Ypsilanti Township would become a member of the AAATA, if the Ann Arbor city council approves a change to the AAATA’s articles of incorporation at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

The governance change would grant a request from Ypsilanti Township to be admitted as a member of the authority, joining the cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. The city of Ypsilanti requested membership in the AAATA just this summer, and that request was granted.

Some of the recent community conversation about the topic has included the idea that the governance changes were long overdue. That’s based on the fact that some transportation service to the two Ypsilanti jurisdictions – the city and the township – has been provided by the AAATA through year-to-year purchase of service agreements (POSAs) since at least the early 1980s.

As a result of action earlier this summer, the AAATA board has already expanded from seven to nine members, with one of the additional seats appointed by the city of Ypsilanti. The now-pending governance change, to add Ypsilanti Township as a member, would bring the total number of board seats to 10. [Amendment 3 of the AAATA articles of incorporation]

But the Ypsilanti jurisdictions asked for membership in the AAATA not just because they wanted a seat at the table. They also want to use that membership to help generate additional revenue in the AAATA geographic area – to pay for additional transportation services in all three jurisdictions. Those additional services are described in a five-year service improvement plan the AAATA has developed. The additional services – which include extended hours of operation, greater frequency, and some newly configured routes – were the topic of a series of 13 public meetings that were scheduled from Oct. 17 through Nov. 14.

For the city of Ann Arbor, the five-year plan would mean 33% more service, according to the AAATA. It’s the additional services, and the revenue needed to pay for them, that gave some Ann Arbor city councilmembers pause on Oct. 21, 2013, when the item first appeared on the agenda.

This article reviews some additional context, including the taxing powers of the AAATA, the issue of equity among jurisdictions, the AAATA’s performance as a transit authority, and a couple of vignettes from the series of public meetings held over the last month by the AAATA.

Ann Arbor City Council: Final Say

The Ypsilanti Township board voted on Sept. 9, 2013 to request membership in the AAATA. Two weeks later, at its Sept. 26, 2013 meeting, the AAATA board approved the amended articles of incorporation to add Ypsilanti Township as a member of the authority. And on Oct. 15, 2013 the Ypsilanti city council approved the change to the articles of incorporation.

That leaves action by the Ann Arbor city council as the final step in admitting Ypsilanti Township as a member.

One document that some Ann Arbor city councilmembers wanted to see on Oct. 21 was a memorandum of understanding between the AAATA and Ypsilanti Township that would ensure payment for transportation services. The fact that a draft document was not available at that time was one reason some councilmembers were inclined to delay approval. That document is now available. [.pdf of draft YT-AAATA MOU]

The Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Regional Chamber of Commerce has weighed in, urging the Ann Arbor city council to approve the amendment to the articles of incorporation. [.pdf of A2Y Chamber support letter]

Who Levies What Taxes?

Through their membership in the AAATA, the Ypsilanti jurisdictions would have the same ability as the city of Ann Arbor tax themselves – so they can pay for the additional transportation services in their geographic area. Specifically, AAATA membership would allow the Ypsilanti jurisdictions to join the city of Ann Arbor in taking advantage of the authority’s ability – under Act 55 of 1963 – to ask voters to approve a new transportation tax. Any request would need majority approval of voters across the entire geographic area of the member jurisdictions.

The power to request and then levy a voter-approved tax is one the AAATA has never used before. Readers might be familiar with two different existing transportation taxes – one paid by Ann Arbor property owners (2.053 mills) and another paid by city of Ypsilanti property owners (0.987 mills). Those existing taxes are not levied by the AAATA, but rather by the respective cities. The proceeds of those taxes are passed through to the AAATA. The city of Ypsilanti does not have the option of increasing the amount of its own transportation tax – because Ypsilanti is already at the state constitutional limit for taxes levied by a city, which is 20 mills. But an AAATA tax would not count against that constitutional limit.

The five-year service improvement plan that the AAATA has developed would need an estimated 0.7 additional mills levied across the geographic area of the authority. One mill is $1 per $1,000 of taxable value. So for a $200,000 house, with taxable value of $100,000, a 0.7 mill tax would translate into $70 a year. For an Ann Arbor taxpayer who owned that $200,000 house, that would translate into about $270 a year total in transportation taxes.

