At its Aug. 15 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council passed a similar measure urging county commissioners to levy the tax.

For the last two years, the county board has levied the tax – at a rate of 0.043 mill. (One mill is $1 for every $1,000 of a property’s taxable value.) Because Act 88 predates the state’s Headlee legislation, the county board does not need to put the issue before voters in order to levy the tax. The county board could, by the Act 88 statute, levy such a tax up to 0.5 mills, or more than 10 times the amount it has chosen to levy the last two years.

In November 2010, the county board approved the Act 88 tax with just a six-vote majority on the 11-member board. Kristin Judge, Mark Ouimet and Wes Prater dissented. Jessica Ping abstained, and Rolland Sizemore Jr. was absent from that Nov. 3, 2010 meeting.

For 2011, the allocation of the roughly $611,266 raised by the countywide Act 88 tax broke down as follows: $200,000 to Ann Arbor SPARK; $50,000 to SPARK East; $100,000 to the Eastern Leaders Group; $144,696 to the county’s department of economic development and energy; $15,000 to fund a Michigan State University Extension agricultural innovation counselor for Washtenaw County; $27,075 to fund horticulture programming for the Washtenaw MSUE horticulture educator; $59,229 for 4-H activities, including allocation to the Washtenaw Farm Council for operating the Washtenaw County 4-H Youth Show & 4-H agricultural programming for the 4-H extension educator; and $15,000 to support the work of the Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP).

This brief was filed from the DDA offices at 150 S. Fifth Avenue, where the board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

The goal is to develop a plan to provide better health care for the county’s low-income residents, the uninsured and people on Medicaid – prior to changes that will be mandated by the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The Washtenaw Health Initiative (WHI) is a collaboration led by retired Saint Joseph Mercy Health System chief executive officer Bob Laverty, former county administrator Bob Guenzel, and retired University of Michigan treasurer Norm Herbert. The effort is jointly sponsored by the UM Health System and Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, and faciliated by Marianne Udow-Phillips, director of the Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation – a joint venture of UM and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Several other groups, including Washtenaw United Way and the county public health department, are also involved.

Organizers say they hope this initiative will become a model for other communities nationwide that are facing similar issues.

Details of exactly what kind of services will be provided, what funding and other resources will be tapped, and how a coverage plan will be implemented haven’t yet been determined. Initial steps that could occur as early as this year include reaching out to enroll about 6,000 county residents who are eligible for Medicaid but not currently signed up for that coverage. Another project that could be implemented this year entails coordinating local dental clinics to offer sliding scale fees for low-income residents.

More information is available on the initiative’s website. [.pdf of WHI press release] [.pdf of Washtenaw County health care overview]

A Washtenaw County 911 dispatcher. Ann Arbor and county dispatch operations are currently co-located at Ann Arbor's Fire Station #1 on Fifth Avenue. (Photo courtesy of Washtenaw County sheriff's office.)

Also not cited as an example of possible future city/county collaboration was police dispatching. However, the topic did at least receive a passing mention by Ward 3 incumbent Stephen Kunselman, who told the audience that his grandmother was a police dispatcher in the late 1950s for the East Ann Arbor police department.

A recent city press release – sent out the Wednesday before the June 11 candidate forum – described a renewed effort to consolidate Ann Arbor’s 911 police dispatch functions with the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office.

So The Chronicle sat down with Ann Arbor chief of police Barnett Jones and Washtenaw County sheriff Jerry Clayton to walk through the possible consolidation, under which the city would contract with the county for dispatch service. Based on that interview, it’s clear that it’s not just talk.

The city and county dispatchers are already working in the same building in the same room –  on the second floor of Fire Station #1, across Fifth Avenue from the new municipal center at Fifth and Huron. Clayton has developed a staffing model for implementation. And over the next few weeks, Jones will be sitting down with the police officers union – dispatchers are members – to discuss the proposal. Jones said that from the standpoint of collective bargaining, a consolidated dispatch operation could not be blocked by the union.

But Jones and Clayton will not have the final say. That decision will be made by the Ann Arbor city council and the Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

Co-Located Dispatch: Preparation

The physical stage for the consolidation of county and city dispatching operations was set more than a year and a half ago, when the Ann Arbor city council authorized the remodeling of the dispatch room on the second floor of Fire Station #1. Previous Chronicle coverage from the council’s Dec. 9, 2009 meeting:

The city of Ann Arbor has agreed to co-locate its 911 dispatch with the county’s operation – that will take place at the city’s existing location in Fire Station #1, across from city hall. The cost of the remodeling will be $48,183, but will be reimbursed from the 800 MHz public safety communications millage fund.

At Monday’s meeting, chief of police Barnett Jones called the co-location a “dream come true.” The expectation is that co-location will eventually lead to consolidation of the operations.

The cooperative effort with the county on 911 dispatch, Jones said, was part of an effort to regionalize services, which already included SWAT, K-9, and training. [See also: "County Reorganizes 911 Dispatch"]

And a month later, the city council authorized the purchase of a new phone switch as part of the dispatch co-location effort. They heard from a deputy police chief that evening that the idea of an eventual consolidation of operations was not new. It had been discussed for a couple of decades. Previous Chronicle coverage, from the Jan. 19, 2010 meeting:

The resolution before the council on Monday was to approve the purchase of a 911 phone switch for $258,983.

During the brief deliberations by the council, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) elicited from deputy police chief Greg Bazick that the consolidation has been talked about for almost as long has he’s worked on the force – 19 years. The cost savings would lie in the ability to eliminate duplicative technology costs.

City administrator Roger Fraser pointed out that for now, the arrangement would allow the city and county to work side-by-side, which was more economical, because by state law if they made it one operation, they would have to pay the more expensive of the two labor contracts.

A couple of months earlier, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners had completed its piece of the co-location arrangement by voting unanimously to approve a reorganization of the county’s central dispatch and emergency services division. The board’s resolution included eliminating four supervisory positions (including one that was already vacant) and creating four different positions at lower pay grades. Previous Chronicle coverage, from the county board’s Nov. 4, 2009 meeting:

Over the years, [Marc] Breckenridge [director of emergency management and homeland security] added, co-location will save in the cost of doing business, because of shared technology expenses. A lot of technology is duplicated among various units of government, he said.

Clayton said the whole project was an example of the county and city of Ann Arbor’s willingness to work together, leveraging resources with the goal of improving public safety.

Cost, County Role, Staffing Model

When The Chronicle met with Clayton and Jones earlier this week, Clayton indicated that the next step to full consolidation of the dispatch operation – now that co-location has been implemented – would not result in further cost savings to the county. Technology-based savings to the county, now and into the future, are a function of the co-location itself.

Consolidation of the dispatch operation – by using county dispatchers to handle Ann Arbor’s 911 calls – would be implemented on a contractual basis that would be cost-neutral to the county, Clayton said. So it’s not something he’s trying to push onto the city of Ann Arbor or other units of government in the county.

The sheriff was keen to stress during the interview that consolidation of dispatch operations is also not any kind of a first step towards consolidating services of individual police departments in the county under the sheriff’s office.

Clayton’s concern can be traced partly to a recent working session of the county board, when county commissioner Wes Prater had voiced the idea that only two police departments were necessary in the county: the Ann Arbor police department and the sheriff’s office. That comment prompted Clayton to assert that he had no interest in absorbing other police departments in the county. It also prompted other commissioners to take turns going around the table expressing their support for the independent police departments in their respective districts. Clayton also weighed in with support of Ypsilanti’s police force as an independent agency – commissioner Ronnie Peterson, whose district includes Ypsilanti, was absent from that meeting.

Contracting dispatch service is conceptually a different proposition from the way that some local units of government contract with the county to provide police services – deputy road patrols – for their communities. They contract for a specific number of deputies.

