The council has already convened two retreats on the budget – this report is a summary of those retreats.

From the May 19, 1936 edition of the Ann Arbor Daily News. The scan was passed along to The Chronicle by the city's environmental coordinator, Matt Naud. Naud's source was Craig Hupy, head of the city's systems planning unit, who discovered some old papers in an antique store.

Late last year, on Dec. 4, 2010, the Ann Arbor city council held the first of two budget retreats for the next year’s budget adoption process. The current 2011 fiscal year ends on June 30, 2011, and the council will need to finalize its FY 2012 budget in May. The council typically begins contemplating the next fiscal year’s budget at a retreat near the end of the calendar year.

Two days after the first retreat, at the Dec. 6 regular city council meeting, city administrator Roger Fraser and councilmembers recapped the event, with Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) describing it as the best retreat discussion on the budget since he’s been on the council. First elected to the council in 2005, Rapundalo has five previous budget seasons to compare against.

The December retreat agenda reflected two main items: (1) general economic conditions; and (2) a sustainable service delivery model. The grim condition of the state’s economy was a point that was also driven home by Kirk Profit – director of Governmental Consultant Services, the city’s lobbyist in Lansing – in a presentation to the council at their Dec. 6 regular meeting.

The second retreat, on Jan. 8, followed up with a focus on services. To prepare for the retreat, councilmembers had ranked various city services by priority.

At both retreats, councilmembers and staff took the opportunity to communicate a message to city labor unions, some of whom Rapundalo characterized as not yet having seen fit to “recognize economic reality.”

And as chair of the council’s labor committee, Rapundalo has said he’ll give updates at the council’s regular meetings on the status of labor negotiations. He started the updates at the council’s Jan. 20 meeting. The implicit message communicated by the first update: Ann Arbor’s labor unions aren’t making the kind of concessions they should reasonably make, given economic conditions.

This report features highlights of the discussion from both retreats – including issues like the city’s approach to fire and police protection, solid waste and composting, as well as possible replacement of the general fund operating millage with a city income tax.

At both retreats, city administrator Roger Fraser and key city staff did their best to frame the council’s conversation not as a question of what services to cut. Instead, they tried to get councilmembers to consider which services might be delivered in a different way. The sustainability of the service delivery model depends on how the city delivers those services to residents – ranging from employment of full-time city workers, outsourcing the work, or by not offering the service at all.

To frame the context of these comparatively brief retreat highlights, we first offer a look back to 1936, when the city delivered a sidewalk snowplowing service to its residents. How? Partly by hiring in teams of horses to do the job.

How Services Are Delivered

The list of services provided to councilmembers for their Dec. 4, 2010 retreat included a blank column headed with “eliminate/modify.” In the course of the morning and early afternoon at the retreat, it became apparent that councilmembers considered all the items on the list as part of the core set of services the city should deliver. That is, there was no consensus that any of the items should be eliminated outright. Councilmembers seemed open, however, to contemplating modifications to the way that some of the city services are delivered.

How: Clearing Snow

In 1936, Ann Arbor city engineer George H. Sandenburgh delivered a report to the common council of Ann Arbor suggesting that the city would in the future need to purchase tractors in order to continue to deliver the sidewalk snowplowing service it provided at that time. [This historical tidbit comes from the May 19, 1936 edition of the Ann Arbor Daily News. A scan from that newspaper, which is the lead art of this article, was passed along to The Chronicle by the city's environmental coordinator, Matt Naud. Naud's source was Craig Hupy, head of the city's systems planning unit, who discovered some old papers in an antique store.]

Six years earlier, a Feb. 3, 1930 report to the common council had included the following in the city’s inventory of equipment:

Snow Removal Equipment

10 Steel Snow Plows for Sidewalks 250.00
2 Standard Snow Plows              40.00
2 Wooden Plows                      5.00
2 High Speed Snow Plows           500.00
5 Doz. Snow Shovels                60.00
1 Doz. Snow Pushers                 8.00  

City Team Equipment and Supplies

1 Team Horses                   $ 300.00
1 Set Double Harness               70.00
2 Halters                           1.00
2 Stable Blankets                   1.00
2 Woolen Blankets                  10.00
3 Tons of Hay                      45.00
80 Bu. Oats                        50.00
1 Troy Dump Wagon                  75.00
1 Wagon with Wood Box              30.00
1 Pair of Bob Sleighs              10.00

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That inventory comes from part of the Ann Arbor District Library’s online set of 40 year’s worth of Ann Arbor city council minutes, from 1891-1930. [Chronicle coverage of the library's presentation of the online archive to the city: "Mayor Walker: 'Print it in the NEWSPAPER!'"] Based on the city’s inventory of a single team of horses, and 10 sidewalk snowplows, it appears that the strategy used for clearing snow from sidewalks involved hiring additional horse teams to do some plowing.

The modification to the sidewalk snow-clearing service that was suggested by city engineer Sandenburgh in 1936 indicated a future where city-owned equipment would be used to do the job. Sometime between 1936 and 2010, a decision was made that sidewalk snow-clearing would not be a service delivered by the city directly – except in the form of ordinance enforcement. Currently, property owners are required by ordinance to clear the snow from sidewalks fronting their property. Chapter 49 of the city code, which deals with sidewalks, dates in relevant part from 1986:

Within 24 hours after the end of each accumulation of snow greater than 1 inch, the owner or occupant of every residentially zoned property shall remove the accumulation from the adjacent public sidewalk and walks and ramps leading to a crosswalk. The accumulation may be from any source including precipitation and drifting. Immediately after the accumulation of ice on such sidewalk, it shall be treated with sand, salt or other substance to prevent it from being slippery and the ice shall be removed within 24 hours after accumulation.

The city service of sidewalk snow-clearing can be used to illustrate a range of different ways city services can be provided, including not providing the service at all:

• No service with respect to clearing snow from sidewalks.
• No clearing of snow by the city except through ordinance enforcement.
• Clearing of snow by the city through employment of temporary workers who use their own equipment (e.g. horses and plows).
• Clearing of snow by the city through employment of temporary workers who use a mix of their own and city-owned equipment (e.g., their own horses, but city plows).
• Clearing of snow by the city through employment of temporary workers who use only city-owned equipment (e.g., tractors).
• Clearing of snow by the city through employment of full-time city workers, who use only city-owned equipment.

If service delivery uses full-time city workers, it’s a fair question to ask: Where do city workers live? At the Dec. 4 budget retreat, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) indicated a preference to have city workers live in the city of Ann Arbor – they can be ambassadors for the city in their own community, and they will take greater pride in their work. It’s not possible, however, to enforce residency requirements.

Kunselman pointed to efforts by Detroit’s mayor Dave Bing to provide incentives for city workers to live in the city. City administrator Roger Fraser told Kunselman that he was open to a conversation about that. [It did not seem to be Kunselman's intent to draw out the fact that Fraser himself doesn't live in the city.] But of all the things Fraser wanted to focus on, there were many items on the list ahead of that. It’d be a low priority in terms of his optimism about the positive impact; it’d take time, even if the strategy were effective. Fraser concluded that the potential payoff is fairly remote.

How: Funding a Service

Photo taken Dec. 13, 2010 looking east along the north side of Liberty Street between Ashley and Main. The Main Street BIZ district begins at the alley just beyond the green and blue downtown way-finding sign in the right of the frame.

How a service is paid for – with general fund property taxes, gas taxes collected by the state, a special dedicated millage, a special assessment district, a combination of property and personal income taxes – also counts as the way a service is provided.

With respect to clearing snow from sidewalks, the newly created Main Street BIZ illustrates how property owners can choose to impose an extra property tax assessment on themselves to fund the clearing of sidewalk snow.

