Lisa Duke used to devote a couple of days a month to making copies for Beaufort County School Board meetings.

Each member of the board received a book of agenda items and the correlating policies that were often hundreds of pages each. The volume of the job taxed the copier she used, often overheating and jamming up in the process.

“It was an enormous amount of paper and time putting those books together,” said Board member Carolyn Walker.

Those days are gone, thanks to Beaufort County Schools’ $4,000 investment into an electronic school board document system.

The district purchased a one-year membership from Emerald Data System to boarddocs.com and laptops for each school board member. The system allows school board documents to be shared electronically and is open to the public.

This month’s meeting was their introduction to the paperless system. The evening reportedly went off without a hitch.

Walker predicted the school board would save money by the switch to the new document system. It eliminated the paper and postage costs for sending the books to board members.

“And time, which also equals money,” Walker said. “When there’s a vote, it lets you click on the policy.”

The system links handouts, state policies and other supplemental information to the meeting’s agenda. Once minutes are approved, they are attached to the agenda, too.

“I think it’s going to be wonderful,” Walker said. “I’m happy with it and excited about it.”