For that kind of service, the county distinguishes between the “cost” of a deputy and the “price” charged to a township for that deputy’s service – the difference is “contributed” by the county. Setting the cost and price has a long and contentious history, with the final dollar amount in the settlement of a related lawsuit still not determined. But based on the board’s unanimous initial vote at its June 1, 2011 meeting on the price to be charged for deputies, far greater consensus has been achieved on this issue. That price had emerged from work done by a police services steering committee over a period of more than a year.

For dispatching, it’s not some number of dispatchers for which the city of Ann Arbor would be contracting, but rather for the dispatching service. So there would be no distinction between cost and price.

The county currently employs 17 dispatchers plus a coordinator for a total of 18. The staffing model Clayton has put together to absorb the Ann Arbor dispatching workload would include 30 dispatchers plus two supervisors and one coordinator, for a total of 33. So Clayton would need an additional 15 bodies to staff the county’s dispatching room, in order to handle the additional workload.

The most natural extra bodies would be Ann Arbor police dispatchers – there are currently 21 of them. So not all of them would be needed.

The impact of the fiscal year 2012 budget approved by the Ann Arbor city council on May 31 already included the layoff of two of those 21 police dispatchers starting July 1. Those two [not all 21, as reported elsewhere] have been sent layoff notices, according to Jones. Robyn Wilkerson, head of human resources for the city of Ann Arbor, told The Chronicle that all the dispatchers were sent a communication – a copy of the press release outlining the potential city/county consolidation.

When Jones and Clayton spoke with The Chronicle earlier this week, Jones said he’d met with both laid-off dispatchers, and that he was working with Wilkerson and interim city administrator Tom Crawford to try to find a “softer landing” for them in some other city position. Jones recalled his own past career experience in Oakland County getting laid off as a sworn officer. He’d been offered a job at one-third the pay – either working in the morgue or serving process papers. He’d opted to work as a process server, and eventually was hired back.

For those who are hired into a consolidated dispatch room, Clayton described how they and the current sheriff’s dispatchers would make a gradual transition. Ann Arbor dispatchers would initially take all the Ann Arbor calls. They’d need to then start learning the rest of the county. And current sheriff’s dispatchers would need to learn the city of Ann Arbor. That would be accomplished partly by dispatchers pairing up on computer screens, but also by doing ride-alongs – actually riding with sheriff’s deputies and Ann Arbor officers out on patrol.

If the consolidation of dispatch operations is implemented, the math doesn’t work in favor of the Ann Arbor police dispatchers. Of the remaining 19 dispatchers (after the two layoffs), Clayton would use only 15 of them, leaving an additional four dispatchers out of a dispatching job. That corresponds roughly to the annual $400,000 savings (described in the city’s press release) that would be realized through the consolidation.

City of Ann Arbor Budget: Timeline for Consolidation

How does that $400,000 savings fit into the city of Ann Arbor police department budget planning?

While the city of Ann Arbor adopts its budget one year at a time, it plans in two-year cycles. After meeting a reduction target of $1 million for the 2012 fiscal year, Jones is looking at an additional $1 million reduction target for FY 2013.

For FY 2012 – which begins on July 1, 2011 – six police officer positions were eliminated through a combination of layoffs and vacancies. And the plan for FY 2013, which Jones put in front of the city council at a work session held in February 2011, would call for the layoff of as many as eight additional sworn police officers in FY 2013. That work session scenario – outlining two different budget reduction strategies – did not include the consolidation of the dispatching operation with the county. From the worksheet presented at the February work session:

Police Services Reduction Strategies
------------------------------------------------------
2.5% SCENARIO

2012            2012           2013            2013
Action          Dollars        Action          Dollars
------------------------------------------------------
LAYOFF                         LAYOFF
2 Dispatchers   162,659        1 Dispatcher     97,810
2 Plc Offcrs    221,332        4 Plc Offcrs    470,272
1 Plc Svc Spcls  90,246
                               REDUCE RANK
ELIMINATE VACANT               1 Lt, 2 Sgt      24,274
1 Telecomm       78,374
1 Plc Offcr     115,521        MAT/SUPP         31,723
1 Plc Prof Asst  79,144
                               Addtl Svngs      22,981

Subtotal Svgs   747,276                        647,060
2.5% Target     666,049                        638,802

------------------------------------------------------
4.0% SCENARIO [in addition to 2.5% savings]

2012            2012           2013            2013
Action          Dollars        Action          Dollars
------------------------------------------------------
LAYOFF                         LAYOFF
3 Plc Offcrs    339,365        4 Plc Offcrs    479,235

                               Addtl Svgs       14,334

Grand Total   1,086,641                      1,140,629
4.0% Target   1,049,330                      1,091,071

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The 2.5% budget reduction scenario is one that would entail police officers adopting the city’s benefits package, which would include a contribution by employees to their health care costs. The 4.0% reduction scenario is what would have to be achieved if police officers do not adopt the city benefits package.  The city’s contract with its police officers expired on June 30, 2009 and the union has filed a request for arbitration under the state’s Act 312. The 2.5%/4.0% alternative is part of an attempt the city has used explicitly to align its budget strategy with its labor strategy.

Based on the worksheet, in FY 2013 the impact of the $400,000 savings through dispatch consolidation would translate roughly into the preservation of slightly more than three police officers on patrol. For Jones, it’s a matter of weighing the dispatchers who could lose their jobs as dispatchers, against the police officers who’d remain on patrol. On that balance test, it’s police officers on patrol that take priority.

For Jones, the deadline for dispatch consolidation is a little less than a year from now, when the FY 2013 budget is approved. The $400,000 in savings will clearly help meet the reduction target, but it still leaves him around $600,000 short. And Jones is looking ahead to FY 2014 and FY 2015 when he expects further reductions will be necessary. So even while one argument on the city’s side for consolidated dispatch is budgetary – it’ll save $400,000 annually – the move is not a complete solution to funding police services in Ann Arbor.

Public Policy Arguments for Consolidation

Jones can make a budgetary argument to the Ann Arbor city council in favor of consolidated dispatch. But Clayton allowed that the consolidation itself (as opposed to the co-location) is a cost-neutral proposition to the county. He went on to describe how consolidated dispatch would add employees and increase the challenges and workload for the sheriff’s office. But he concluded: It’s what the sheriff is supposed to do – provide a blanket of support.

Asked by The Chronicle how he planned to sell the idea to the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, Clayton stated that it was simply good public policy – from the point of view of the collaboration between public entities as well as the perspective of coordinating public safety operations.

Jones agreed that the budgetary argument is not the only one. He’d worked in Oakland County where regionalized dispatch is the norm. And both Clayton and Jones pointed to Livingston County as an example where all dispatch is done through the sheriff’s office.

When The Chronicle phoned Mimi Yenshaw, administrative supervisor of Livingston County dispatch, she described how her department performs dispatching services for nine different police departments, 10 fire departments and one ambulance service located in the county. She indicated that there are some minor variations in how calls are handled for each of those agencies – differences that are incorporated into dispatcher training. For example, each fire department stipulates what kinds of medical runs its firefighters will go on. Dispatchers have a grid that lists out which fire departments will go on what kinds of calls.

The consolidated dispatch operation in Livingston County launched on Memorial day in 1999. Yenshaw has been part of the operation since that time and said, “It works very well for us. I can’t say how it would work for Ann Arbor.”

Within Washtenaw County, the city of Ypsilanti consolidated its dispatch operation with the sheriff’s office just last year. Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber told The Chronicle in a phone interview that there’s one extra technical step that’s now required when calls are dispatched, but that’s “a very quick step,” he said. From his perspective, the consolidation is working. Four police and fire dispatchers were folded into the county’s operation, and did not have to lose their jobs, Schreiber said. The value of the contract with the county is $149,000 annually, and that reflects a savings to the city of $89,000, Schreiber wrote in a follow-up email.