One option that’s been floated to pay for transportation improvements within the city of Ann Arbor – using just the existing Ann Arbor tax – would be to ask Ann Arbor voters to approve an override of the Headlee Amendment. Headlee has reduced the amount of the levy from its voter-approved level of 2.5 mills to the current 2.053 mills. So approval of a Headlee override would result in about 0.5 mill more revenue to fund transportation services within the city of Ann Arbor.

Translating millage rates into total dollars, Ann Arbor’s city transportation tax currently generates $9,565,000 annually, according to AAATA. A 0.7 mill additional tax would generate $3,230,007 in additional revenue in the city of Ann Arbor for a total Ann Arbor local contribution of more than $12.7 million. According to AAATA, Ypsilanti’s dedicated millage generates $274,000, which is less than its POSA agreement called for last year. The 0.7 mill tax would generate around $189,785 in additional revenue in the city of Ypsilanti, for a total contribution in the city of Ypsilanti of around $464,000. Ypsilanti Township currently pays $329,294 annually for transportation services under its POSA agreement. If a 0.7 mill tax were approved, that would generate around $707,969 in the township. Based on the amount of expanded services that the township would receive, the township contribution would be defined as just that $707,969.

Equity

The current, more localized expansion of the AAATA contrasts with a now demised effort in 2012 to incorporate all of Washtenaw County into a single countywide transportation authority. When the Ann Arbor city council withdrew Ann Arbor’s participation in that effort, at its Nov. 8, 2012 meeting, it gave encouraged the AAATA to “to continue to discuss regional transportation options among Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township, Ann Arbor Township, Pittsfield Township, and Scio Township, leading to a better understanding and process for improving local transit options…”

Over the course of the last year, the AAATA held a series of meetings with officials from those municipalities, a group that came to be called the “urban core” communities.

One outcome of those conversations was an interest in membership in the AAATA on the part of the two Ypsilanti jurisdictions. The city of Ann Arbor (pop. ~116,000), the city of Ypsilanti (pop. ~19,500) and Ypsilanti Township (~53,000) make up a bit more than half the population of Washtenaw County (pop. ~351,000).

The differences in financial contribution by each of the jurisdictions receiving transportation service from the AAATA was a topic that dates to the countywide effort. It’s also been a topic of the urban core conversations about equity: Is the amount of service provided commensurate with the financial contribution?

Various methodologies can be applied to the challenge of allocating costs. At a meeting held at the Saline city hall on April 25, 2013, AAATA staff illustrated how equity stacked up for some of those methodologies. According to AAATA staff, that equity analysis has not been re-run since then to reflect the latest refinements in the service plan, but the basic conclusions weren’t expected to be dramatically different. The chart below is by The Chronicle, using AAATA numbers from earlier this year. The analysis assumes a uniform millage across the five jurisdictions in the chart.

Interpreting the chart. The left axis is a percentage. Zero means that the ratio of benefit to revenue is 1:1. A positive bar means that a jurisdiction gets more benefit (services with greater cost) than the jurisdiction would contribute under a uniform millage. A negative bar means a jurisdiction gets less benefit (services costing less) than the contribution of that jurisdiction in a uniform millage.

The method used to calculate the cost of POSA agreements is by service hours.

Performance

One criticism of the AAATA that has been a part of recent community conversation is the contention that administrative overhead costs are too high – and that additional operational efficiency could and should be achieved before expanding service. At the Nov. 14 community engagement meeting, held in Ypsilanti at SPARK East on Michigan Ave., part of the presentation included a slide that in part confirmed the idea that AAATA’s operating expenses are per hour higher than average – 18% higher when compared to peer transportation authorities. But that same slide included analysis showing that the AAATA’s operating expenses per passenger were 17% lower.

AAATA operating expense per service hour.

AAATA trips per service hour.

Expense per passenger trip.

