“Audit” is sometimes a bad word for government agencies.

But the Chilton County Commission volunteered to have its accounts inspected by an outside agency.

The commission agreed to a no-cost, no-obligation partnership with North Carolina-based FacilityDude, which would pore over the county’s utility bills from the past two years to see if the county could save money.

County administrator Vanessa Hendrick said the county has already been using FacilityDude’s services for a couple of weeks now, in the form of online maintenance tracking.

Hendrick or maintenance Supervisor Pete Davenport puts all work orders into an online system. Then, each month or year, for example, county officials can see if there are trends in the work being done.

“If he’s working on one thing over and over, it might be a problem that we need to fix instead of just putting a Band-Aid on it,” Hendrick said.

Johnson Controls provided a $600 grant for the county to participate in the energy audit. That company offers services to increase energy efficiency and lower operating costs in buildings.

In other business, the commission:

•Scheduled a work session for 5 p.m. on April 2 to decide what to do with money on the county’s books at the end of the fiscal year. Hendrick said the money is the result of revenue received in the current fiscal year but credited to the previous year. The money, about $500,000, has been included in the county’s budget and should not be considered a surplus, she said.

•Approved the county’s tax assessor and tax collector to enter into an agreement with Berney Office Equipment.

•Approved the color of the new roof for the Chilton-Clanton Public Library to be “medium bronze–low sheen.”