After the snow and ice accumulation that occurred in the city on Dec. 11-12, 2010, there was a visible difference in sidewalk snow clearing effectiveness inside the Main Street BIZ boundary compared to outside the boundary.

Sidewalks are one thing, but even on Ann Arbor streets, snow-clearing services are not delivered to all residents in exactly the same way. At the city council’s Dec. 21, 2009 meeting, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) reported that the city had struck a deal to subcontract out snow removal with the Pittsfield Village Condominium Association. In that area, Taylor said, the city had a hard time doing snow removal well – due to the winding streets and the lack of lawn extensions. The association contracts with a snow-removal provider that uses smaller vehicles to navigate the tighter quarters, and street snow removal is coordinated with sidewalk snow-clearing done by the association.

The Main Street BIZ pursued a fairly lengthy process in winning its eventual approval. At their April 1, 2009 meeting, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board authorized $83,270 to help fund the administrative and legal costs associated with that process. After that meeting, former DDA board member and downtown property owner Ed Shaffran – who helped lead the effort to create the Main Street BIZ – told The Chronicle how he saw the BIZ fitting into the funding of government services:

Shaffran said that the intent of property owners on Main Street was to provide assurance – by undertaking to assess themselves a higher property tax – that the kind of services they wanted would actually be provided into the future. Shaffran went on to speculate that this could be a pre-cursor of “a la carte government” as revenues to municipalities dwindled. He suggested that the concept of a BIZ could be extended to residential neighborhoods as well. The strategy for providing services, he said, could evolve to be a system where a minimum baseline level would be provided by government, with BIZ-like affiliations electing to augment (or not) that baseline level.

Service When It’s Not a Snow Job

At the Jan. 8, 2011 retreat, councilmembers engaged in some back-and-forth about the quality of snow-removal service in the city of Ann Arbor. Mayor John Hieftje ventured that snow removal is twice as good as it was back in 1999. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) reiterated the view, which he’d expressed at the December 2009 budget retreat, that the quality of snow removal in the city is “abysmal.” At this year’s retreat, he contended that if you go to the city limits, it’s as if someone draws a line where snow removal begins and ends. [It's a point that has been noted by others.]

The city council recently approved an expenditure for a remote vehicle monitoring system that includes, among other features, the ability to track the progress of snowplowing in real time.

Snow removal, of course, is just one service of many that cities might provide.

Not Snow: Solid Waste

Collection of waste material that residents prefer not to store on their property is a basic city service – stuff that ranges from grass clippings, to leaves, empty milk jugs, old newspapers, bags of cat litter, or empty cans of shaving cream. For the city of Ann Arbor, these items correspond to one of three wheeled collection carts – a compost cart, a recycling cart, and a trash cart – which have been distributed to residents and are emptied once a week with a truck equipped with a robot arm controlled by the driver.

At the Jan. 8 retreat, public services area administrator Sue McCormick revealed an underlying assumption by staff in the solid waste program: Residents would not tolerate different days for pickup for different collection carts. Some councilmembers suggested that this might not necessarily be the case. It was left for future thought, along with the possibility that this could simply be a “legend,” along with other assumptions. Why would the flexibility to pick up different carts on different days make a difference? It’s because it might be possible to be efficient enough to collect one kind of cart with few enough routes that only a four-day schedule would be required for that kind of cart.

As for the challenge of keeping track of which days certain carts were to be set out, it was suggested that the city could deploy messaging systems that would push the information to residents.

More significant than the possibility of varying the pickup schedule is the idea of contracting out the trash collection service to a private hauler. At the Dec. 4, 2010 retreat, city administrator Roger Fraser observed that the city had spent a lot of time developing its solid waste plan. The solid waste plan suggests the idea that the city would work its way out of the business of collecting solid waste.

The city has already worked its way out of the business of part of the solid waste collection that it previously ran: At its Dec. 6, 2010 meeting, two days after the first budget retreat, the council approved a contract with WeCare Organics to operate the city’s compost facility. It was a controversial issue for many residents and had led to the postponement of the measure at the city council’s Nov. 15, 2010 meeting.

So the idea of contracting out the collection of trash at the curbside is now also in the works – based on the city’s solid waste plan. From the city of Ann Arbor 2002-2007 solid waste plan:

Three key issues were built into the survey to determine public opinion on possible program directions for reducing waste – rolling back taxes with a for-fee trash collection system, anti-litter campaigns, and food waste composting pilots. … Under a PAYT system, the financing for trash collection would be directly paid by the consumer, with a partial roll-back in taxes, while recycling, composting and other waste services would continue to be covered at no extra charge. …The majority of those interviewed (61% residential; 79% business) felt that the existing system of “tax-paid full service” was preferable to a PAYT mechanism.

Some councilmembers appeared taken slightly unaware by Fraser’s update. But Fraser reminded the council that they’d heard the idea at the previous year’s budget retreat. From The Chronicle’s report of the December 2009 budget retreat:

Reduce solid waste millage

On this proposal, the city would get out of the business of garbage collection, but stay in the business of recycling. The city would contract with a waste hauler, which would then be paid directly by residents under some kind of franchising arrangement that would allow them to “pay as they go.” That would allow a reduction in the solid waste millage, which could be passed along to residents. Or voters could be asked to continue to pay the same percentage, but direct to other areas the part not needed to fund garbage collection.

When considering whether residents would choose to continue paying the same amount even though their service had been reduced, and then pay again separately for waste hauling, Stephen Rapundalo asked, “Why would they do that?”

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) cautioned that this kind of “pay as you go” system could have the unintended consequence of encouraging the dumping of trash wherever people could find a place – something he said he’d seen as administrator of  Sumpter Township in the early 2000s.

Now, Fraser said at the Jan. 8, 2011 retreat, the city is taking a full look at that to see if there’s a benefit to exploring implementation in the next fiscal year. He told councilmembers that an alternative study on trash collection would be presented to them in March.

Not Snow: Public Safety – Police, Fire

The idea of outsourcing police services – by contracting with the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office – was briefly touched on at the Dec. 4, 2010 retreat. Barnett Jones, head of the city’s safety services, reiterated the same sentiments he’d expressed at the 2009 retreat. He brought the perspective of having previously worn a brown shirt, working for the Oakland County sheriff’s department, selling townships on the idea of contracting for police services. The difference, he said, is that Ann Arbor already has the best police force in the county. Further, he explained, the county would have to add considerably to its force in order to provide service to Ann Arbor.

In any case, councilmembers did not appear to have great interest in altering the basic way Ann Arbor provides police services – which is by hiring full-time city employees to do the job.

Fire protection was a different story. Councilmembers expressed keen interest in exploring alternatives to providing fire protection by some other means than staffing fire stations around the clock with full-time career firefighters. Jones explained that there are three basic approaches to providing fire protection: (1) volunteer firefighters, (2) paid on-call firefighters, and (3) full-time career firefighters. Jones described how departments are starting to spring up that are a blend of (2) and (3) – a combination of full-time employees, who are career firefighters, and others who are paid to be on call to perform fire suppression duties. He cited Troy as perhaps the largest city that used such a combination department for fire suppression. He suggested that Troy would not use that strategy if they didn’t think they were getting effective fire protection.

