BY JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — Central Falls and Woonsocket may have to pay the state to run their municipal elections this year if Gov. Donald Carcieri has his way.

In an effort to save the state $55,000, Carcieri wants any community to pay for the cost of off-year or special elections as part of his 2010 budget. Budget Officer Rosemary Booth Gallogly told the House Finance Committee that the state would like to nudge municipalities toward holding elections at the same time as state contests, in even-numbered years, to save money.
“The state has taken steps to limit special elections at the state level because of the cost and the goal is to shift the cost to give the locals incentive to have elections” at the same time as the state.
Currently, the only communities that hold elections in odd-numbered years are Woonsocket, Central Falls and Jamestown.
But voting officials in Woonsocket and Central Falls say they don’t have money in their budgets to cover the expenses.
“This should never see the light of day,” an angry James Allam, chairman of the Woonsocket Board of Canvassers, said. “Reasonable people would not pursue that.”
“It wouldn’t affect the Board of Canvassers, it would affect the finances of the city,” Allam continued. “We don’t have money in the budget to pay the (state) anything for our elections. This is just a way of passing the buck onto communities, indirectly increasing local tax rates.”
He said the state should have asked communities to explore the idea of even-year elections instead of simply moving to pass on the costs.
In Central Falls, Registrar Gertrude Chartier said, “I have no clue what we’re going to have to pay for or what the cost is going to be.
“The city just doesn’t have the money to pay anything extra,” she said, noting that there could be a primary as well as a general election this year.
Chartier said she has already submitted her office’s budget for next year and it did not include the extra election costs.
“We have no funds for this,” she told The Times. “The city is hurting as it is. I have been asked to cut my budget by 10 percent.” She said her office took a budget hit last year when it had to conduct a special election to fill the City Council seat vacated by Elizabeth Crowley when Crowley was elected  to the state Senate.
The city recently completed a charter revision, Chartier said, but did not even consider changing election dates. Making the change “wouldn’t be a bad idea,” she added, “because it would save a lot of money.
Among the costs for which the communities would have to reimburse the state are ballot preparation, the printing of the ballots, mail ballot applications, certified postage envelopes for mail ballots and any other envelopes that may be necessary as well as printed voting instructions.
The committee was told the Secretary of State’s office has not stated a position on the issue this year, but that when it was brought up last year, the office opposed it as a burden to local cities and towns that could lead to an increase in property taxes.
Under the budget article, the Secretary of State’s office would send the communities a bill after the election for which payment is due within 30 days.
House Finance Committee Chairman Steven Costantino noted that the governor put a similar provision in the budget last year, but the committee didn’t agree with it and it was left out of the final version of the document.
Costantino balked at giving his opinion of the proposal, saying he would leave it up to the committee.