Calculations on savings and costs are affected by police service answering point (PSAP) funding – which is collected by the state treasury from communication service suppliers/resellers and commercial mobile radio service suppliers, and then distributed to local units. PSAP funding is not enough to cover the complete cost of dispatching, but the funding is allocated to the unit providing the answering point, i.e., the dispatching service.

While the budgetary impact is positive, a staff memo written by then-acting Ypsilanti chief of police Paul DeRidder also described a potential negative impact: “Some negative impacts to the YPD will be: increased operational workload for existing employees, loss of independence, loss of tailored or customized services.” In his phone interview, Schreiber allowed that the consolidation meant the loss of some amount of control. It’s a matter of weighing how much control you are willing to lose, he concluded.

In the same memo, DeRidder also described the public policy benefits of the consolidation beyond the cost savings. The consolidation would improve service, he wrote, by “providing a single point of contact for all emergency service requests (regional concept), the reduction of misdirected calls, inter-jurisdiction cooperation, enhanced information sharing, and expanded supervision to assure continued high quality service delivery.”

It’s these kinds of public policy benefits that chief Jones and sheriff Clayton both identified as arguments for the consolidation of Ann Arbor’s dispatch with the sheriff’s office.

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Scio Church Road: Two Barns (Images by Chuck Bultman, link to higher resolution file.)

Bultman also wrote that he’d noticed a hole in the roof of one of the barns: “So I tried to reach the owners to let them know that their asset is at risk. And so far, I have not heard back – maybe something is being planned and workers are lining up to repair it or salvage it, but I do not know, and it is not for me to decide.”

But over the spring, a decision was made – which a week ago led to a Friday evening gathering of Bultman’s friends and associates at the site of those barns. One of the barns stood with its siding removed, its frame laid bare. Wrote Bultman in an email to me: “It is our plan to toast this barn’s first life, and consider its second.”

Its second life will begin in the Pittsburgh area, where Bultman will help transform the re-assembled timbers into a home for one of his clients. The disassembly of the frame and restoration of the wood will be handled by Rudy Christian and his wife Laura, whose shop is in Burbank, Ohio.

Although Bultman had speculated that the two barns on the property were built at the same time, Christian estimated that the barn he’s dismantling dates to the 1830s, while the other one is post-Civil War.

Chronicle publisher Mary Morgan and I took a break from writing about local government to join Chuck on that Friday, and documented the occasion with some photos.

Barn Photos

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Ladder in the Scio Church Road barn.

Scio Church Road barn.

Roof ribs of the Scio Church Road barn.

West face of the Scio Church Road barn.

Scio Church Road barn.

A dusty old dictionary abandoned in the basement of the Scio Church Road barn.

Final approval is expected at the board’s June 1 meeting. A public hearing on the millage rates will also be held at that time.

This brief was filed from the boardroom of the county administration building at 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor. A more detailed report will follow.

Reynolds’ paid leave is related to post-military issues. In his most recent military experience, Reynolds was deployed to Iraq in 2004 with a Marine Corps reserve unit, and was a senior officer leading civil/military operations in Al Anbar province. Diane Heidt, the county’s human resources and labor relations director, said that Reynolds is expected back on the job after he returns from medical leave.

Kelly Belknap, the county’s finance director, has been named interim deputy administrator, and was introduced with that title at a May 5, 2011 board working session. Pete Collinson, finance accounting manager, is now interim finance director – a role he held for several months following the retirement of Pete Ballios in 2009.

Reynolds has been on the job just under a year – the county board of commissioners approved his hire at their June 2010 meeting, and he started work on June 21, 2010, with a salary of $138,000. Reynolds was the first hire of McDaniel, who was deputy administrator under Bob Guenzel. Guenzel retired as county administrator in May 2010, and the board of commissioners promoted McDaniel into that job. Before coming to Washtenaw County, Reynolds was the administrator for Chippewa County, Wisc.

The board’s approval also includes the extension, through 2015, of the contract for a network manager job that’s shared between the county and city. That contract, first signed in 2008, expires in June of 2011. The two entities save about $78,000 $81,577 annually because of the shared position. Also approved was a lease extension through 2015 for shared data center space – that lease is set to expire in 2013.

In addition, the board gave initial approval to share costs with the city for a deal with the firm EMC, paying for storage area network and backup services. The county now pays $387,924 annually for these services, and would expect to save $212,000 annually by sharing costs with the city. The deal would also allow the county to increase storage capacity, giving it the ability for future potential technology collaborations with other local units of government and community partners.

This brief was filed from the boardroom in the Washtenaw County administration building, 220 N. Main St., Ann Arbor. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Three members of the Washtenaw County apportionment commission, which is tasked with redrawing districts for the county board of commissioners based on 2010 census data. From left: Cleveland Chandler, Washtenaw County Democratic Party chair; county treasurer Catherine McClary; and Mark Boonstra, Washtenaw County Republican Committee chair. Other members are county clerk Larry Kestenbaum and Brian Mackie, the county's prosecuting attorney. (Photos by the writer.)

Eight people addressed the commission during the hearing, which lasted about an hour. Some argued for a reduction in the current 11 districts, saying it would save costs and make for a better functioning board. Others suggested keeping the same number or increasing the number of districts slightly, for better representation.

It’s likely there will be some changes of district lines, even if the number of districts remains the same. The county’s population grew 6.8%, from 322,895 people in 2000 to 344,791 people in 2010, with some parts showing dramatic population shifts. Ypsilanti’s population decreased 12.6%, while several townships – including Saline, Scio and Webster – saw double-digit growth. The city of Ann Arbor accounts for about a third of the county’s population – its population dropped 0.6% to 113,934. [.pdf file of population data for Washtenaw County]

Commission members indicated that they haven’t yet completed any redistricting proposals, though Larry Kestenbaum – the county clerk and chair of the apportionment commission – said he’s developing one for 12 districts. One speaker at the hearing expressed disappointment that proposals weren’t yet available, saying he had hoped to give feedback on specific redistricting plans.

The apportionment commission met for the first time on March 31, when members set a schedule for the process. Its members, determined by state statute, are: The county clerk (Larry Kestenbaum), county treasurer (Catherine McClary), county prosecuting attorney (Brian Mackie), and the chairs of both the county Republican and Democratic parties (Mark Boonstra and Cleveland Chandler). All but Boonstra are Democrats.

Saturday’s public hearing had a lower turnout than the first hearing, which took place on April 9 at the Pittsfield Township hall – 16 people addressed the commission then, according to draft minutes of the meeting.

The next public hearing is set for Thursday, April 21 at 5:30 p.m. at Webster Township hall, 5665 Webster Church Road. A week later, on April 28, the commission meets again and is expected to present redistricting plans and possibly select one. That meeting, which will include time for public commentary, begins at 5:30 p.m. at the county administration building’s lower-level conference room, 200 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor.

The Work of the Apportionment Commission

Larry Kestenbaum, who chairs the apportionment commission, was a few minutes late to the April 16 public hearing – so it was Mark Boonstra who called the meeting to order. He said that at the request of a member of the public, they would begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Catherine McClary suggested that they dispense with other agenda items aside from the public hearing, but that it would be good to provide an overview of the criteria the commission must use to complete the redistricting process.

Boonstra briefly outlined the charge of the apportionment commission: To take the new 2010 census data and redraw districts for the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, taking into account population changes in the townships, cities and villages, and in the precincts within those municipalities. For a county the size of Washtenaw, there can be no fewer than five districts, and no more than 21. Currently there are 11 districts – 10 years ago, there were 15. [.pdf map of current districts for the Washtenaw County board of commissioners]

Evaluation criteria for redistricting, as dictated by statute and case law, include:

• Districts must be of substantially equal population. Specifically, each district’s population size must fall within the range of 94.05% to 105.95% of the “ideal” population. The “ideal” district population is calculated by dividing the county population by the number of districts. Washtenaw County’s population is 344,791, based on 2010 census data.
• Each district is represented by a single commissioner – there are no at-large commissioners.
• All parts of a district must be contiguous.
• Districts should be as compact and in as much of a square shape as practical.
• No township or part of a township should be combined with a city or part of a city unless required to meet the population standard.
• Townships, villages and cities should be divided only if necessary to meet the population standard. The same approach applies to precincts.
• Districts should not be drawn to provide a partisan political advantage.