Councilmembers were keen to get an understanding about what the implications for emergency medical response would be – many fire department calls are in response to medical calls. Fire dispatch is now handled by Huron Valley Ambulance, with the goal of reducing unnecessary medical runs by the fire department. But this goal has not been entirely met. Fraser explained that there’s a need to clarify existing protocols and to clarify the exact definition of a Category 2 call. The category had been defined two decades ago by responders in the eastern part of the county, he said, and hasn’t been reconsidered in two decades. He characterized the wasted runs as translating to a multimillion-dollar impact on the system.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) expressed concern that when a combination paid/on-call department was introduced in the townships, it became a way for politicians to get elected – giving jobs to their neighbors, so that they could go hang out at the fire station with the big trucks. He urged caution about implementing a combination paid/on-call fire department.

Mayor John Hieftje pointed to a decrease in the number of fires since 1970, which he attributed to good building codes, suggesting that the need for fire suppression resources is not as great now as it was historically.

Unknowns

The budget planning process in any year includes a number of factors that cannot be completely known. These were also discussed at the two retreats.

Unknowns: Labor Contracts – Aligning Labor, Budget Strategies

Among the city’s assumptions in planning for the FY 2012 budget is that currently unresolved labor contracts will settle in a way that results in no increases to their wage structure, plus additional reductions equivalent to the cost savings the city would see if all employees were on the new health care plan. It is, of course, not possible to know if those contracts will settle in the way the city is assuming for budget planning purposes.

What’s the city’s plan for getting the contracts to settle? At the Dec. 4, 2010 retreat, city administrator Roger Fraser and the city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, described a strategy of aligning the budget and the labor strategy. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) called it the “number one issue.”

What’s meant by aligning the two strategies? It essentially means including health care costs in the equation that determines the budget reduction target for each department.

By way of background, the city has a new health plan it would like all workers to use – it includes monthly employee contributions, higher deductibles, and out-of-pocket maximums. Non-union staff have transferred to the new plan, as have a few of the city’s unions – though not those with the greatest number of employees: AFSCME, police officers, and fire fighters. The city’s net cost per employee for the new plan is $10,686, compared with $12,310 for the AFSCME workers’ plan, $13,121 for the police officers’ plan, and $12,871 for the fire fighters.

At the Dec. 4 retreat, Sandi Smith (Ward 1) expressed surprise at the cost of even the city’s plan. She said it’s twice what she pays with a self-funded plan. Fraser noted that to truly compare the plans, you’d have to compare details, and there are different assumptions about risks. He also noted that in the public sector, you can’t go in and say, “Here’s your new plan!” Implementation has to be incremental, he said. Crawford also observed that with police and fire fighters “who are out there every day, it’ll be different than …”  and Fraser completed his sentence by quipping, “… people who work in real estate.” It was a playful allusion to Smith’s line of work.

Fraser explained the budget and labor strategy alignment this way: Suppose every department has a base reduction target of at least 2.5%. For departments with employees who have not adopted the new city health care plan, the inclusion of health care in the equation could result, for example, in an extra 1.5% added to the target. That department’s total reduction target would become 4%.

Councilmembers and staff alike were frank during both retreats about what this implies: Unions need to accept the new city health plan, or accept the fact that there will be fewer of their members employed by the city.

Rapundalo expressed some frustration that the major unions have not yet adopted the city health plan. He characterized it as a lack of understanding and appreciation or an unwillingness to understand impacts on the entire organization. “The consequences are not going to be pleasant,” he warned.

Fraser was somewhat more accommodating of the union perspective, telling councilmembers that as elected officials they are representing citizens. But people who are selected to lead labor unions, said Fraser, while they work at the city to provide services, their task is to “optimize their circumstances as employees.”

Unknowns: DDA Parking

The city has a contract with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority under which the DDA manages the city’s public parking system. The contract currently runs through 2015. The 10-year contract stipulates that the DDA will pay the city $1 million in “rent” annually, with the provision that the city could request up to $2 million in a given, year as long as the amount for the entire 10-year period does not exceed $10 million. Through the first five years of the contract, the city requested the maximum $2 million payment – reaching that $10 million mark.

Last year, in the sixth year of the contract, the DDA decided to authorize an additional $2 million not required under the agreement – a vote that was controversial on the DDA board.  It was a move that allowed the city council to revise the city administrator’s proposed budget, which averted some planned layoffs of police officers and fire fighters. The city had not assumed the additional payment as part of its budget planning. As city administrator Roger Fraser explained at the Dec. 4 retreat, the $2 million was “not a part of our optimism,” because there were no ongoing conversations between the city and the DDA at the time.

This year, the city is assuming $2 million from the DDA for its budget planning. That’s because since June 2010, the city and the DDA have engaged in a regular extended conversation via their respective “mutually beneficial” committees about renegotiating the parking contract. The strategy the committees are currently exploring is switching from a fixed fee “rental” style agreement – based on the idea that the DDA is using city-owned assets to run the public parking system – to a percentage-of-gross style arrangement, which aligns the two parties’ interests. [Most recent Chronicle coverage: "Parking Money for City Budget Still Unclear"]

Based on the most recent percentage-of-gross figures the DDA has discussed, in the next year or two, the payment could amount to slightly less than $2 million. As parking revenues increase in later years of the contract, the return to the city is projected to reach and exceed $2 million, even on the lower percentage-of-gross figures the DDA is currently discussing. The city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, wrote in response to an emailed query from The Chronicle that if the amount received by the city is slightly less than $2 million in the first year, he would probably recommend making up the difference from the general fund reserve, based on the idea that the shortfall would not persist beyond the first year or two.

Unknowns: State Shared Revenue

The concept behind the state shared revenue system is that local municipalities in Michigan have a restricted ability to levy taxes, so the state reapportions to local municipalities some revenues out of the 6% sales tax that it collects. The reapportionment comes in two flavors: the constitutional portion (15% of the 4% gross collections of the state sales tax) and the statutory portion (up to 21.3% of the 4% gross collections of the state sales tax). The legislature controls the statutory portion, but not the constitutional portion.

Historically, the amount of statutory state shared revenue received by the city of Ann Arbor has fallen from $6.5 million in FY 2001 to just under $2 million in FY 2011.

The city’s budget planning right now assumes that state shared revenue will remain stable, despite some indications from the state legislature that the state might significantly reduce it. At the Dec. 4 retreat, Fraser indicated that the budget planning decision reflects less conservatism than the city has displayed in previous years of budget planning. Conservatism means that if anything, you understate revenues and overstate expenses, so that there is maximum flexibility to adjust mid-year.

This year, the city is minimizing the conservatism on both sides, to be as lean as it can possibly be, which means there’ll be less flexibility during the year, Fraser said. The risk associated with this strategy, said Fraser, is that a budget amendment might be needed in the middle of the year, if something unforeseen occurs.

Revenue: Operating Millage or City Income Tax

Local municipalities have four sources of possible revenue: (1) property taxes; (2) fees for services; (3) state shared revenue – apportioned from the state sales tax; and (4) city income tax.

The city of Ann Arbor does not levy just one kind of property tax. Ann Arbor tax bills include separate taxes to support: general operations, employee benefits, solid waste system, debt, street repair, city parks, open space acquisition and mass transit.

An example of fees for service is the drinking water utility – residents pay for the amount of water they use.

It’s not an option for a city to levy any kind of sales tax in addition to the state sales tax. For example, the city of Ann Arbor is not legally empowered to apply an entertainment tax that could be added to University of Michigan football tickets. Part of the rationale behind the state shared revenue system is for local municipalities to have their inability to levy extra taxes balanced out by revenue that is shared with them by the state.

A feature of the Ann Arbor city charter that distinguishes Ann Arbor from other Michigan cities is the relationship between the general operations property tax and a city income tax. Per the city charter, Ann Arbor can enact one, but not both kinds of tax:

City Tax Limit SECTION 8.7. (a) … In any calendar year in which the Uniform City Income Tax Ordinance is in effect on the day when the budget is adopted, the City may not levy any part of the three-fourths of one percent property tax previously mentioned …

But if the city of Ann Arbor were to enact a city income tax, it’s only the general operations property tax that would disappear – the other city property taxes would remain.

