JEFFERSON CITY, MO. -- The city of Jefferson Thursday filed a lawsuit against Cole County seeking to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars it should have received in commercial property surtax funds.

That puts the commission in a position of having to sue a school district to find the funds.

"If you all are in agreement with the proposed changes and would recommend approval to your board, I think that would go a long way, obviously.”

The Cole County Commission offered a new draft of a contract to recover property surtax money overpaid to the Blair Oaks School District.

"We thought it was worth the public interest in trying one last time to resolve it before litigation occurred,” Presiding Commissioner Marc Ellinger said. “If we can't, we can't.”

The new language addresses the issue of culpability for the mistake. The commission also secured a letter from the Williams-Keepers Accounting Firm attesting to the accuracy of the calculation of the repayment, which could be as much as $656,000.

The school district wants "certification" of the numbers.

"I've never seen a CPA "seal" a piece of paper, like and engineer or an architect,” Western District Commissioner Chris Wrigley said.

Blair Oaks Superintendent Jim Jones listened, but made no promise to get his board's approval of the new language in time to keep the matter out of court.

"We talk about bein' in a panic or a rush,” Blair Oaks Superintendent Jim Jones said. “Again, we go back to 2007 and wish the same panic that's goin' on around the county offices was goin' on in 2007, and somebody would have taken a look at the calculation at that point and been able to correct it then.”

Jones said the Blair Oaks School Board was prepared to go to court when it decided earlier this week to reject a previous settlement draft.