The statute that dictates the apportionment process for county boards is Act 261 of 1966.

Boonstra concluded by saying they won’t be able to satisfy all these criteria completely – it’s a balancing act.

April 16 Public Hearing

Kestenbaum then opened the public hearing portion of the April 16 meeting. Eight people commented, some of them speaking multiple times.

Timothy King of Ypsilanti Township told the commission that he’s been a precinct delegate in the past, and he asked that the redistricting plan not split townships into different districts, if possible. At the least, he hoped the commission would try to keep school districts within the same county board district. When polling stations for two different precincts are located in the same school, “it’s a big hassle for the (poll) workers,” he said.

Christina Lirones of Pittsfield Township, speaking at the April 16 public hearing of the county apportionment commission.

Christina Lirones, former Pittsfield Township clerk and treasurer, advocated for fewer commissioners than the current 11. She said she differed from her [Democratic] party on this point. The county board could function well with nine commissioners, she said, noting that she’s served on various boards with seven members that function quite well.

[In December 2010, the Washtenaw County Democratic Party passed a resolution in support of keeping the current number of districts. The resolution noted that when the county board had 15 commissioners, two of them were minorities – now, there's only one minority commissioner, Ronnie Peterson of District 6 in Ypsilanti. One of the resolution's whereas clauses states: "It is obvious that a reduction in the number of Board of Commissioners and a subsequent redistricting would very possibly eliminate the number of minorities on the Washtenaw Board of Commissioners." .pdf file of WCDP resolution]

Lirones reported that she’d spoken with a current county commissioner who said that with fewer districts, the rural districts would be even larger geographically, making them harder to represent. She said she’d hate to see that consideration as the main driver of the redistricting decision. Noting that in the past, District 7 – which covers Pittsfield Township – had previously included parts of other townships, Lirones said the larger district added diversity of perspectives. In concluding her remarks, she said that cost savings and a better functioning board are reasons to have fewer districts.

Dan Benefiel told the commission he’s lived in Ypsilanti Township for nearly 20 years, but just recently got involved in politics. When he ran as a Republican candidate for county commissioner last year, he said he knocked on about 10,000 doors in District 5. [That district is currently represented by Democrat Rolland Sizemore Jr.] People there have a lot of problems, Benefiel said, and they appreciate a close association with their commissioner. From his own association with county commissioners, he said he found them to be reputable individuals with concern for their constituents.

Benefiel said he didn’t want to impugn the reputation of anyone on the apportionment commission. He recalled that when he was in graduate school, he asked the chair of his department whether he would be evaluated objectively. The chair told him that everything was political. Since then, Benefiel said he’s learned that everything is political, but everything doesn’t have to be partisan. “Everyone in this county, everyone in this township has their eyes on what you do here,” he told the commission. He then asked the commission how they were selected to serve – what was the makeup of the commission based on? He also asked how the public can be assured that though the positions of the apportionment commissioners might be slightly political, they would not be partisan.

John Taylor of Dexter Township said he wanted to reiterate what he’d said at the previous public hearing – he hoped that the number of districts would stay the same, or increase slightly. Though there’s a lot to criticize about this country’s government, he said, one of the good things is that it’s representative. Some of that representation would be taken away if there were fewer commissioners, who would each have to represent a larger part of the population. Having more commissioners is one expense that the county should be willing to pay for, he said.

Three current Washtenaw County commissioners attended Saturday's public hearing on county redistricting. From left: Dan Smith (R-District 2), Kristin Judge (D-District 7), and Wes Prater (D-District 4).

Wes Prater, a current county commissioner representing District 4, said he didn’t want to repeat what he’d said at the previous public hearing, noting that most of the speakers there had expressed preference for keeping the same number of districts, or increasing them. Since then he’s talked to several of his constituents, and they basically have the same view, he said. Of the 15 or so people he’s talked to about it in the past week, only one has supported reducing the number.

Referring to Lirones’ point about cost, Prater – a fellow Democrat – said that the expense of county commissioners is only a small percentage of the overall county budget. Cutting costs isn’t a good reason to reduce the number of districts, he said, especially since that makes it more difficult for citizens. He said he thinks of himself as a working commissioner. Since the last public hearing, he’s received two requests from citizens that he’s responding to – increasing the size of a district will make it more difficult to help constituents.

Lirones then asked to respond to Prater’s comments. She described her interactions with county staff as phenomenal. She said she’s had direct contact with staff in the clerk’s office, the treasurer’s office, and several departments, and has never needed her county commissioner to act as an intermediary. [District 7 covers Pittsfield Township, and is represented on the county board by Democrat Kristin Judge, who attended Saturday's public hearing.]

The county board sets the budget, Lirones said, but beyond that it has few statutory duties. Washtenaw County has an excellent administrator and staff who are extremely accessible, she said. While commissioners can be helpful, she added, they provide very little of the service that residents get from the county.

John Taylor said he wanted to offer a bit of a rebuttal. Because county commissioners do set budgets, he said, they’re making decisions about spending priorities and which departments to fund. With more districts, the size of each district is smaller and commissioners are more accessible – that’s important, because funding decisions will directly affect the services in those districts, he said. “The more representation, the better.”

Prater then took the floor again, saying he wanted to give some examples of the work that commissioners do. He reported that he, commissioner Kristin Judge and former commissioner Jessica Ping had initiated the process of getting the county to sponsor a drug discount card for residents. They were motivated after learning from the county’s public health department that roughly 11% of residents don’t have health care and prescription drug coverage, he said. [The program, offered through CVS/Caremark, was the subject of a heated debate among commissioners, but ultimately won approval by the board in May 2010.]

There was no statutory requirement to push for a program like this, Prater said, but obviously there’s a certain segment of the community that can benefit from it. He said that he personally has handed out about 8,000 discount cards since the program was adopted, and he continues to get calls about it.

As another example, Prater cited a situation in Ypsilanti Township on Burns Street, where two registered sex offenders live. Some senior citizens in that area are “having a fit,” Prater said, and are having trouble finding out what’s going on – they’re frustrated and need help. He said they need someone to turn to, and it’s an appropriate role for the county commissioner to help them.

Timothy King thanked Prater for mentioning some of the problems that township residents are facing. He said there are a lot of issues in the township and county. On his street, the sewer system is collapsing – something needs to be done about the county’s infrastructure, King said, noting that he’s sure there are similar problems in other areas.

Bill Bigler of Ann Arbor expressed disappointment that no redistricting plans had been proposed yet – he was hoping to be able to respond to the proposals. He urged the commission to keep township splits to a minimum.

Commissioner Response to Public Hearing

All five of the apportionment commissioners addressed issues raised during the public hearing.

Brian Mackie began by responding to Dan Benefiel, saying that whether or not people trust the apportionment commission is “really your choice, isn’t it?” Mackie said that in his view, the county board typically works by consensus, and is not extremely political. In the same way, he said, “I think this (apportionment) group will be nonpolitical in their decisions.”

Mackie recalled that when they went through this process 10 years ago, they also held three public hearings that were well-attended. People expressed a lot of different viewpoints, ranging from a desire to have fewer than five districts to more than 21 – neither of those options were legal, he pointed out. One person wanted to return to having a board of supervisors, which also isn’t legal, Mackie noted. [Prior to 1969, counties in Michigan were governed by a board of supervisors made up of one representative from each township and two or more persons from each city in the county.]

