The Carroll County Council's Finance Committee meets just about every other Tuesday morning. Members Ann Brown, Ron Slavens and Marion Huffer frequently are confronted with funding requests and situations by department heads during the meetings. Everyone needs a solution.

Tuesday the committee heard an urgent request from the sheriff's department about a recovery (federal stimulus) grant opportunity to fund the basic salary for an additional deputy for three years. The committee was told the county would have to commit to funding the position the fourth year.

The sheriff's merit board representative who presented the proposal gave an impassioned plea to the committee for permission to submit a request. He provided them with a well organized and well thought out rationale as to why the sheriff's department should be allowed to apply for the funds.

In years past, permission may well have been given on the basis of that presentation alone. But this isn't then, and from what the county has been through financially, that time will hopefully never come again.

There is no doubt that nearly everyone in the county would like to be able to have more county deputies on the roads. Paying for them is another matter.

Committee members began asking questions about the true funding for the position. They asked who would pay to train a new officer if they had to send that person to the police academy. They asked what the new officer would drive, how much fuel the additional car would use and where the money would come from to purchase it. Some answers were readily given and some were promised for a later time.

Finally the committee asked to see a copy of the grant proposal that, by the way, was due by the end of the day. That could have been the proverbial straw.

But as the last page of the request for funding was read, the committee understood that the auditor was to submit the request after receiving approval from the governing body - which the committee is not. The county council is the governing body. And that was the straw.

It is easy to remember how such a situation might have been handled three or four years ago. It is much harder to face the reality that submitting a grant proposal before the proper procedure is followed is wrong. But the committee did not blink - they did the only thing a group of people with integrity could and should do. They declined to continue to consider the proposal.

Residents should commend their leaders for leading when it would have been easier to do business as it was done in Carroll County's not so distant past.