WARREN — The Trumbull County Board of Elections assigned its assistant director to look for ways to cut its budget, and he intends to dispute a bill for ballot envelopes that were sent out with a misspelling.

Voters who received a ballot in the all-mail primary election may have noticed “Trumbull County” was misspelled as “Trumbell County” on the prepaid postage envelopes used to send the ballots to the board.

The ballots were printed by Cleveland-based Midwest Direct, according to Trumbull County Board of Elections Director Stephanie Penrose. However, Richard Gebbie, CEO of Midwest Direct, said last month his company wasn’t responsible for the incorrect envelopes, which he said were printed by Envelope Solutions of Lewis Center. An Envelope Solutions worker said the company printed the envelope, but got the information for it from Midwest Direct.

The template submitted to the board was one used previously, with the correct spelling on it, Ron Massullo, assistant director of the board, said.

But Midwest Direct had to send the proof to the United States Postal Service for approval, Massullo said he learned after speaking with the company’s representative. It appears the company received the proof back from the USPS with the error on it and it wasn’t caught by the company or sent back to the Trumbull County Board of Elections for approval, so no one in the local office had a chance to correct the error. Mark Alberini, chairman of the board, said it is not yet clear who made the erroneous change, but the board’s staff was never given a chance to proofread it after it was sent out.

Massullo said at a virtual meeting of the board Tuesday that the bill for the envelopes has not come in yet, but when it does he plans to dispute it.

The board shouldn’t have to pay for envelopes that spelled Trumbull wrong, Massullo said. Alberini said the ballots more than likely made it back to the board even with the misspelling because the address was correct.

Holding the election by mail seems to have saved the board some money. Although the board planned to spend about $115,000 on poll workers, it only spent about $20,000 when poll workers reported for a class before the election was canceled. Because in-person voting was cancelled, the poll workers weren’t needed.

However, it is unclear if the savings there will be enough to cover the cost of the all mail-in election, Penrose said.

“We haven’t received our invoices yet, so we don’t know how much it cost. That savings will help though, along with the reimbursement the state is going to give us,” Penrose said.

When the election was extended to April 28, state Legislature passed a bill to help defray the costs.

“We kept track of the postage, extra workers and overtime to be reimbursed by the state to help defray the unexpected costs,” Penrose said.

Although the exact numbers aren’t known yet, the reimbursement and the savings in poll worker expenses could help the board meet a 10 percent budget cut Trumbull County commissioners asked all county-funded departments to undertake, Penrose said. The request to cut county budgets comes on the heels of a prediction that revenue will be down due to coronavirus-related restrictions.

Massullo is working with board member Ron Knight to identify ways to cut the budget, he said.

Knight said the board can’t afford to “kick the can down the road” when it comes to finding savings, because any delay could encroach on necessary spending in the weeks leading up to the November general election.

It is unlikely the board could use staff furloughs to meet the budget reduction goals because the board already is operating with minimum staff, Penrose said. The board has 11 employees, but only nine are active. Two employees have been on extended leave.

One solution might be to cut those two positions and not fill them, board member Diana Marchese said.

rfox@tribtoday.com