At the time, one argument for increasing the number of districts had been that the county board provides training for serving in higher office, Mackie recalled. Noting that two current state representatives had recently served on the county board, Mackie said he nonetheless does not think the board should be viewed as a proving ground for politicians. [He was referring to former county commissioners Mark Ouimet and Jeff Irwin, who were elected last fall to serve as state representatives in District 52 and 53, respectively.]

Catherine McClary addressed the question of how members of the apportionment commission were selected. Membership is set by state statute, she noted. The county treasurer is required to serve, she said, “otherwise, I would never ever volunteer for this job.”

Commenting on the difference between a political and partisan process, McClary said she served on the county commission when it had been a more even Democrat/Republican split. [Currently, the 11-member board consists of eight Democrat and three Republican commissioners.] While issues can be contentious, McClary said, generally the tensions are geographical rather than political – between urban and rural districts, for example. That’s not necessarily the case for state or Congressional districts, she noted, where politics plays more of a role. But for county redistricting, with a premium placed on districts of roughly-equal populations, “we’re constrained by the numbers,” she said.

Washtenaw County treasurer Catherine McClary, left, and county clerk Larry Kestenbaum at the April 16 apportionment commission public hearing. Kestenbaum chairs the commission.

Larry Kestenbaum recounted that he was a county commissioner 10 years ago, when redistricting reduced the number of seats from 15 to 11 – he decided not to run again, rather than compete against the other incumbent in that redrawn district. [That incumbent was Leah Gunn, who continues to serve on the county board.] Having served on a 15-member board, and having closely observed the 11-member board, he said, “there’s no question it works better at 11 than 15.” He allowed that part of the difference might be due to the personalities on the board.

There’s a lot of argument in favor of the status quo, Kestenbaum said, but that’s really not possible. Ann Arbor now accounts for about one-third of the county’s population, he noted, suggesting that the total number of districts should be divisible by three – creating possibly 9 districts, or 12. Kestenbaum said he’s putting together a plan for 12 districts that maintains the current districts roughly as they are now, but adds a new district for Scio Township. [Currently, parts of Scio Township are in several county board districts.] He said they’ll present specific plans at a later date – he didn’t think anyone had finished their proposals yet.

As for trusting the apportionment commission, Kestenbaum said that in addition to their roles on that group, all of them were elected by people in the county, and entrusted with other responsibilities. [The positions of clerk, prosecuting attorney and treasurer are elected countywide. The positions of Democratic and Republican party chairs are elected by their respective party membership.] If citizens of Washtenaw County trust them to carry out their other duties, he said, “I think it would follow that you trust us to do the redistricting.”

Kestenbaum also pointed out that in Washtenaw County, there’s no question of which party is in the majority. When redistricting is contentious, it’s usually because a change can cause a shift in political power – that’s not the case here, he said.

Cleveland Chandler spoke next, saying he was new to this process, but that he was working with Julia Roberts, the support staff hired for this project, to come up with a plan.

Echoing earlier comments of other commissioners, Mark Boonstra said none of them volunteered for this job – they were all conscripted. They hadn’t looked at any redistricting plans yet, but that would come soon, he said. Boonstra, the lone Republican on the commission, said there was no reason to think that there was inappropriate partisanship in the process.

Boonstra also commented that he had read something suggesting that he and Chandler had a disagreement at the previous public hearing on April 9. That’s not true at all, he said. The Democratic Party had recommended that the number of districts remain at 11, he said, but that was before they’d had a chance to look at the data. “I think we’re all on the same page and going in the same direction of trying to do this appropriately and within statutory requirements,” Boonstra said.

[A column by Joe Baublis, a member of the Washtenaw County Republican Committee who ran for county commissioner last year in District 11, was published on Friday, April 15 by Heritage Newspapers. In the column, Baublis describes the apportionment commission's April 9 public hearing in Pittsfield Township. In part, he writes: "The issue regarding the distinction between the fact finding of the Democrat Party chairman and the Republican Party chairman led to some heated debate. A member of the public asked how two men could look at the same facts and draw entirely different conclusions."

Draft minutes of that public hearing indicate that Chandler and Boonstra addressed the issue of population shifts and redistricting at the April 9 public hearing. According to draft minutes of that hearing, Chandler stated his preference for keeping the number of districts the same and not shifting boundaries, if there's not enough population shift to make a difference. Boonstra said they need to look at the data to see how the population changed within the current districts, and that he suspected there have been some changes.

The April 9 draft minutes indicate that Baublis, during public commentary at the end of the meeting, said he noticed a difference between the opinions of Boonstra and Chandler. Chandler responded by saying he has no problem working with Boonstra, and that the commission will work to come up with a consensus. According to the draft minutes, Boonstra again stated that he suspects there have been some population shifts, and that he didn't think Chandler was saying anything differently.]

Additional Public Commentary

An opportunity for additional public commentary was provided at the end of the meeting. Three people spoke.

Mary Lirones said she lives in Saline, which is part of one of the larger districts. [Saline is in District 3, represented by Republican commissioner Alicia Ping and covering the southwest portion of the county.] In talking with her friends and others, Lirones said, most people are amazed that they have a county commissioner, and certainly don’t know who that person is. None of them feel the need to contact their county commissioner, she said. Lirones said she’s in favor of reducing the number of districts, and certainly doesn’t want to see an increase.

Wes Prater commented on the advantages or disadvantages of having an even or odd number of districts. From his perspective, having an even number of commissioners isn’t a negative. If there are 20 commissioners, then you need support from 11 of them to get something passed, he noted. “I kind of like it,” he said. “It may be a bit weird, but I think it would work.”

Bill Emmerich of Ypsilanti Township, a member of the Washtenaw County Republican Committee who was a candidate for county commissioner last year in District 5, said he agreed with Prater. He also voiced support for reducing the number of districts.

Next Steps

Two additional meetings are scheduled: (1) a public hearing on Thursday, April 21 at 5:30 p.m. at Webster Township hall, 5665 Webster Church Road; and (2) on Thursday, April 28 at 5:30 p.m. at the county administration building’s lower-level conference room, 200 N. Main St., Ann Arbor.

The apportionment commission is expected to present redistricting plans and possibly select one at the April 28 meeting, which will include time for public commentary.

Resources for designing a redistricting plan – including population data and a blank county map – are available on the apportionment commission’s website.

An amendment offered by Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) prioritized the skatepark project over the Gallup renovations – based on the opportunity to leverage $400,000 of matching funds from the county, which will soon expire.

At the same meeting, the city council also acted on a recommendation from Ann Arbor’s greenbelt advisory commission (GAC) to send a letter of support for an application from Washtenaw County to the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund. Through its natural areas preservation program, the county hopes to secure matching funds from the state to help purchase a parcel in Ann Arbor Township now owned by a subsidiary of Domino’s Farms.

At its most recent meeting, GAC had recommended that the city council consider a letter of support, after Hohnke, the council’s representative to GAC, had cautioned against GAC’s sending such a letter letter before confirming that the county’s application would not dilute the city’s own chances to win grant funding. [Chronicle coverage: "Greenbelt, County Look to Partner on Farms"]

This brief was filed from the boardroom in the Washtenaw County administration building, where the council is meeting due to renovations in the city hall building. A more detailed report will follow:[link]

Jeff Irwin, representative for District 53 of the Michigan state House of Representatives, met with constituents at Espresso Royale in downtown Ann Arbor last Saturday. (Photos by the writer.)

In each of the first two months of his term, Irwin has held meetings for constituents in local Ann Arbor coffee houses – Cafe Verde and Espresso Royale. On Saturday, Feb. 26, The Chronicle caught up with Irwin after his talk with constituents and spoke with him for about an hour. The conversation included a discussion of Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed budget overview. [.pdf of budget overview]

In presenting the interview below, The Chronicle’s conversation with Irwin has been reorganized and edited in some places to achieve greater coherence and focus.

