Spurs bill goes under microscope
Bexar County’s chief executive has ordered a line-by-line scrutiny of the $250,000 bill the Spurs laid on the county for using the AT&T Center as a voting site during the November elections.
County Manager David Smith asked the county auditor’s office and budget department this week to verify whether the specific costs cited by the Spurs are justified, county spokeswoman Monica Ramos said.
Spurs spokesman Tom James said the team “made zero profit” from the deal.
It’s unclear how long the county’s review will take. But officials have until Dec. 30 to decide whether they want to dip into a pot of federal stimulus dollars to help cover the costs — funds that must be spent by then or sent back to the federal government.
Spurs Sports and Entertainment sent the bill to the Bexar County Elections Department 10 days after voting ended, asking the county to reimburse it for $255,716 in costs it said were
necessary to use the AT&T Center as a “mega voting center.”
The county owns the AT&T Center but leases the building to the Spurs organization, which handles games, concerts and all of the facility's day-to-day operations.
The team publicly announced it was opening the arena to Bexar County voters so they could safely cast their ballots amid the pandemic and to expand voting access — a move encouraged by county officials, as well as NBA stars and the players' union, who wanted the league to step up its civic engagement.
But officials weren't expecting the hefty bill. It also made the Spurs an outlier in the NBA. While many teams provided their arenas and stadiums as voting sites, few charged for it.
And of those that did, none came near the $255,000 price tag sought by the Spurs.
Out of 13 NBA franchises surveyed by the San Antonio Express-News, only four others besides the Spurs sought payment or expected to be paid for allowing their facilities to serve as polling places: the Houston Rockets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets and Chicago Bulls.
The Rockets asked the Harris County clerk's office to cover about $4,400 in expenses related to “cleaning, electricity, air and garage electricity” at Toyota Center during Texas' three-week early voting period and on Election Day.
The Chicago Bulls, which own the United Center through a joint venture, signed a contract with the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners detailing $19,500 in estimated costs for using the arena as an Election Day polling site — that paid for electricians, security, housekeeping and paramedics.
The other teams allowed voters to cast their ballots in their arenas without asking taxpayers to pick up the tab. Some even allowed extended use.
The Washington Wizards' parent company allowed the District of Columbia Board of Elections to use the Capitol One Arena free of charge from Oct. 27 through Election Day, a board of elections spokesman said.
Same goes for the Atlanta Hawks — who lease the State Farm Arena, a facility jointly owned by the city of Atlanta and Fulton County. That spot was open to voters for three weeks of early voting in October.
Elected officials including Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and Commissioner Justin Rodriguez, who pushed for the AT&T Center to become a polling site, have said they expected the AT&T Center operation to be costly but that the costs cited by the Spurs need to be verified.
In the Nov. 13 invoice sent to county elections administrator Jacque Callanen, the team asked the county to reimburse it for costs including the hiring of 10 Bexar County sheriff 's deputies to direct traffic and provide security and the wages of nine of its own employees to provide security.
The Spurs also want the county to cover the cost of seven parking attendants at the complex, a plumber, electrician and an emergency medical technician.
The team also billed the county for about $12,000 worth of COVID-19 related costs, such as personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies.
About 95 percent of the costs in the invoice “were tied to labor as 200-plus part-time employees logged more than 8,700 hours over a 29-day period,” Spurs spokesman James said.
The Spurs didn't bill the county for 10 full-time employees who spent a month “working around the clock” to figure out how to turn the arena's foyer into a polling site, James said.
Nearly 22,000 people voted at the AT&T Center during the November election, but it wasn't Bexar County's largest polling site in terms of voter traffic.
Northwest Vista College saw the most traffic — 24,130 voters — but the college didn't charge the county.
John Igo, Brook Hollow and Encino public library branches each had more voters than AT&T Center — sites for which the city didn't bill the county.
Alzafar Shrine Auditorium, one of the county's four mega voting centers, saw the second-largest number of voters of any polling site in the county — 23,616. That operation cost the county $18,100.
The county's other two mega voting centers, St. Paul's Community Center and Palo Alto College, cost the county $16,000 and nothing, respectively.
Usually, if Bexar elections officials must pay the property owner of a polling site, the cost is in the hundreds to low thousands of dollars.