AAATA’s choice of the peer communities in this analysis was based on recommendations from the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) to use the Florida Transit Information System (FTIS) as an analysis tool for National Transit Database figures. Those peer communities are: Peoria, IL; Lexington, KY; Moline, IL; Lansing, MI; Syracuse, NY; Savannah, GA; Champaign-Urbana, IL; Roanoke, VA; Concord, CA; Erie, PA; Kalamazoo, MI; Harrisburg, PA; Fort Wayne, IN; Rockford, IL; Shreveport, LA; Hartford, CT; Fort Collins, CO; Scranton, PA; Gainesville, FL; and South Bend, IN.

Public Meetings

During the month-long delay by the Ann Arbor city council in voting on Ypsilanti Township’s membership, the AAATA has continued a series of 13 meetings – designed to introduce residents to a five-year service improvement plan – which would require additional funding.

At the Oct. 28, 2013 public meeting on service plan improvements, held at AAATA headquarters, Jack Eaton points at Route G, a proposed new route. He suggested that it continue from Stadium & Pauline on to Pioneer High School, before looping back to the north, which would complete a connection between two high schools – Skyline and Pioneer.

The series of meetings began on Oct. 17 before the council’s Oct. 21 decision to postpone. The last of those meetings took place in Ypsilanti on Nov. 14.

At the council’s Oct. 21 meeting, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) provided one of the eight votes for postponement, so he was keen to assure Ypsilanti Township officials – who were present at the meeting – that he was still supportive of their membership in the AAATA.

He indicated at the council’s Oct. 21 session that he would be attending some of the public meetings to show his support. Responding to an emailed query, Kunselman wrote to The Chronicle that he’d attended three of the meetings – on Oct. 29 at the Michigan League, on Nov. 6 at Tappan Middle School and on Nov. 12 at the Malletts Creek branch of the Ann Arbor District Library.

The first meeting (which is available through CTN’s video on demand) was held just before the AAATA’s regular board meeting on Oct. 17. Details of the service improvements, including maps and scheduling, are available on the AAATA’s website.

The conversation at the public meetings ranged from policy concerns to extremely practical issues.

Looking northwest: Corner of South Maple and Scio Church.

On the policy side, for example, the AAATA staff heard from a taxicab driver at the first public meeting complaining that the cheap price of the AAATA’s new AirRide service to the Detroit Metro airport diminished his ability to earn a livelihood driving a cab.

As an example of the practical side, a question was raised at the Oct. 18 meeting about the ability of a bus to easily make the right-hand turn from South Maple onto Scio Church, which would be required by the new Route E. The turn is less than 90 degrees.

That pre-election question came from former bus driver Jack Eaton, who was elected to represent Ward 4 on the city council on Nov. 5. [Eaton's bus driving career included 10-years with Kalamazoo Metro Transit from 1974 through 1984. Eaton now earns his livelihood as a labor attorney.]

Responding to Eaton, AAATA manager of service development Chris White allowed that when he’d presented the new route configurations to AAATA drivers, that was the one concern they’d raised. White felt that by using part of the neighboring lane, that turn could be navigated.

Eaton will be attending his first meeting as a sitting councilmember on Nov. 18, with the Ypsilanti Township membership on the agenda.

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The session included a presentation from Glenn Singleton, a facilitator for the Pacific Educational Group (PEG). PEG was hired by AAPS in 2003 to assist in the district’s efforts to close the achievement gap – a disparity in academic performance between minority students and other students.

Singleton, who led a majority of the discussion, criticized the board on a number of points, contending that a lack of continuity in leadership has impeded progress in closing the gap. He also said the board has not shown full support for closing the achievement gap, resulting in uncertainty for principals, administrators and other building leaders as to the board’s commitment to solving the problem.

Interim superintendent Robert Allen was on hand and provided background on the district’s involvement with PEG. Allen said that Singleton was touching base with the district and visiting AAPS schools. Singleton was doing walkthroughs to evaluate the district’s progress on closing the achievement gap using techniques suggested by PEG.

“At this point we can have a meaningful evaluation of where we are with the equity work and what we’ll need to do to achieve our goals,” Allen said. The study session focused on lack of board support, failures in leadership structure and the need for “courageous conversations.”

Lack of Board Support

Singleton opened his remarks by touching on the perceived lack of support the board has shown for closing the achievement gap. According to Singleton, the issue stemmed from trustees’ disagreements about how well the district’s plan is working, and uncertainty expressed by other school leaders when it comes to enforcing and supporting equity issues.