Last Saturday, Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-53rd District) entertained questions and concerns from constituents on a variety of topics, including local interest in the future use of the top of the underground parking structure, which is under construction on the city-owned Library Lot between Fifth and Division streets.

Three blocks east from Irwin’s conversation with constituents, a constant parade of concrete mixers on Division Street headed south across Liberty to the east edge of the Library Lot construction site. They dumped their loads into a pump, and through the course of the day, workers poured around 6,300 cubic yards of concrete. Coincidentally, in his subsequent conversation with The Chronicle, Irwin introduced images involving concrete and construction – he was drawing an analogy between teacher contracts and construction contracts.

We’ve chronicled this conversation in a Q&A format, divided into seven sections: (1) a budget bright spot in Medicaid; (2) education as an area of concern; (3) a lack of sufficient, specific goals associated with the budget; (4) labor relations in general; (5) labor relations in Washtenaw County; (6) Irwin’s relationship with former fellow county commissioner Mark Ouimet, a Republican who’s also now a state rep; and (7) a partisan imbalance in committee appointments.

Budget Bright Spot: Medicaid

AAC: In terms of sound, Espresso Royale is really poor for eavesdropping. I was just trying to hang out on the periphery [of your conversation with constituents], and I was basically just able to identify general topics.

But I did hear you say there is one bright spot in the governor’s budget. Which is?

Irwin: Oh, you didn’t hear what I said about that? Basically it’s related to Medicaid. There was a question that came up about Medicaid funding and what the direction was on that. And everything that I have seen in the governor’s budget so far is that he is not looking at hitting Medicaid – which is really good for a number of reasons.

It’s good obviously for the health care community. It’s good for the folks who are receiving the benefit, and it’s also good because every dollar we spend on Medicaid … usually Washington D.C. is sending you two or three dollars to match that. Conversely, every dollar that we cut out of Medicaid, means instead of losing one worker, we are losing three workers. …

Budget: Why Reduce Education Allocations?

Irwin: [The proposed budget] actually has more than a 15% cut [in higher education].

AAC: I thought it was 15%.

Irwin: I have heard an even bigger number recently, but the number I understand is actually 22%. The way they get to the 15% is that it’s a 15% flat cut to everybody, period. Then there is another 7% cut to add up to the total of a 22% cut. The other 7% cut is being put into a best practices thing – sort of like with the local government business. So if you do certain things at the university, you get access to that 7%.

AAC: And when you say the “local government business,” you are talking about taking the statutory state shared revenue, eliminating it, and replacing it with …

Irwin: … a competitive something that no one knows what the details are, yet. Right. And they’re doing the same thing in the university setting with that other 7%. So there is really a 22% cut. Now, the other day I heard a 26% number, but I don’t know where that comes from yet. But truth be told, I’m still trying to make sure that I understand these numbers and what they really mean, because …

AAC: … so it’s too soon to be trying to figure out, “All right, let’s not cut higher education and instead do something else”?

Irwin: Not necessarily. At the big level of talking about the concepts and not getting into the level of detail about this precise dollar, there has been some thinking put into that. … If you are going to bring in $1.5 billion in revenue – $1 billion in new taxes on pensions and another $330 million in new taxes on the working poor – then there is plenty of money to not cut education.

The reason why the governor’s budget has to cut so deeply in education, even with all that new tax increase, is because he also wants to give a huge tax increase to the corporate community.

So what I would say …  my initial counterproposal is: How will that we fix the Michigan Business Tax in a revenue-neutral way? How do we make it a simpler tax – that’s a good idea. But let’s do it in a way that is revenue neutral. That way we don’t have to pay for it with a $1.5 billion tax cut for the corporate community, and we can use that money to invest in what is really going to drive economic development and jobs in Michigan, which is education. … [Gov. Snyder] campaigned on the idea that we want to create a climate for economic growth, we want Michigan to be a more prosperous place …

AAC: … Michigan is  open for business …

Irwin: … right. We want to create this fertile environment for people to be prosperous, right? And then his first major proposal is to cut the heart out of what is the single most important element of prosperity and economic growth, which is a good education system!

Nobody wants to move to a place, and nobody wants to bring their company to a place, where they are not going to be able to attract talented workers, and where they are not going to have their kids be able to go to good schools and that sort of thing, right?

Now, that’s not true of every industry. There are some industries where a lower tax rate is the only thing. And there are some industries for whom recruiting top talent is the most important thing. Interestingly, I would say that we as a state, our strategy should be to go after as many of those business development and economic opportunities at the end of the scale where top talent is their priority. Because those are the best jobs, and the longest-lasting jobs, and jobs that really relate to the knowledge-based economy and all that kind of stuff, right?

Whereas some of these folks, who care only about what your tax rate is, those are the lowest paying jobs, with the least economic spinoff, without the health benefits – it’s like mining or something where they just want to be able to suck that rock out of the ground at the lowest possible rate, pay the lowest possible royalties, and the lowest possible taxes, and then head back to wherever Rio Tinto’s [a mining company] headquarters is.

AAC: At the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority’s economic development committee meeting last week on Wednesday, Jennifer Owens from Ann Arbor SPARK gave a presentation to the committee, giving them an overview of what SPARK does. And one of the things they do is they make recruiting visits to convince companies to expand their operations to Ann Arbor.

[Note: In 2010 four such trips were made, which resulted in four companies deciding to expand operations to the Ann Arbor area, which translates into 170 jobs, according to Owens. In addition to the four expansions due to recruitment trips, SPARK also counts an additional 10 expansions to the Ann Arbor area as a part of its recruitment program. ]

And someone asked her, “What is the thing that is the tipping point? What cinches the deal for Ann Arbor, when we manage to cinch a deal?” Her answer was: availability of talent.

But Ann Arbor is way different than the rest of Michigan. … I’m just trying to suggest that perhaps what is self-evidently a good public [education] policy for the Ann Arbor region may not be the best public policy for the entire state.

Irwin: I totally disagree, and here’s why. Because it’s not just about higher ed and universities, it’s also about K-12. People want to live somewhere where they know their kids are going to go to good schools. The decline of Detroit is all wrapped up in racial acrimony and other issues, industrial disinvestment and all that stuff – there’s a lot of things going on in the decline of the city of Detroit. But one of the big things is as you try to attract young professionals back into the city, it’s really hard, because if they want to ever have kids, they don’t want to send their kids to a school district that has the worst statistics in terms of achievement.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the gentleman named Myron Orfield, who was a Minneapolis state senator …  he did some groundbreaking research about 20 years ago. He wrote this book called “Metro Politics” about the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, and he tried to make the argument – very successfully, I think –that schools drive economic development. I think that’s true for K-12, and K-12 is all over the state.

And the other thing is, we’re talking about macroeconomics right now, right? And the goal of the state on one level should be to try to create this macroeconomic climate for growth in Michigan and help everybody be more prosperous, maximize our gross state product – I mean, that is a macroeconomic statement.

But there’s also the microeconomic side of it, right? The state is supposed to be working for the people of the state of Michigan, all of the people of the state of Michigan, and if we provide the people of the state of Michigan individually with education that gives them the training and the skills and knowledge to be successful individually in their lives – both in the job environment and in the home environment, and in every other environment in which they may seek to operate – that’s a benefit to those people individually. … So that’s my argument.

Better Budget Metrics

Irwin: What I think [Snyder] should have done as governor would be to say: “I’ve analyzed the situation in the state of Michigan, and here are our goals, here’s what we’re trying to accomplish, here’s what we think success looks like for the state of Michigan. So as we measure all these metrics that I like to talk about, here’s what’s that is all supposed to add up to.”

He didn’t do that. And I think that if he had done that, he would have been forced to reckon with the value of education in driving prosperity and the value of things like arts and culture.

