The Austin School Board passed a proposal yesterday that may speed up the process of filling the vacant seventh school board seat.

The proposal, raised by Superintendent David Krenz, charges Krenz with selecting a nominee for the seat. The selection will be presented to the school board at the Sept. 13 meeting. The school board then will vote on whether or not to accept the nominee.

“I’m volunteering to step up and be more an assistance in this process,” Krenz said.

If the nominee is voted down, the selection process will return to the personnel committee to begin again. The personnel committee’s previous plans to decide the next step in the process has been replaced by Krenz’s proposal.

Krenz said he will begin considering candidates over the next week. He also said that he would be primarily looking for candidates with prior experience, such as community members who have had previous experience on a board.

“I see my role as helping to move the process along. They (the school board) seemed like they were looking for something like this,” Krenz said.

The school board seat has been vacant since March, when the board voted to removed Curt Rude. Krenz’s proposal was one of the methods suggested to fill the seat. The school board instead decided to have the board vote, which resulted in a three to three deadlock vote in July.