Lorain County commissioners on Thursday voted to give the county Board of Elections $106,500.

It was far less than the $172,000 elections board Director Jose Candelario had asked for, but it will be enough, he said, to get through the end of the year.

The money will be used to finalize pollworker and overtime pay from the general election earlier this month and to begin paying for the recall election of Elyria Mayor Bill Grace set for Dec. 22.

Candelario said he has talked with vendors who will need to be paid to prepare ballots for the Feb. 2 special election on levies for Columbia Schools and the Amherst library and those vendors have agreed to push the bills back into next year.

The money will eventually be returned to the county’s general fund because political subdivisions are required to pay for their own elections and special elections, Candelario said.

Commissioner Lori Kokoski said the commissioners were able to scrape together enough money to cover the elections board, but she warned that might not happen for future requests for cash from other county departments.

“We got lucky this time,” Kokoski said.

The commissioners have begun scouring their 2010 budget for cuts in the wake of the defeat of a 0.5 percent sales tax increase at the polls earlier this month.

No decisions have been made, but the commissioners have said they will have to cut between $2 million and $4 million on top of $6 million in cuts made for 2009. The first round of cuts led to the layoff of more than 75 county workers, including sheriff’s deputies.

The county will continue to collect the increased sales tax through April 2010, but because of how it put it on the ballot will be unable to raise the rate again until 2011.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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