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{{tncms-inline alignment=”right” content=”<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>STATEWIDE</strong><br />Yes &mdash; 4,846,446<br />No &mdash; 2,827,637</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>VOLUSIA COUNTY</strong><br />Yes &mdash; 114,437<br />No &mdash; 99,256</p> <p><em>Note: Tallies are from the unofficial results filed Nov. 6. In Volusia County, 16,961 voters skipped Amendment 10, and 65 voters marked both yes and no. To pass, a proposed amendment must be approved by at least 60 percent of the voters.</em></p>” id=”b8b5ce00-c799-4550-a4f2-4f73e34b59f3″ style-type=”info” title=”Votes for Amendment 10″ type=”relcontent” width=”half”}}
A half-century after they disappeared in Volusia County, partisan elections for some county leaders are coming back.
Thanks to passage of Amendment 10, candidates for sheriff, tax collector and elections supervisor will campaign on Democratic, Republican or minor-party platforms.
It’s just one of the big changes coming courtesy of the wordy constitutional amendment adopted Nov. 6 by a solid majority of the state’s voters.
Amendment 10 passed statewide with 63.15 percent approval. Volusia County wasn’t quite as enthusiastic. Only 53.55 percent of the county’s voters said yes to Amendment 10.
The changes are set to take effect Jan. 5, 2021, County Attorney Dan Eckert said. A “transition team” of county staffers is forming to prepare for the biggest revamp of the county government in 50 years.
In addition to the partisan races, Amendment 10 will bring back an elected tax collector, which had been replaced by the county’s Finance Department when Volusia County’s home-rule charter was put in place in the 1970s.
Asked if Amendment 10 is effectively overriding Volusia County’s charter, Attorney Eckert replied, “Yes.”
County leaders do not fully know what is to come.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have all the answers,” interim County Manager George Recktenwald said.
County Council members say the change will affect Volusia County’s budgets, including the property-tax rates.
County Chair Ed Kelley said he will convene a workshop of the County Council to discuss the pending overhaul, but no date has yet been set.
“This is something big for all of us,” County Council Member Billie Wheeler said.
The county leaders who will be made constitutional officers may use their new status and power to, for example, expand their staffs, call for new office space, or set up their own departments for payroll, personnel and purchasing, Recktenwald said, as examples of what he called “empire building.”
Sheriff Michael Chitwood has already said he favors having his own human-resources staff to screen prospective deputies, and wants his own legal adviser apart from the County Attorney’s Office.
Other problems may come in departments whose employees are union members, such as the deputies and firefighters.
“No one has done this before; we are the guinea pigs,” Chair Kelley told his colleagues.
