Riverside County Supervisors Tuesday unanimously voted to officially appoint Art Tinoco, the county’s current assistant registrar of voters, to the role of interim registrar of voters.
Tinoco has been with the registrar of voters office since 2002, according to county spokesperson Brooke Federico, the last nine of which he spent as assistant registrar of voters. Tinoco has been acting registrar of voters since the Sept. 29 departure of former department head Rebecca Spencer.
According to a settlement agreement obtained by The Riverside Record, Spencer resigned from her position as registrar of voters effective Sept. 29.
The county agreed to pay Spencer $799,591 in exchange for a release of “any and all claims” she might have had against the county. The county will also deposit approximately $64,950 into Spencer’s employer-sponsored retirement savings plan and pay her $38,067 for her various leave balances, including annual leave, according to the agreement.
As part of the settlement, Spencer acknowledged that the county’s agreement with her was not to be taken as an admission of liability or wrongdoing. The county also “expressly denied” any liability or wrongdoing in the agreement.
Federico said the county would conduct a recruitment process to find a permanent registrar of voters, but did not immediately have information about when that process would begin or approximately how long it would take.
“With a recruitment, it can take time to go through all of the steps required by our human resources department,” she said. “But there are times where it can move quickly and there are times where, you know, it may be a more lengthy process.”
And though 2023 is not an election year for the vast majority of Riverside County, voters in Perris will head to the polls Nov. 7 to decide whether the city should implement a new business license tax on industrial businesses.
“The department continues to serve our residents to prepare for upcoming elections, including the November 7 Perris election, but also for all of our upcoming elections,” Federico said. “We have a dedicated team in our registrar of voters office, and they continue to serve the needs of our residents and ensure our election systems are moving forward.”
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