Cities can enact a city income tax under the state statute Uniform City Income Tax, which allows an income tax of up to 1% to be levied on residents of a city, and on non-residents up to 1/2 of the percentage levied on residents. For example, if a city enacted a .5% income tax on residents, then non-residents would pay no more than .25%.

Supporters of a city income tax for Ann Arbor typically defend against tax burden arguments by pointing to the fact that the city charter stipulates that a city income tax replaces, rather than supplements, the roughly 6 mill general operations property tax for residents. [For readers who wonder how much property tax they would save, the line item, on summer tax bills, is labeled CITY OPER].

Supporters also typically point out that 40% of the real estate in Ann Arbor is not subject to property tax – due to the large city park system and the presence of the University of Michigan, whose land is not subject to property tax. So funding operations from property taxes is more challenging than in cities where a greater percentage of the property is subject to a tax.

Supporters also typically point to the large number of workers who have jobs in the city of Ann Arbor – many of them at UM – who live outside the city. That translates into larger potential revenue from an income tax than in cities that have a smaller number of commuters.

Detractors of a city income tax typically point to the potential barrier such a tax might represent to businesses choosing to locate in Ann Arbor, or to the inequity of the income tax with respect to resident renters – who may not see the reduction in their landlord’s property tax passed along to them in lower rents. Some oppose the idea on philosophical grounds, arguing that applying the tax to non-resident workers amounts to taxation without representation. Income taxes as a source of revenue are also somewhat less stable than property taxes.

City Income Tax: Previous Discussions

Two years ago, at the Jan. 2009 budget retreat, then-councilmember Leigh Greden advocated for an exploration of replacing the general operating millage with an 1% city income tax. The budget retreat discussion resulted in the dissemination of a previous, 2004 city income tax study. The 2004 study had been preceded by a 1997 city income tax study.

In July 2009, the city released a more current study. But in August of that year, it became clear at a city council work session that there was no enthusiasm on the part of the council to place the issue on the ballot in the fall.

Yet at that year’s budget retreat on Dec. 5, 2009, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) again raised the issue of exploring a city income tax. And at a Feb. 16, 2010 meeting of the city council’s budget committee, which included [and still includes] Taylor, members gave city administrator Roger Fraser the green light to conduct a survey of voter attitudes on the city income tax.

City Income Tax: Current Discussions

Through the city council and mayoral election season in 2010, the idea of a city income tax received some discussion as an issue. During his campaign, Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) in particular expressed support for the idea. He’s now part of a working group on the council, which also includes Taylor and Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), that is taking a closer look at revenue questions. At the Dec. 4, 2010 retreat, city administrator Roger Fraser expressed the same sentiment he’d conveyed to members of the budget committee back in February 2010: That he thought he had an obligation to ask the citizens to consider the income tax question before cutting services.

Fraser stressed the need to engage the public on the question, saying that the first thing people will ask is, What have you done already to address expenses? He said that they’d need to be clear about what the city had accomplished – that includes reducing the work force from a peak of 1,005 ten years ago to fewer than 750 today.

At the Jan. 8, 2011 retreat, there was some back-and-forth about whether the work group looking at the income tax question – as well as the possibility of a Headlee override – should be called a “committee” or a “work group.” Implicit context for the distinction is that council committees are supposed to do their best to conduct their meetings openly in accordance with the Michigan Open Meetings Act – based on a two-decades-old city council resolution. Work groups are not considered to have the same obligation.

Discussion at the Jan. 8 retreat included the possibility that the revenue work group would also take a look at the street repair millage. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) expressed some interest in wrapping sidewalk replacement into the activities the millage revenue could cover. Currently, property owners are responsible for maintaining the sidewalks adjoining their property.

Collaboration: UM, AAPS, County, Townships

At the Dec. 4, 2010 retreat, the council discussed collaboration by the city with a range of other entities – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Public Schools, the county surrounding municipalities – as a way to maximize use of resources.

At some points, the conversation grew very specific. For example, public services area administrator Sue McCormick revealed the city would be presenting an invoice to UM in connection with traffic control and police staffing for the Big Chill hockey game, which was held on Dec. 11. Some councilmembers seemed to suggest that concessions from the university could be won by withholding city consent when the university wanted something from the city. The university’s desire to include Monroe Street as part of the UM Law School campus was cited as a specific example. Fraser, though, counseled that each situation should be evaluated unto itself. He pointed to the planned Fuller Road Station as an example of the importance of that principle.

McCormick indicated the possibility of future collaboration with UM on maintenance of longer buses. Background on this issue includes the inter-campus transportation challenge that UM faces, which could potentially be alleviated by purchasing longer, articulated coaches. UM currently has no maintenance facilities that can accommodate longer buses. But the city’s maintenance yard at the Wheeler Service Center could conceivably be used to work on such vehicles, because the maintenance bays are configured so they’re face-to-face. Nothing has come to fruition yet with UM on that possibility, McCormick reported.

Fraser stressed that any collaboration was a slow process, even when partners are willing. He pointed to the new integrated funding model for human services, which involved a collaboration between the city, Washtenaw County, the Urban County, Washtenaw United Way, and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. Fraser said that effort required just short of 24 months – and the only thing that was done was to change a process. No organization gave up any of their authority. It wasn’t that it was uncomfortable, he said, but each one of the groups had boards and they each had their own process for approval.

Regarding the city’s relationship with other municipalities, Fraser described how he and the mayor had begun in 2003 working to change the nature of the relationship of the city of Ann Arbor and its neighbors. He said if he were to describe the nature of the relationship that he saw when he arrived in 2002 between the townships and the city of Ann Arbor, he felt Ann Arbor would have been described as “self-absorbed and selfish and not willing to play fair with others.” There was a lot of healing that needed to be done before the city could even begin to have a conversation about collaboration on service delivery, said Fraser.

But that had not been true with Washtenaw County, Fraser said:  ”[Bob] Guenzel and I hit it off right away.” [Guenzel was until last year Washtenaw County administrator – he retired in May 2010.] Fraser said that he and Guenzel had even talked about combining the city and the county together, but as a practical matter it’s not authorized under state law. But Fraser concluded that Guenzel’s and his vision were very similar in terms of looking for opportunities to seek collaboration.

Public Engagement

At both retreats, city councilmembers and city staff acknowledged the challenge of engaging the public effectively. Fraser noted that most citizens don’t pay attention to a fine level of detail. The city can put the information out there, he said, but the question becomes: “What information can be provided and what can we expect them to retain?”

At the Dec. 4, 2010 retreat, Mike Anglin (Ward 5) suggested that then was the time to engage the public on the question of re-thinking how fire protection would be provided. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) objected, saying that at that point they had nothing to propose. So councilmembers grappled with the question: When should public engagement start? Regarding the community task forces that were eventually formed two years ago to study Mack Pool and Ann Arbor Senior Center – resulting in plans to help keep the facilities open – Sue McCormick noted that those processes didn’t begin with engagement, but rather with a proposal to to eliminate those facilities. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) suggested that public engagement would most effectively begin with a proposal to do something different.

Fraser’s remarks made mid-retreat can serve as a summary of the message the city hopes to communicate to the public. The city can’t continue to pare down the number of people it employs and continue to provide the same services. “Our future has to be different. Your expectations have to be different. The community’s expectations have to be different about what it is that they can expect from us as an organization. … There’s nothing on the horizon to suggest that denial will work.”

Coda: Retreating to Luxury?