ACC: When you say “goals,” what are some examples of the kind of goals you mean?

Irwin: … We want to graduate X-percent of our people from high school, we’d like to graduate this percent from college and we would like them when they graduate from high school to have this level of proficiency in these basic areas.

AAC: Hasn’t he done that with this budget proposal? Every section has metrics and scores, right?

[Irwin pulls out the budget proposal document. Leafing through it, AAC and Irwin identify the kind of pages mentioned by AAC. Irwin clarifies that 1,2,3 in the lefthand column are not scores, but rather keys to the types of measures: 1 = effectiveness measure; 2 = efficiency measure; 3 = quality measure. The trend arrows indicate a measure that is stable (horizontal, double-ended arrow), going the opposite of the desired direction (downward arrow), or improving (upward arrow).]

Example of metrics included in Gov. Snyder's 2012-13 budget proposal overview. (Image links to .pdf page of Dept. of Corrections metric detail.)

So for each of these items … for the things that are headed in the right direction, I think that implicit in this proposal is that we want to keep those things headed in the same direction. For anything that has performance stable, the goal is to make it better, and for those areas where performance is going down, the goal is to reverse that trend, like this – average cost per prisoner per year, $34,600 …

… so didn’t he already do what you are saying he should have done?

Irwin: What’s missing here is the number of people who are incarcerated. What’s missing here is the number of violent crimes going down. I feel that [Gov. Snyder] picked just a few things for these gigantic issue areas. There could be 200 metrics on this page, easily.

Of course he’s got to pick less than that, because that’s just insane, so he cherry-picked ones that he thinks are going to be easy to demonstrate progress with, rather than picking the important ones. Are these really the most important metrics for prison operations? I don’t think so. Cost is going to be one of the top ones … that’s one of the core ones. But … we’re talking about .07 escapes per 1,000 prisoners? This is not one of the top-line metrics for state government, in my opinion.

[reading aloud] “Prisoners past their earliest release dates who are on waiting lists for assaultive or sex offender therapy programs.” I guess that’s a fine metric, but is that the only quality measure that we’re going to look at?

Maybe they picked this one, because it’s a negative trend and they think they can turn it around by focusing on sex offender therapy programs, which is a tiny part of the budget. We should be talking about reducing recidivism. Reducing recidivism – I mean, that is the game in corrections. The reason why our corrections costs are insane, blowing the budget, is because we have two big problems – it’s not that there’s more crime, it’s not that there’s more violent crime, it’s not that there’s more people entering the criminal justice system. It’s that people stay in the system longer – average length of stay is way up – and the recidivism rate is way up.

So we have the same people revolving through and through for longer and longer. That is the core problem, and it’s not even recognized on his metrics – that’s what I’m talking about. And I think the same thing is true in a number of other areas.

… The metrics that, to me, are the most important in terms of effectiveness in education should be about student achievement, student graduation, class sizes, quality of teachers – if there’s a good way to measure that. Those are the kinds of things we need to measure.

And when you look at his proposal, I don’t see any result – given the money that’s being appropriated to K-12 – other than larger class sizes, and less attention being given to individual students. It’s been proven in study after study that the most important input to student achievement that the government has influence over is the quality of the teachers.

And the Republicans are in open warfare on teachers, across the board.

So this budget proposal is just one manifestation of that. I think that’s backwards. I think the state should be trying to work with teachers, lock arms with them and say, “How can we work together on making our kids be more educated and more successful people as they grow up?”

From Teachers to Labor in General …

AAC: When you say “open warfare on teachers,” what do you mean specifically?

Irwin: There are a number of things. One is gigantic cuts to education, which is going to mean more teachers will lose their jobs.

Two, the emergency financial manager bill, which has the effect of allowing the state to take over a school district, cancel all the union contracts, carte blanche.

Item number three is they’re trying to obviate the collective bargaining agreements, by legislatively requiring public employees in certain areas, including schools, to make certain contributions to their health care or their pension.

For instance, here’s a scenario for you. You and I are teachers. We have negotiated with the Ann Arbor Public Schools district for a certain rate, total compensation that includes benefits, wages, and all the fringes, work conditions, etc. And say it’s on a five-year contract. And then one year into the contract, the state legislature comes along and says, “Sorry, Dave and Jeff, we’ve determined outside of the collective bargaining agreement – that you just hammered out with your local school district – that you’re going to make an additional 20% contribution to your health care costs, because we think your health care costs are too high.”

That’s not a conversation that should be taking place in that way. It’s pulling the rug out from underneath collective bargaining agreements.

The analog to that would be to say if the state had a construction contract with Clark Construction to build a new building and they were submitting receipts to us, right? They build this building for us, and they finish, and they’ve got $1 million in outstanding receipts. And we say, “We don’t really think that concrete was worth $1 million. We think that concrete was worth $800,000, so that’s what we’re paying you, because we just passed a law after you built the building.”

AAC: That would save us a lot of money. [laugh]

Irwin: Wouldn’t it! But no one would ever think of doing that. Because breaking a contract in a private industry kind of relationship, that’s unthinkable.

AAC: … but as I understand the proposal, it’s to go into a collective bargaining contract and say, Okay from this point forward now, you’ll be paying more.

Irwin: Okay, the rest of your contract is void, we’ve replaced it, so a better analogy is …

AAC: … you go in and you say to Clark Construction, “Oh, the concrete you’ve already poured for $100 per yard, you will get paid for that. But for future yards of concrete that you pour, you get $80 a yard.” And Clark could say, “You know what? Screw that. I don’t want to be in this business anymore, or I’ll go pour my concrete someplace else in some other state.”

Irwin: We’ve already promised to pay them the same rate for the rest of the concrete, and we change the deal in the middle of the work?

AAC: Right. So that’s a better analogy than the one you sketched out. It’s one I think I can imagine people at least maybe arguing about, whereas the one you sketched out, you really just can’t argue about.

Irwin: Well, your analogy is better, so let’s use yours. We have a contract with Clark and it’s to pay them $100 per yard of concrete … I still think that there’s a strong analogy there. If we have a contract for $1 million to pour concrete, and they pour half the concrete, and then for the second half we say, “We’re only going to pay you $400,000 for that. You can stop in the middle if you want??”

AAC: Well, that’s not the way contract law works, as I understand it.

Irwin: No, of course not. But that’s what the Republicans are doing.

… and to Labor Relations in Washtenaw County

AAC: Okay, maybe that’s a knuckleheaded way of approaching it. But in the final analysis, the unions do need to make concessions, not just for the health of their unions, but for the health of the communities where they work.

Irwin: And they agree. And they do. Time and time again. That happened at [Washtenaw County when I was a commissioner]. And part of the reason that happened was that we had a respectful management-labor relationship and we said, “Look, the money situation has changed, so we need you to come to the table and renegotiate.” And you know what the unions do? They come to the table and they renegotiate. But when you tell them …

AAC: … in the county, perhaps they do. But in the city of Ann Arbor, I don’t know if you’re familiar with what they’re doing.

What the city is calling it – and I think it’s a fair label to put on their strategy – is to “align the budget strategy with the labor strategy.” They’ve said, “Here’s what we need. We need our open contracts to settle with no wage increases and with an additional contribution to the benefit plan, the same benefit plan that our non-union workers are on – and the same plan that some of our other unions have actually adopted. So we’re not asking you firefighters and police to adopt anything that others haven’t already accepted at the city. … So on that scenario, we still have a 2.5% reduction target.” So every department, their first task is to identify 2.5% in reductions. For departments that have workers not on the new city plan – which has increased contributions from workers to their health care – those departments are given an extra task, possibly up to a 4.0% reduction target. So police and fire … their reduction target is effectively 4.0%.

