Contract laborers working for Mississippi County will now be classified as part-time labor, after recent changes in laws according to the Internal Revenue Service.
Brenda Burke, the county's financial services director, met with members of the quorum court's personnel committee and informed the justices of the changes.
In order to be paid for working the polls, election workers now have to be regular county employees instead of those labeled as contract labor, Burke explained.
The committee agreed to recommend the court's finance committee approve the change, which will involve setting up a separate county account for paying the workers.
In a related manner, the committee decided to wait until after the upcoming primary election to recommend any further appropriations for the election budget.
Another new ruling from the IRS states that poll workers who make more than $1,500 per year will be taxed on that income. With poll workers being paid about $100 a day, a worker who mans the polls during two weeks of early voting and on election day will have that income reported to the IRS and FICA taxes withheld.
Justice Emmanuel Lofton, chairman of the committee, expressed concern, saying that the county should have a large-enough pool of poll workers so that no one worker would have to worry about the withholdings. "As large as this county is, we should have no problem finding people to work the polls," Lofton said.
But that is not always the case, explained Justice Bill Nelson, a former member of the election commission.
Burke urged justices to take a "wait and see" approach to the matter. "Until we get a year like this behind us, we're not going to know" what to do, she said.
The committee agreed to create 75 part-time employee slots for poll workers and to transfer three other contract laborers to part-time positions as well.
The group will forward this request to the county's finance committee, which meets at 1:30 Monday in the county judge's office.
dhilton@blythevillecourier.com