In recapping the first retreat at the Dec. 6 city council meeting, Fraser pointed out that the council’s budget retreat was not held in a luxurious location, but rather one of the crew work rooms at the city’s Wheeler Service Center on Stone School Road. [While not austere, the crew work rooms are in no way comparable to the Book Cadillac hotel, where Washtenaw Community College trustees held a retreat in March 2010.]

Russell Hanshue, with the city's IT services unit, describes how a sensor attached to a snowplow would record the plow's state as up or down. The city plans to purchase software to monitor remotely the on-board systems of its vehicles. (Photo by the writer.)

That business ranged from authorization of a coordinated human services funding approach to approval of new GIS software.

The coordinated funding approach to human services would extend the collaboration among the city of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County and the Urban County to include two nonprofit funders – United Way of Washtenaw County and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation.

The GIS software will allow remote monitoring of engine and system performance on board the city’s vehicle fleet. The vehicle monitoring software has the ancillary benefit of allowing residents to view a real-time map of snowplow activity during a snowfall. At Thursday’s meeting, the council also authorized the purchase of $330,000 worth of road salt that city trucks will, if necessary, spread on the roads this winter.

In other business, the council gave final approval to a new stormwater code, which requires some kind of mitigation any time more than 200 square feet of impervious surface is added in residential areas.

The council again took no action on a $160,000 request from the 15th District Court to purchase furniture. The request had been postponed at the council’s previous meeting, pending production of a list of items to be purchased. The list was not ready, and the issue was again postponed.

The council received a presentation on the installation of a new HAWK pedestrian crossing signal at Chapin and Huron, which was in substance identical to one the board of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority had received the day before.

A range of topics were addressed during comments from the public, perhaps most significantly remarks from Nicholas Nightwine, who spoke on behalf of the Local 369 AFSCME union on the issue of privatizing the city’s composting operation. The city council is due to hear a presentation at a Monday, Nov. 8 work session on the proposal, which they may vote on as early as Nov. 15.

Coordinated Human Services

Before the council at Thursday’s meeting was a resolution to extend a model of integrated funding it currently uses to allocate human services funding to nonprofits. The approach, which currently includes the city of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, will add three more organizations to the mix: United Way of Washtenaw County, the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation (AAACF) and the Urban County.

The Washtenaw County board of commissioners voted at its Nov. 3 meeting, the previous day, to approve the coordinated funding approach. The Urban County executive committee has discussed the issue and was expected to vote on the issue at its October meeting, but that meeting was canceled. The Urban County executive committee is now expected to vote on the issue at its Nov. 16 meeting.

Coordinated Human Services: Public Commentary

Jim Mogensen led off public commentary by observing that throughout the U.S., the public sector has over time been outsourcing the human services support network to the private sector. He likened human services funding to a coffee grinder: Money goes in the top and it gets ground through, and at the bottom is supposed to be the social safety net. He characterized the basic approach used by the city as “a pretty good process.”

Mogensen suggested that there should be bonus points for nonprofits that tried to serve the most challenging populations. He suggested that in his experience – working in the religious community trying to raise money for affordable housing – there’s a faulty assumption that there’s a vast amount of money that can be raised. He suggested that we think in terms of a “public balance sheet” – if we do not spend money on challenging populations now, we will eventually spend money on them anyway in the form of the prison system.

Hugh Morgan addressed the council on behalf of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation – he’s the chair of that organization’s board. He reported that the previous week, the AAACF board had unanimously approved the coordinated funding process – they’d worked on the proposal for the last year. He said that AAACF typically asked nonprofits it funded to collaborate, and now the AAACF was “taking their own medicine” by collaborating with other funders. One goal, he said, is to simplify and streamline the grant application process.

Lily Au appeared before the city council to speak against the coordinated funding proposal, as she has on several previous occasions. She criticized Washtenaw County commissioner Mark Ouimet’s participation in the county board of commissioners’ vote the previous day – Ouimet is vice chair of the local United Way board, and it’s a conflict of interest, she contends. [At the meeting of the county board, corporation counsel Curtis Hedger gave his opinion that Ouimet need not recuse himself from voting on the measure.] Au objected to the idea of tax dollars being administered by private entities. She contended that there had not been enough public participation on the issue. She cited the concerns about the coordinated funding approach that had been expressed by the Interfaith Council on Peace and Justice.

[Those include: 1) institutional gaps in coverage, 2) different costs for providing service to different constituencies – these should be recognized when evaluating outcomes, 3) money saved from this approach should be reinvested into human services programs, 4) new projects and small nonprofits should have access to coordinated funds, and money should be set aside for startup funding to help launch new projects that have potential for big results, 5) the proposed system would concentrate power over funding decisions in the office of community development – robust checks-and-balances are needed to provide accountability, and 6) community funding efforts should recognize the different roles of funders and agencies and maintain appropriate separation of duties. These issues are fleshed out in more detail on the ICBJ website.]

Au tried to address the council again during the time allotted for the public hearing on the stormwater ordinance, saying she wanted an assurance that there would not be co-mingling of funds.

During her communications time, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) clarified an apparent misunderstanding on Au’s part about the potential for co-mingling of funds between the various funding partners. No tax dollars would be co-mingled with private monies, she said. What is being proposed is a shared set of policies. Each entity in the coordinated approach, said Briere, would continue to allocate its own funds.

City administrator Roger Fraser chimed in to say that up to now each entity had been making decisions without attention to what others are doing. The goal, he said, is communication.

Coordinated Human Services: Council Deliberations

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) – who has helped lead the effort over the last few years to establish objective scoring criteria to underpin the city’s human services funding allocations – led off council deliberations. The key highlight was his characterization of the new coordinated funding effort as a way to fund actual programming, not redundant administrative overhead.

Mary Jo Callan, head of the city/county office of community development, described the coordinated effort as a further evolution of increased coherence in the approach to funding. She said it’s not an effort to figure out who not to fund. Rather, it’s a way to target the community’s investments to meet the needs of residents.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) noted that the nature of nonprofit organizations is that they have very specialized areas of focus, so he wanted to know how “maverick organizations” would enter the coordinated funding process.

Callan hesitated a moment, asking, “Did you use the term, ‘maverick organization’?” Once the usage was clarified, Callan explained how her office had worked with representatives from several organizations and one of the questions they considered was: What are the unintended consequences? She said they did not want to lose support for new, creative, innovative ideas. She said she felt that new organizations – Anglin’s mavericks – would have a better chance under the coordinated approach. That’s because one of the focuses of the coordinated approach is on “capacity building,” she said, which includes planning and training.

On the same subject of how a new nonprofit can get itself into the funding mix, Rapundalo mentioned that a brand new program had been funded last year by the city/county allocation program. Callan confirmed that they absolutely want to support innovation. At the same time, she said, there are 455 nonprofits in the county, which means 455 directors. For around 300 of those, there are paid staff, she said. As a former nonprofit director herself [at the Ozone House], Callan said there is a lot of effort that goes into just keeping the doors open.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) asked Callan to address some of the fear that there would turn out to be more administrative costs as a result of the coordinated funding approach. Callan noted that from the point of view of the nonprofits who are seeking funding, there would be less time required to research funding opportunities, apply for them, and to report on outcomes.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) wanted to know what nonprofits themselves had to say. Callan described two “listening sessions” that had been conducted to get feedback. She described the feedback as “mixed.” Most people are afraid, she said. They have a relationship with their funder they fear could be jeopardized. But a lot of folks are also in support of the coordinated approach, she reported.

Briere described how in the old model, a nonprofit might have pursued funding from the United Way, AAACF and the city of Ann Arbor. Under the new model, she said, the nonprofit might not need money for “capacity building” – the resources to write grant applications – at all.

