BY KATIE THISDELL

Over six years, Gary Snellings has accumulated many stacks of papers and binders about Stafford County.

Those include Board of Supervisors agendas and budget documents that are hundreds of pages long.

"I got to the point where I had to go out and buy another bookshelf for my office for these binders," said Snellings, who represents the Hartwood District on the county's Board of Supervisors.

But starting with the board's Jan. 3 meeting, Apple iPads will allow the supervisors to essentially go paperless.

"This thing is fantastic, it really is," Snellings said. "Every piece of paper you need to be a board member is on this machine."

Stafford is joining a growing trend of local governments using iPads to save money and paper.

"A significant number of counties are moving towards that for their meetings," said Jim Campbell, executive director of the Virginia Association of Counties.

Fredericksburg City Council began using iPads in May after comparing several digital options, including the Amazon Kindle, netbooks and laptops.

The city purchased iPads, cases and applications for the council members and several staff members at a price of about $12,000 plus about $6,000 per year for unlimited 3G service.

That could yield an estimated annual savings of $8,000 in paper costs and staff time for meeting preparations, according to the city's calculations.

Spotsylvania County's Board of Supervisors has discussed using iPads but has not taken any action.

Staff members in Fredericksburg and Stafford have worked together as the county prepares for the change.

The city's information technology department controls what applications can be downloaded, but Stafford is allowing more freedom on the devices.

"They can use it for the board meetings, but they can use it for other things, too," said Stafford IT Director David Noel. "We didn't want to limit them if they wanted to get their own apps."

Falmouth Supervisor Susan Stimpson says one of the best parts of the iPads is being able to easily and quickly access information.

The app that the county uses for board documents lets users search using keywords.

"It's much quicker to get to the documents," Stimpson said. "It's much easier to access everything and stay connected."

Stafford's 12 iPads cost about $800 each, with $42 in monthly costs for Internet service for each. That comes to about $15,000 to make the switch this year.

The approximate cost for producing board packets for 2011 was about $4,000 for materials, plus 250 overtime hours for staff members to assemble and deliver the packets. Labor costs were unavailable.

While staff and supervisors say the savings will be in staff time and paper--about 23 cases of paper were used last year just for board meetings--the county has not determined a specific dollar figure for savings by using iPads.

"It's no doubt going to save taxpayers money," Snellings said.

At the board's December meeting, supervisors passed a resolution allowing them to pay 50 percent of the iPad price and then be allowed to keep it for person use once their term ends.

Katie Thisdell: 540/735-1975
Email: kthisdell@freelancestar.com