WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Prince William County supervisors unanimously backed a plan on Tuesday to combat their soaring foreclosure rate by helping county employees buy the vacant houses.

Officials said the program would cost almost nothing and pose little financial risk for the county. But a host of questions remain about how the to administer the plan, which would shift investments to banks that would offer lower rates to employees seeking mortgages.

Among the issues still unresolved are how many and which government employees would be interested and the portion of the county’s investments that would need to be rerouted.

“We have a lot of details still to chase down,” said Prince William County Finance Director Christopher Martino, who offered an early vision of the program that was endorsed at Tuesday’s board meeting.

Under the program, a county employee would select a house to buy and make normal financial arrangements with a bank participating in the program. At that point, the county would buy a 10-year certificate of deposit that the bank would use to fund the mortgage and provide the buyer a lower interest rate.

Supervisors hope the initiative will fill some of the 7,000 vacant and foreclosed homes — the most in the state — with teachers, law-enforcement officials, firefighters and other employees, who typically cannot afford to live in Prince William County.

The aim is similar to a program proposed in Fairfax County, although the means is much different. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is weighing a bundle of measures that would involve purchasing, revamping and selling the foreclosed homes, as well as offering loan assistance to first-time buyers.

“I think they’re both good ideas,” Steve Baugher, executive director of the Virginia Association of Mortgage Brokers and a member of Gov. Tim Kaine’s Foreclosure Prevention Task Force, said of the Fairfax and Prince William measures. “I think we’re in a situation where we have to think outside the box, and anything that will work at this point is a plus.”

Martino said the county can safely limit the program to 5 percent of its investment portfolio — which could be as much as $50 million — and proposed to have employees undergo financial training and make their mortgage payments through payroll deductions.

wflook@dcexaminer.com