Poll: Should Carroll County Invest in Gold?

Commissioner Richard Rothschild recently told the county comptroller that he would like to explore the option of putting some county assets into alternate forms of low risk investments such as gold, silver and foreign currency.

"I was just hoping we could look at the possibility of taking 10 percent or so of our liquid assets and put them into some other alternate form of low risk investments that are inflation-proof so we have some protection in the case the dollar starts to go south," Rothschild said at a recent meeting of the board of Carroll County commissioners.

County Comptroller Rob Burk said such a move would be a complex process. He said it might require changing state law and that state delegates would have to get involved.

Burk said state laws and county investment policies determine how investments are managed.

"Our primary goal in investment policy is to focus on the security of the investment, ensure tax dollars are available when we need to spend them and to assure we have liquidy when we need to address obligations," Burk said.

Rothschild's comments came last week during a commissioners' meeting at which comptroller Burk recommended adding Multibank Securities, a brokerage investment firm, to the companies with which the county does business. The board voted unanimously to approve the resolution as proposed by Burk.

Do you like Rothschild's idea? Should Carroll County diversify investments into gold, silver and foreign currency?