Mayor John Hieftje indicated that a coordinated approach had been talked about for a long time. He noted that the city might get to a point where they need to do even more triage. Hieftje asked Callan if the coordinated approach would make that triage easier – yes, she replied.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the move to a coordinated funding approach for human services that would include the city, the county, the Urban County, United Way and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation.

Winter: Salt, Plow Trackers

The city council considered authorization of around $500,000 spread across two items connected to the approaching winter weather. A purchase of $330,000 worth of ice control salt from Detroit Salt Company was authorized, with little deliberation. A clarification elicited by Sabra Briere (Ward 1) from the head of systems planning, Craig Hupy, was that the salt barn is about 3/4 full with salt left from last year.

In addition, the council considered authorization of a lifetime project budget of $200,000 for a vehicle location tracking system, which will allow GPS tracking of city field services vehicles like street sweepers and snowplows. It will be possible for residents to log on to a webpage and watch the snowplow activity in real time so that they can better anticipate the arrival of plows in their area and assure themselves that snowplowing is happening. Residents will also be able to explore archived data and historical analysis of past snowstorms.

However, in an email to The Chronicle before the meeting, director of IT services Dan Rainey wrote that the mapping capability is not driving the software purchase. What’s important to the city, he said, is the ability of the software to actively manage and monitor the operation and systems on a vehicle, by directly tapping into a vehicle’s engine codes. The system is expected to be operational sometime this winter, but likely not before the first snowfall. The source of the  proposed $200,000 was IT charges collected outside the general fund from water, sewer, solid waste, and major streets funds.

Plow Trackers: Council Deliberations

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) noted that the $200,000 proposed for the software system was for the lifetime of the project. She asked what the expected lifetime of the project is. Russell Hanshue, with the city’s IT department, indicated that the mobile data terminals had a lifetime of 7-10 years, while the “proximity sensors” – the magnetic sensors attached to the vehicle to measure, for example, whether a plow is up or down – had an uncertain lifespan. Later it emerged that such sensors are relatively inexpensive – less than $100. But the environment for the sensors near the plows is a “really rough environment.”

Hanshue described the mobile data terminals as modified to work with the Cityworks maintenance management system (MMS). It gives drivers the capability of putting in work orders and recording data, he said. Briere ventured that the system would cost about $20,000 per year, based on the lifetime of the data terminals. Hanshue indicated that the cost of the system for the city’s 100-vehicle fleet is around $62,000 per year.

Hanshue explained that the cost is somewhat contingent on the update interval, but they had been conservative in budgeting for a 10-second update interval, when realistically a 1-minute interval is probably sufficient.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) seemed skeptical, asking: What does this give us? Craig Hupy, head of systems planning for the city, explained how residents would be able to see where the city is plowing snow with an aged trace of where the plows had already been.

Higgins wanted to know why garbage trucks needed the system, too. Hupy explained that if the city gets a call about a location with missed service, they can dispatch the nearest truck to do the collection. They could also monitor whether it is truly a missed service, or if the person simply set their trash cart out late. Drivers would be able to hit a button for “no can out” as they serviced a route. Drivers would also be able to log pothole locations as they were out on their routes, he said.

Higgins wanted to know why all the data entry the drivers would be doing did not count as “texting while driving.” Hupy explained that it would amount to a single-button operation.

Mayor John Hieftje wanted to know if the city staff had seen such systems work in other communities. Hupy indicated that they’d seen lesser systems work. He indicated that the city had collaborated with the vendor of the Magic Bus system used by the University of Michigan to track bus locations and looked at a solution that involved smart phones, but that it turned out not to be viable.

Hieftje wanted to know if it were possible to do a pilot program with just 10 vehicles. He noted that there’d been complaints for several years about the quality of the snowplowing done by the city, but that he felt it had been getting a bit better.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) described it as a “nifty idea,” but said she felt like it might be an extra bell or whistle that the city should perhaps not be spending money on at this point. She said the discussion to that point had not convinced her, and she challenged Hanshue and Hupy to change her mind. One example of a cost savings offered to Smith is that the city staffs a snow desk telephone line during snowstorms with a full-time employee. The new system would allow most of the questions to be answered through the city’s website.

Smith wanted another example – one not involving snowplows. Hupy returned to the example of being able to dispatch the closest vehicle for a missed trash pickup. He also discussed how the integration of the system with every vehicle’s engine data – including fuel consumption – would lead to cost savings. Hanshue clarified in response to a question from Smith that the city’s police cars are already equipped with a GIS tracking system.

Hanshue offered another example of potential cost savings: by monitoring road temperatures, the proper amount of salt could be dispensed. [Salt is effective only in a certain temperature range – it's less effective when temps drop below 20 F.] If a 10% cost savings could be realized due to more judicious spreading of salt, he said, that would reflect a $30,000 savings – based on the salt purchase the council had just authorized – paying for half the system in the first year, he said.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) also declared that he was not totally convinced – the city has made it this far without this kind of technology. He worried about disruption of GIS communications during snowstorms. He also wondered if closest-vehicle information could be determined simply by using a radio. Kunselman also questioned the funding source. From Dan Rainey, Kunselman wanted to know which of the funds the money had been collected from have projected deficits for the next year. Rainey told him that none of the funds – water, sewer, solid waste, and major streets funds – had projected deficits.

Higgins wanted to know if the system would be implemented this winter – yes, but not at the start. She wanted a resolved clause in the resolution that would require a report on the system’s success. Mike Anglin (Ward 5) allowed that there is a public relations benefit to the system, but he wondered about priorities, citing the possible closure of Mack pool and the senior center, which the council had considered in previous years – over smaller dollar amounts.

Hanshue then elaborated in somewhat more detail on the use of vehicle diagnostics by the proposed system. It’s not the same kind of system as a check-engine light, where you’re aware of an issue only when there’s a malfunction. The system to be purchased will allow integration with the fleet management system so that maintenance can be scheduled appropriately to maintain the city’s expensive assets.

Asked to price out what the budget would be to equip just the city’s snowplow trucks with the system, the arithmetic worked out to $88,000. Hieftje noted that it was still a “chunk of change.” Higgins proposed an amendment to reduce the project budget from $200,000 to $88,000.

Outcome: The amendment adjusting the dollar amount to $88,000 passed, with dissent from Tony Derezinski, Stephen Rapundalo and Stephen Kunselman.

Hieftje suggested that he was interested in having more time to dig deeper into the issue and asked that someone move for a postponement. Kunselman made the motion, and it was seconded by Smith.

Margie Teall (Ward 4) asked what the point of the postponement would be. Hieftje’s answer was that he wanted to make sure they were solid on the numbers. Smith said she wanted to see the specifics on the savings that could be realized, broken down in dollars. Anglin stressed that he wanted to see some kind of measurement of customer satisfaction.

Higgins put the question to Craig Hupy as to whether the city could implement the system yet this winter, if the council postponed the decision to the next meeting. Based on an earlier response from Hupy, she said, she didn’t think he was confident. Hupy himself alllowed, “You picked up on my hesitation, yes.” He said he was unsure what the vendor’s scheduling load was as far as the ability to do the installation and that he could look into it. He characterized the situation as not a “must have” for that night. He told the council, “I’d rather have you folks comfortable.” Higgins said that if postponing meant a delay in implementation that resulted in an inability to collect data on how the system worked this winter, then she would not support it at all. Briere echoed Higgins’ sentiment.

Kunselman asked how the public relations would be handled. He wanted to know if there is an iPhone application for the snowplow map. Hupy indicated that he was not sure if the city would be able to go live with the map this year – it would be later in the winter.