Trustee Simone Lightfoot joined Singleton in contending that the progress made is not satisfactory and that the board has not paid enough attention to fashioning an effective strategy. “Even with the improvements, the gap is still huge and it’s not sufficient enough to say we’re moving there, not enough for me,” Lightfoot said. “We are clear on the strategic plan, but we don’t have an achievement gap plan.”

Singleton added that the district still faces teachers who blame the students for the predicament they are in. He said that teachers incorrectly attribute the poor performance of minority students to factors such as lack of family support, mobility issues and poverty. According to Singleton, these problems apply to some poor performing minority students, but they are not the cause of the poor performance.

Singleton said these inconsistencies and inaccuracies continue to make inequity a problem for the district. He added that there was uncertainty amongst school leaders about the board’s stance, causing some of them to lack confidence about engaging in equity work. “The fact that the system is still questioning whether the board is fully on board with this makes this a dilemma,” he said.

After hearing arguments by Singleton and Lightfoot, some members of the board spoke in defense of their efforts. Board president Deb Mexicotte spoke on what she felt had been a genuine effort by the board to confront the achievement gap. “We made policy changes, we placed resources, we looked at our hiring practices,” she said. “The board has demonstrated through a number of avenues that we are committed. We never said we maybe won’t do this work or will stop this work.”

Trustee Glenn Nelson also argued that the board has made a significant effort pursuing equity, pointing to the district’s longstanding relationship with PEG as evidence.

“My first reaction is that we have not pretended we know everything. We reached out to PEG because we know we don’t have all the answers,” he said. “I think continuing to search for how to get at this is an indication we’re serious about this.”

Trustee Christine Stead spoke last, referencing initiatives such as the district’s partnership with the University of Michigan and the commitment to innovation at Mitchell Elementary and Scarlett Middle School.

Nevertheless, Singleton pointed to this split between board members as troubling when school principals, administrators and building leaders look for a unified stance to follow. “This disagreement would give permission to those who watch you to wonder whether there is a plan and a commitment,” he said.

In his comments, trustee Andy Thomas found common ground between the two positions, comparing the district’s efforts at equity to a disorganized anthill.

“There are lots of people doing a lot of things with the best of intentions, but it’s almost like an organism that isn’t quite coordinated,” he said. “Some parts don’t know what other parts are doing.”

Singleton called this approach “random acts of equity.” “Those acts will measure up, but they don’t measure up in a system,” he said.

Failures in Structure

Singleton dedicated a large portion of his presentation to detailing the leadership structure that PEG promotes to combat disparities in academic performance. This structure includes a top-down style that he felt may be at odds with the culture of some district schools.

Before delving into discussion, Singleton mapped out the system of leadership that PEG promotes to deal with equity issues.

The system involves a dedicated team at the school board level that hands down programmatic decisions for school principals to implement. Schools also have a responsibility to foster environments that promote equity by developing teams of school leaders that work to shape a school’s culture. These teams deal with topics such as instruction and professional development.

PEG intended for these teams to grow in numbers and spread throughout the district, but according to Singleton, inconsistent messages from the board on support and accountability have led to an incomplete realization of the district’s equity goals. He added that, while the system is working in a number of schools in the Ann Arbor district, it is failing in more of them.

Trustee Thomas spoke to the issue of autonomy, discussing the unique environments cultivated by each school and school principal in the district. “At a school and principal level, many of these schools operate semi-autonomously,” he said. “There are commonalities, but basically, the principals have a lot of discretion on what goes on in the school.”

Mexicotte agreed, saying that the district had an entrepreneurial culture.

Singleton viewed this culture as problematic, arguing that, despite the autonomy and unique cultures of each school, black and brown students always seem to end up on the bottom. He added that, while he understood the benefits of autonomy in a district, sometimes a school’s culture is being shaped by members of the community instead of a school’s principal, creating a convoluted system of leadership.

Nelson noted that many schools employ school improvement or student achievement teams. But Singleton said those only serve to create, “overload and fragmentation,” because “those teams see equity as something different.”