So that’s where it sits. And if I had to guess, those contracts would not be settled and signed before the city completes its budget process this year, and it’ll be settled by Act 312 arbitration.

Irwin: Probably.

AAC: What’s the difference between the city and the county? Did [recently retired county administrator] Bob Guenzel have a magic wand? And if so, did he hand it off to Verna McDaniel [the current county administrator]?

Irwin: Time will tell on that second question. Did he have a magic wand? No, but I mean, you probably know that before he was county administrator, he was corporation counsel and the lead person on labor negotiations. And before that he was a private attorney who was hired to do labor negotiations for various entities. So Bob came into the role of administrator keenly aware of the benefits of a positive labor-management relationship. And he worked very hard at that for 15 years in maintaining it.

Now will Verna be able to have the relationship with the union leaders? I think there’s a high likelihood of that. That was one of the biggest pluses that she brought to the table – that she had been human resources director, before she was deputy administrator, and she had a lot of experience with the labor-management piece and the human resources piece of the organization. And Washtenaw County, I think, has always had – at least the whole time I was there – a strong ethic of we’re-all-in-this-together, management and labor all work together to serve the people, and transparency and mutual respect.

When you maintain that transparency and mutual respect, when it’s real and not just stated, it makes a difference. Then when you go to a union and you say, “Our revenues are way down, we’re in a tough spot. There’s only so many answers – here’s what we think are the answers. Do you have any other potential answers you’d like to add to the list of answers? Because we’re eventually going to have to pick one of these, and neither of us really love any of these. So let’s work together.” … And after several months of doing that, sometimes you actually get to an amicable solution.

How Do You Have a Conversation?

AAC: So back to the budget, you’ve got 109 other [representatives in the state House] that you’ve got to have a conversation with, if you can. One of those is somebody you served on the Washtenaw County board of commissioners with. How many years were you and Mark Ouimet on the same board?

Irwin: Six.

AAC: So six out of the 12 years you were on the board?

Irwin: I was there for 11, actually. I came in on an odd year, in ’99. And Mark came along, I believe, in 2004.

AAC: So you have six years of experience working with him.

Irwin: And he’s right next door to me, too.

AAC: When you say “next door,” you mean …?

Irwin: Our offices in the House office building. They start out one, two, three all the way up to 110. So…

AAC: … so it goes 52 [Ouimet's district number], 53 [Irwin's district number] …

Irwin: … so we are right next to each other, yeah.

AAC: So if you need to talk to a Republican, there is one right next door, who will actually answer the door when you knock.

Irwin: Yes, he’s willing to have a conversation with me, usually.

AAC: Usually? [laugh]

Irwin: Well, yeah, I mean, sometimes people are busy!

AAC: So Mark is obviously not like an inside man for you in the Republican Party, but  he is somebody who is a Republican. And if there are bridges to be built or foundations to be built on, he would be a logical choice, yes?

Irwin: Yes, of course. Mark is a friend and he is willing to talk with me about these issues and that is valuable. That relationship has value to me.

AAC: Have you seen any ways in which that relationship has benefited citizens of Michigan already?

Irwin: That relationship? I’m not entirely sure, because it’s hard to evaluate, particularly this early. But there have definitely been some issues that we have talked about, where I have expressed some concerns about maybe the process, where I’ve expressed concerns about the details of certain bills that have been going through.

Did that alter his thinking about them? I’m not entirely sure – it’s hard for me to know exactly. But it certainly may have. And I think that one of the things that Mark brings to the table regardless of how he votes on issues and everything is sort of a culture of civility and decency to the loyal opposition. I don’t know for a fact, but I think that internal to his caucus, he’s probably saying, “Well, you know, we want to vanquish our enemies, but we do not need to burn down their villages and take their women.”

AAC: So on the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, he was the loyal opposition. [When Ouimet and Irwin served, Ouimet was one of two Republicans on the 11-member board.]

Irwin: I think that is maybe part of it too, that he knows what it’s like to be in the minority. And he knows that sometimes when you’re in the minority, but you have valid points to make, and when the majority actually listens to you and maybe takes some of those valid points, then maybe it’s good for the world, it’s good for public policy. Mark told me that when I was chair of the [Washtenaw County] board, he felt welcomed into the conversation and I certainly worked hard to welcome him into the conversation. Because I think that’s what a good leader does.

Do we still have that relationship? Yeah. Is the shoe on the other foot now? Yeah. Could the goodwill and a good relationship that I have built up with him be somehow helpful on a public policy concern? I certainly hope so. Has it already? I’m not sure that it has. But we have talked about some things.

AAC: Have any of those things been about the budget?

Irwin: No, we haven’t talked about the budget. That budget bomb dropped a week ago now. You know, the numbers themselves didn’t come out until midweek this week … I have not talked to Mark about it at all. I may have talked to him about it in passing, you know, “Holy Cow, the governor is really taking it out on education isn’t he?!” Maybe like the kind of passing shot like that, but no real conversation about that yet.

Stacking the Appropriations Committee

AAC: What is the breakdown of Democrats and Republicans on the Appropriations Committee?

Irwin: This is one of the dirty little secrets hasn’t really been talked about statewide…

AAC: … you can talk about it right now.

Irwin: That’s what I’m going to do! When the Republican Speaker [James "Jase" Bolger] assumed the power to populate the committees structure in this latest session …

AAC: … but, to be clear, this is an ordinary power, right? He’s not grabbing power, when he came into this role – it’s the power that anybody as Speaker has …

Irwin: … precisely. This is the normal role of the Speaker, to choose how many Democrats and Republicans are on each committee. And what the Speaker did was he pushed the envelope – further than I have ever seen it, at least, and further than the last Democratic speaker – pushed it in terms of what the balance of Democrats versus Republicans is going to be on all these committees.

So even though there are 47 Democrats and 63 Republicans in the House of Representatives – meaning that the ratio is not even 1.5:1 – the ratio of Republicans to Democrats on the committees across the board is much greater than that – they are often 2:1. So he pushed the partisan makeup of the committees, both in appropriations and elsewhere, to be even more heavily Republican than the actual body itself is.

AAC: But he could appoint only Republicans if he wanted to.

Irwin: I think he could. But I think that would look so bad that they wouldn’t do that. There may be something in the House rules that says you have to have at least one member – I mean, I have read the rules but I don’t remember all the details.

AAC: What is the breakdown [of Democrats to Republicans] for appropriations?

Irwin: The breakdown for the appropriations committee – I don’t know the total breakdown, we would have to look that up. I don’t know off the top of my head. [Note: For the 27-member appropriations committee, the breakdown is 17 Republicans to 10 Democrats. By way of another example,  the agriculture committee consists of 10 Republicans and six Democrats. .pdf of all standing committee assignments]

But on some of the subcommittees, the ones that are smaller, there will be only one Democrat, and usually three Republicans on some of the subcommittees. Now on some of the bigger subcommittees – like school aid, for instance – I think there’s probably like five Republicans and two Democrats, or like six and three, maybe.

But for the most part, Speaker Bolger pushed the envelope on partisanship with respect to committee assignments, and did almost a 2:1 partisan majority for Republicans on the policy committees and the appropriations committee – when really it should’ve been close to 1.5:1. It’s a huge difference, really.

And the other thing that they are saying very publicly: “If you Democrats want to make amendments, you’ve got to do it in committee. We’re not interested in hearing amendments on the floor – that’s too late. Introduce or amend in committees, that’s the way this process is supposed to work – where we have even a greater part of the majority and we can squelch your amendments even more easily!”

AAC: So the budget is essentially chopped apart at the subcommittee level in appropriations, which in a lot of ways makes it bite-sized chunks…

Irwin: … if your mouth really big…. They are still huge. The school aid budget is $14 billion or something like that.

AAC: But it’s a way of dividing things so that people can focus on, say, one or two or three issues as opposed to 12.

Irwin: Precisely.