It wasn't surprising then that City Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of the governmental operations committee, which has oversight of the BOE, at a preliminary budget hearing on Monday expressed deep dissatisfaction with how the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has consistently lowballed the BOE in preliminary budgets for three years running.

Bordering on anger, Kallos pointed out that the BOE preliminary budget allocation of $88.4 million is a steep drop from last year's adopted budget of $140 million. Kallos asked BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan if the low figure is sufficient for the somewhat monumental task of running elections in New York City.