Outcome: The motion to postpone failed with only Carsten Hohnke, Sandi Smith, John Hieftje, and Stephen Kunselman voting for it.

Outcome: The approval of the amended resolution to authorize funds to equip just the city’s snowplow trucks with the new software was unanimously approved.

Stricter Stormwater Code Gets Final OK

On the city council’s agenda was final approval for a change to the city’s stormwater code. Under the new requirements, any time more than 200 square feet of impervious surface is added to single and two-family residential property, controls must be put in place to handle stormwater runoff from a “first flush” downpour. The “first flush” is the runoff from the first 1/2 inch of rain during any rainstorm. About 40% of land area in the city of Ann Arbor is zoned for single-family and two-family uses.

Stormwater: Public Comment

Joan Martin, who coordinates the Adopt-a-Stream program for the Huron River Watershed Council, urged the council to pass the ordinance. She noted that the city’s ordinance regulating the use of phosophorus-based fertilizer had helped water quality, but that the volume of water also needs to be addressed.

The Malletts Creek Association’s Jesse Gordon also weighed in to support the ordinance. The measure would help keep stormwater from flowing across lawns and streets, where it would pick up various pollutants.

Gwen Nystuen, a member of the city’s park advisory commission who spoke on behalf of the Mallets Creek Association, emphasized that the steps required of property owners who are adding impervious surface are not that big a deal. It’s a simple form to fill out, she said, and there are easy ways to satisfy the requirements of the ordinance.

Jim Mogensen stressed that communication is important for the success of the proposal.

Stormwater: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) led off deliberations by noting that the proposal had arisen out of a recommendation by the Mallets Creek Association and had been reviewed by the environmental commission. He described the proposal as asking property owners who add 200 square feet or more of impervious surface to their lots to remedy that addition in some way. He characterized the ordinance as “highly useful” and urged everyone to support it.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) contended that he’d had an opportunity to “dig into” the ordinance as a city council representative to the city’s environmental commission. He described the land in the city as consisting of 50% commercial properties, 25% residential and 25% public right of way. Commercial properties currently are regulated by Chapter 63 of the city code on stormwater. The public right of way is also covered by various regulations and is within the control of the city to make stormwater improvements, like adding swirl concentrators when Liberty Street or Stadium Boulevard were reconstructed. The residential area, which the ordinance addresses, is currently a gap, he said.

Mayor John Hieftje then stated that when there is a heavy amount of rainfall, when it falls in a wooded or forested area, the ground is able to absorb the influx, but this is not the case for streets and rooftops. The flow can result in a surge of water into creeks and storm sewers.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked her colleagues Taylor, Hohnke and Margie Teall (Ward 4) – who also serves as a representative on the city’s environmental commission – to give an example of how the new ordinance would affect a residential property in the Allen Creek area. In the ensuing conversation it emerged that Briere simply wanted to establish that the ordinance would apply citywide, not just in the Mallets Creek area.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who lives on Mallets Creek, noted that the Mallets Creek Association had been working on the proposal for several years. He asked Jerry Hancock, the city’s stormwater and floodplain program coordinator, if a situation could arise where a homeowner could be denied a permit, if they could not meet the conditions of the ordinance? Hancock described how the ordinance required simply that a form be filled out. If a grading permit is required, he said, there already needs to be a grading plan. The grading plan would need to show how the new stormwater requirement is being met.

Hancock was skeptical that a situation could arise where someone has taken up literally all of the available space on the property that could be used for mitigation. He offered the example of planter boxes as one type of remedy.

Asked for a rationale behind the 200 square feet, as opposed to some other amount of area, Hancock explained that accessory buildings could be built smaller than 200 square feet without needing a building permit. It would be virtually impossible to monitor the new requirement for projects where no building permit is required, said Hancock.

Briere inquired whether a property owner could receive credits under the city’s stormwater utility charges for the mitigation required under the new ordinance. Hancock indicated that installation of, for example, rain barrels under the new ordinance would qualify the property owner for credits under the city’s stormwater utility.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) wanted to know how many houses the ordinance would affect. By way of reply, Hancock said that in 2008, there had been 111 projects that would have needed to fill out the form under the new ordinance. Higgins wanted to know how many houses there are citywide to which it would hypothetically apply. Later in deliberations, Kunselman offered the number 19,000 based on some information he’d just looked up.

Higgins was concerned about the amount of public process that had taken place citywide. She said it was obvious that there was support for the ordinance on the city council, but wondered if there would be any negative impact if its enactment were delayed. Craig Hupy, head of systems planning for the city, indicated that the only negative would be some uncertainly with the homebuilders groups about it.

Hieftje sought to establish that the required remedies for the additional impervious area were fairly inexpensive – two rain barrels might cost $250. Hancock listed off some other alternatives, which included cisterns – which he described as “a bigger rain barrel” – dry wells, rain gardens and planter boxes.

Higgins offered a motion to postpone the measure until March 1 to allow for more public process. The motion died for lack of a second.

Outcome: The council approved the new stormwater mitigation ordinance for residential areas, with dissent from Higgins.

Solid Waste

Two issues related to solid waste cropped up at the meeting. The first was an agenda item, which allocated $102,000 for costs related to the facility upgrade at the materials recovery facility (MRF) – the destination for the recyclable materials that the city collects curbside. The amount covers two kinds of costs: One is for unplanned costs related to the MRF fire suppression sprinkler system.

The other is for costs related to an incoming materials tipping door and outgoing materials loading dock – which need to be upgraded to accommodate a 60% increase in materials since the facility began processing single-stream recycling. The increase does not stem from the city’s conversion to single-stream style curbside collection, but rather from an additional influx of materials from Lansing and Toledo.

The second way solid waste came up was in the form of public commentary on a proposal the city council will consider in the near future, on the privatization of its composting operation.

Solid Waste: Public Commentary  – MRF

During public commentary reserved time, Libby Hunter sang forth her remarks – as is her custom. The melody, she said, was from “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.” [For readers unfamiliar with the song, it's been recorded by several artists, including Slim Whitman.] Hunter’s lyrics altered the original to “It’s a cinch to tell a lie.” Her contention was that the city’s claim that the single-stream recycling program would save money is a lie.

Solid Waste: Council Deliberations – MRF

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) led off deliberations by noting that the single-stream program appeared to be successful given the increase in volume, but noted that the increase stemmed from outside the city. He asked about the previous investment the city had just made in the MRF.

Tom McMurtrie, the city’s solid waste program manager, explained that the city makes money off the program – 30% of the revenue that is collected on non-city tons above the sale price of $54/ton. The increase in tonnage from outside the city, said McMurtrie, would reduce the projected payback period of 7.1 years for the city’s several million-dollar investment by approximately 0.2 years. Anglin wanted to know what the actual revenues were, not the analysis of the payback time. McMurtrie said he could provide the numbers, but he did not have them with him.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) asked why FCR, the company the city contracts with to operate the MRF, was not making a significant contribution to this expense. McMurtrie responded by saying that FCR is contributing to the building expansion project with around $500,000. Kunselman pressed the issue. McMurtrie explained that if the city wanted an additional contribution from FCR, then FCR would likely want to renegotiate the current 30% payment it makes to the city for any amount above $54/ton. In response to a query from Kunselman, McMurtrie said that the current market was around $80-$90/ton.

Mayor John Hieftje called the appropriation a “practical solution.” McMurtrie noted that the facility is currently running two shifts for five weekdays, sometimes for seven weekdays.

Outcome: The resolution authorizing the $102,000 for the MRF was unanimously passed.

