Erie County's comptroller says the Board of Elections is making mistakes in the way it spends taxpayer dollars, in a fight over the best way to manage limited resources.
Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw said one elections commissioner is using too many part-time workers and when they are laid off, the county has to pay unemployment.
The other commissioner uses full-time workers.
The comptroller hand delivered a report to the Board of Election Thursday and released it publicly on Friday
While it doesn't specifically name the commissioner using part-timers, it was Democratic Elections Commissioner Dennis Ward.
"I voluntarily cut 14 percent of my budget this year," said Mychajliw. "I did more with less and we're going to save taxpayers almost $500,000 this year by doing what families that we serve are doing at home. We're doing more with less. And, I think every department across Erie County government should be doing exactly that, doing more with less. Cutting vacant positions and asking their employees to take more of a workload."
Ward said he and Republican Commissioner Ralph Mohr are dealing with a 15 percent budget cut and staying within that budget.
Ward said it makes sense to use part-time workers with lesser benefits and lay them off when not needed, even if there is a $9,000 cost so far this year for unemployment benefits.