“Courageous Conversations”

The uncertainty about how the board is approaching the achievement gap issue troubled board president Mexicotte.

“During our superintendent interviews, we talked about how in five years we wanted to see the achievement gap closed and I find it hard to think that someone has the impression we’re not in full support of the work,” she said. “If that’s still the case, maybe we need to take out a billboard.”

Singleton responded by referring to “courageous conversations,” a concept he outlined in a book he wrote with Curtis Linton, “Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in School.” The book focuses on what teachers need to know to effectively educate minority students and close achievement gaps.

The book also provides outlines for having meaningful conversations in order to deal with potentially uncomfortable areas of discussion, and to create authentic changes.

Mexicotte said the turnover on the board has led to continuity issues and board members not being fully informed on courageous conversations, an issue that resonated with other board members.

Singleton agreed, making the frequent turnover at the district’s superintendent and trustee positions one of his biggest points.

“I looked back to the first training I did in 2003,” he said. “I was invited to the district by a superintendent who wasn’t here when I got here.” [Rossi Ray-Taylor was AAPS superintendent from 1999 to 2003, when she resigned under pressure from the board and George Fornero was promoted to that job from deputy superintendent. Fornero left the district in 2006 and was replaced by Todd Roberts, who resigned last year.]

Incoming superintendent Pat Green will be the fourth one to work with PEG, a fact Singleton felt spoke to irregularity in the efforts.

“Everyone was connected (with the previous work), but everyone connected differently,” he said.

Trustees Simone Lightfoot and Susan Baskett felt that their perspectives on some board issues had been dismissed because of their race. Baskett added that the issue of having safe conversations about race has been absent from the board for some time. “We haven’t had a safe conversation in eight years and I don’t think it’s going to happen,” she said.

Board members also talked about a 2010 field trip at Dicken Elementary School which had been limited to African American students and generated criticism of Dicken principal Michael Madison. They took it as evidence that there needed to be more open conversations about the topic of race.

The board resolved to schedule a meeting or study session that would focus on the issue and allow for “courageous conversations” within the month to ensure that plans would be ready for the start of the 2011-12 school year.

Possible Solutions

After agreeing to make time for a meeting focused on conversations about race and equity, trustees laid out a number of other initiatives to pursue.

The biggest issue trustees tackled was the formation of a transformation plan, which would outline how the board would create a system of leadership that was unified, and had clear expectations and processes for holding schools accountable to those expectations.

Board president Mexicotte asked the board’s planning and performance committees to look into the issue, adding that she would like to be present for their discussions as a non-voting committee member to provide input and for her own understanding. She added that the board should either read or re-read Singleton’s book on courageous conversations, to be prepared for when the board focuses on the issue.

Mexicotte concluded by saying that while the board is usually not in charge of some of the measures that will need to be put forth, she still wants to look for ways to create policy that will support equity efforts.

Trustee Nelson added that board members should be aware that some of the measures they use to judge the achievement gap are imperfect – because they do not separate students who have been with the district for a number of years from those who had joined within the past couple months.

Trustees Lightfoot and Baskett also had their own goals relating to the board’s progress on closing the achievement gap.

Baskett wanted a report on which schools were making progress with PEG’s plan and which were not, saying that she asked for the same thing nearly a year ago but has yet to see anything.

Lightfoot requested documents that showed accountability by outlining where the district was in terms of an achievement gap, what the district’s goals were and how the district would be pursuing those goals.

Both Singleton and the board agreed that the transformation plan had to be aligned with the district’s strategic plan. The board also agreed that there would not be one “band-aid” for the district problems. Rather, solutions would have to be tailored to each school to address specific issues.

Interim superintendent Robert Allen was on hand to provide input. He spoke to the fact that AAPS had fallen behind on a plan PEG envisioned happening over a five-year period.

“We should talk about filling in the holes without taking four years to catch up to where the district should be,” he said.

Next regular meeting: Wednesday, April 20, 2011, at 7 p.m. in the fourth-floor conference room of the downtown Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

About the writer: Eric Anderson is an intern for The Ann Arbor Chronicle. Jennifer Coffman, who usually covers AAPS board meetings for The Chronicle, is taking a maternity break.