Berrien County Commissioners will soon have more time to review the weekly bills, following a request this week from Commissioner Julie Wuerfel.

Speaking at the county board’s committee of the whole meeting Thursday, Wuerfel said she often doesn’t even get to see the weekly requisitions list until the night before she’s supposed to vote on it. She said that goes against the board’s bylaws and asked for more time.

“We need to make sure staff is getting it by a certain date,” Wuerfel said. “Any time after that goes to the next week, something that just rolls over so that we have time to actually review that list, not at midnight.”

County Administrator Brian Dissette said that can be accomplished, although he’ll have to require county department heads to get their documents into him sooner.

“If the board is desirous of seeing your requisitions earlier in the day, as staff, I will have to be leaning on the various departments to understand that things will halt,” Dissette said. “They will have to wait a week if they don’t have things in earlier.”

Board Chair Mac Elliott said he’d be fine with delaying the approval of certain requisitions if they’re not submitted to commissioners by a cutoff time each week. He compared waiting until the last minute to someone going into a grocery store ten minutes before closing and trying to fill up a large cart with items.

Following the discussion, commissioners will now have more time to know what they’re approving before taking a vote.