Less is more savings for the Mower County Board, but is less information worth the cost benefits for taxpayers?

The Mower County Board of Commissioners has approved printing summaries of official minutes of the meetings and other official notices of county government.

The decision came Tuesday, when the commissioners met in regular session.

Denise Bartels, the new half-time office specialist in county coordinator Craig Oscarson's office, presented the information to the commissioners.

According to Bartels, Minnesota statute allows for the condensation of official minutes into summaries. She was able to condense the minutes of a recent county board meeting from the original 12 pages in length to two pages.

The minutes of the meeting and other official notices are required by law to be printed in officially-designated newspapers. The Austin Daily Herald is the primary publication for official county notices in 2003, but the LeRoy Independent weekly newspaper also receives legal notices for publication.

Bartels said the summaries would be printed in the county "legal" newspaper publication, the Austin Daily Herald.

The idea has been discussed for the last several years and only now, when the county is preparing for the impact of a state budget deficit, has the idea been seriously discussed.

Last Tuesday, it was discussed and acted upon, but not without some reservations expressed by the commissioners.

No sooner had Richard P. Cummings, 1st District, made the motion to approve Bartels' recommendation and publish summaries of the county board proceedings, when Ray Tucker, 2nd District, expressed uncertainties.

"The public has a right to know as much as it can about government and some people have come to depend upon the minutes of the meeting to find out how the individual commissioners voted," Tucker said.

The commissioners asked Bartels to compare the costs for 12 pages or 16 inches of minutes of the meeting compared to two pages or 4 inches in the smaller-type size used by official legal publications.

The results were not made known to spectators at Tuesday's meeting.

"What I'm wondering," Tucker asked, "is this really good to save us that money in this instance?"

"Oh, yes," Cummings said. "This is going to save us a lot on our publication costs."

"We don't want to reduce these publications if the citizens are depending upon them, though," Tucker said.

"If the citizens don't like what we're doing by reducing the publications, they will call us on the carpet soon enough," he said.

Cummings said there are instances where summaries work perfectly. "When there is a unanimous vote, why do we have to list every commissioners' name and position and how they voted?" he said.

"I suppose we can give it a try and see what happens," Tucker said. "All we're trying to do is save money."

Cummings had another idea where a summary would work without interfering with the public's right to know.

"When the bills are listed, why do we have to list everyone of them? There are bills for $2 here or $3 there. We could summarize them with a total," he said.

The discussion ended and Tucker seconded Cummings motion and the proposal to summarize official notices was unanimously approved.

Bartels made it clear, complete accounts of the county proceedings would be made available at the Austin Public Library or the county's Web site www.co.mower.mn.us

Lee Bonorden can be contacted at 434-2232 or by e-mail at :mailto:lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com