A proposal to change the way the county and the school system is run financially advanced through a county commission committee Monday night and is set to be taken up by the full commission later this month.

Currently, the county is operating under a system in which both the county and school employees fall under the umbrella of one finance director.

The proposal would allow the school board to have their own finance director and would also make all financial records for both the county and the school board electronic.

County Executive Anthony Holt said making financial records electronic should save the county money in the long run.

“It could take about three years to fully implement this if we pass it,” he told the Legislative Committee Monday night. “It might take $1.5 million, but the cost not to do this is way more expensive than it would be to be proactive.”

Equally as important, Holt said, “is that this will make us a lot more transparent than we are under the current system.”

“Any commissioner and any school board member at any time could log on to the system and access information,” Holt said. “This will move us light years ahead of where we are and ultimately save the taxpayers’ money.”

School Board Chairman Don Long said he supports the measure as well.

“I think the version that is before (the commission) will be beneficial to both the school board and the commission,” he said. “I think this compromise benefits us in that it modernizes things and makes us more efficient, and it allows us to oversee our own budget so we are retaining the authority granted to us by law.”

Legislative Committee Chairman Bob Pospisil of Cottontown, said the school board is paying for paper to write checks to the school system's over 4,000 employees.

“I think this may be the best work we've done,” he said at the committee meeting Monday night. “I think we will have other counties coming in here to see how we've done it.”

Just as it was in the ad-hoc committee that first studied the issue, the vote in the Legislative Committee was unanimous in its approval of the measure.

Holt said he is hopeful that the proposal will get the same kind of support when it goes before the full county commission February 27.

“I hope the unanimous votes in the ad-hoc committee and in the Legislative Committee send a strong message,” he said. “It really hasn't been controversial, so I'm hoping that we can get unanimous approval when it goes to (the full) commission.”

The measure requires a two-thirds vote to pass, which is 16 of the 24 commissioners.

It then must be approved by the state General Assembly before it can take effect.

by Josh Nelson