Durham Officials Revive Plans Of Possible City-County Merger

At a luncheon meeting Tuesday, leaders from both councils talked about the potential for merging some departments. Tax and planning departments are already working together.

Some see it as a way to improve efficiency and save Durham taxpayers money.

"I want to wait until we have a city manager and county manager who can sit together, look at the structure of both systems, and then tell us, 'Well, purchasing might work well together, or human resources might work well together," says county commissioner MaryAnn Black.

While leaders are talking about merging more departments, they say it is too soon to talk about merging all city and county services.