Solid Waste: Public Commentary – Compost

Nicholas Nightwine spoke on behalf of the Local American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 369, noting that it is the largest labor group in the city, working a range of different jobs, from work in streets, solid waste, signs and signals, taking meeting minutes, community standards enforcement, and several other ares.

Nightwine said there is low morale among the work force, which is at least partly attributable to a city strategy of replacement of full-time positions with temporary workers and outsourcing work that should be done by city union workers. He cited a specific instance of outsourcing work to Beal Construction for a project related to Ann Arbor housing commission properties. He described how AFSCME workers were asked to “fetch supplies” for the Beal workers.

Nightwine spoke specifically against the possibility of outsourcing jobs at the city’s compost facility, which the city council will be asked to consider at its Nov. 15 meeting. [The council addressed the topic at a work session on Nov. 8.] The city had won awards for the quality of its composting product, Nightwine said, but now the city is contemplating awarding a contract to a New York company [WeCare Organics] to manage its composting operations.

Nightwine indicated that the union would take legal action on the issue. He noted that the union had not been involved in any of the discussions, and he criticized the city for essentially saying: This is what we’re going to do, and if you don’t like it, you can fight us on it.

By way of background, the AFSCME Local 369 recent litigation history with the city has been successful, winning a Michigan Court of Appeals case in 2009 over a me-too clause dating back to the early 2000s. According to a Crain’s Detroit Business brief, that ruling cost the city $400,000 in back wages.

Nightwine also addressed the city council back in the spring when the idea first formally surfaced – on a term sheet developed by the city and the Downtown Development Authority – to have the DDA take responsibility for the enforcement of parking rules. From Chronicle coverage:

Nicholas Nightwine, spoke on behalf of the Local 369 AFSCME union on the issue of privatization and the contracting out of work in violation of their union contract. Specifically, he addressed the possibility that parking code enforcement would become the responsibility of Ann Arbor’s DDA. It is community standards officers’ job to provide that enforcement, he said. He questioned why the council would give away union work.

Over the summer of 2010, the negotiations between the city and the DDA – via their respective mutually beneficial committees – have essentially taken off the table the idea of DDA enforcement of parking rules.

Later on Thursday evening, when city administrator Roger Fraser reported that the 2010 Pillar Award for Outstanding Government Agency had been given to the Ann Arbor Building Services Unit — by the Builders & Remodelers Association of Greater Ann Arbor – it elicited a quiet “Yay!” from the many AFSCME workers seated in the row behind The Chronicle.

Fixed Charges for Water Main Improvements

Pulled out of the set of consent agenda items for separate consideration was an item that established the fixed charges for water main improvements – it’s set every year by a council resolution as stipulated in Chapter 12 of the city code:

1.217 Definitions …”Water main improvement charge fixed charge” shall mean the charge per residential unit for water main improvements, set by city council annually by resolution and calculated on the basis of the city’s average actual cost per residential unit for the 10 most recent publicly constructed water main improvement projects preceding the date the fixed charge is set by city council, with the costs of said projects adjusted as needed to be brought current, using the most recently published Handy-Whitman Index for “Distribution Plant Mains, Average All Types.”

Sanitary sewer improvement charges are defined in a parallel fashion. Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) pulled the item out from the consent agenda for separate consideration because she wanted to know why it was being considered now, instead of at budget time.

After an interaction with both city administrator Roger Fraser and project manager Elizabeth Rolla, it emerged that the timing stemmed from a request by the Builders & Remodelers Association to have the charges set by the beginning of each calendar year because that is how they plan their work. The charges for 2011 were proposed as:

• Water main improvement fixed charge: $14,539.00 per residential unit served
• Sanitary sewer improvement fixed charge: $22,530.00 per residential unit served

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the fixed charges for water main and sanitary sewer charges.

$160K for Furniture: Again Delayed

The council again delayed a modification to its FY 2011 budget that would allocate up to $160,000 for furnishings for the new municipal center. At the council’s Oct. 18 meeting, Keith Zeisloft, who is court administrator of the 15th District Court, was closely questioned by councilmembers about his reasons for not including a provisional line item for inclusion in the FY 2011 budget, even if exact costs were not known at the time. Councilmembers had voted to postpone the allocation, pending the provision by Zeisloft of a list of items to be purchased. The court needed additional time to compile the list.

Outcome: The $160,000 for furniture was again postponed.

HAWK Pedestrian Signal

At the start of their Nov. 4 meeting, the city council received a presentation on the installation of a high intensity activated crosswalk (HAWK) traffic signal at the intersection of Chapin and Huron. It was essentially the same presentation that the board of the Ann Arbor DDA had received the previous day. City traffic engineer Pat Cawley had given that presentation.

What drivers and pedestrians will see when a HAWK signal is activated. (Image links to .pdf with higher resolution images.)

He had stressed how the city had worked with the Michigan Department of Transportation on the project. It’s considered a pilot project, the first to be installed in Michigan on a state trunk line. He had stressed the need for pedestrians and motorists to know what to expect.

At the city council meeting, Cawley was joined by representatives from MDOT – Kerry Martin, a transportation planner, and Wendy Ramirez, a traffic and safety engineer. They walked the councilmembers through the phases of the signal.

When not activated, motorists will see three black balls – two on top and one on the bottom. When a pedestrian presses a button to activate the signal, Cawley said, there is some lag time for the signal to coordinate with other traffic signals. Then motorists see a flashing yellow, followed by a solid yellow, which is then followed by a twin-red solid stop beacon. Pedestrians get a seven-second white walking signal. That’s followed by flashing red for motorists and a 30-second countdown for pedestrians.

It’s hoped that the ribbon cutting can take place on Nov. 17.

There was minor discussion among council members. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) tried to elicit from Martin a statement that the HAWK signal is nearly as effective as a full traffic signal. Martin responded to Hohnke’s gambit by saying that she was not aware of any studies comparing a HAWK with other traffic control devices that cause motorists to stop for pedestrians. A full signal was not warranted at that location, based on traffic and pedestrian volume, she said.

Hohnke followed up by saying that he recalled from a Washtenaw Area Transportation Study (WATS) policy meeting that a HAWK signal was nearly as effective as a traffic signal – better than a yield sign. [Hohnke is the council's representative on the WATS policy committee.] Martin indicated that MDOT would be undertaking a before/after study of pedestrian experiences and motorist behavior at the crosswalk.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) wanted to know if side street traffic turning onto Huron across the pedestrian crosswalk would be able to see the HAWK signal. She felt that the city’s new pedestrian ordinance would help ensure that motorists actually stopped at the HAWK. [It's an ordinance in which she played the key role in strengthening. On the night that the council deliberated on the ordinance she was successful in persuading the sponsors of the ordinance – Hohnke and mayor John Hieftje – as well as the rest of her council colleagues, to change the language to make it clear that motorists are required to "stop" for pedestrians in or approaching crosswalks.]

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) compared HAWK signals to roundabouts – perhaps they were at first controversial, but once they were installed, people came to accept them.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) expressed appreciation to MDOT for their assistance. He was told that the MDOT grant, which had helped to fund the installation, had been worth around $102,000.

Communications and Comment

There are multiple slots on every agenda for city councilmembers and the city administrator to give updates or make announcements about important issues that are coming before the city council. And every meeting typically includes public commentary on subjects not necessarily on the agenda.

Comm/Comm: Sustainable Living

Addressing the council during public commentary reserve time was Kermit Schlansker – on the topic of sustainable living. [Schlansker is a retired engineer, who served on the city's energy commission back in the early '90s.]  He suggested construction of an apartment building on a parcel of land that could run off of power generated only on that parcel. The project would depend partly on reducing the energy consumption of the building to 25% of what is typical for an apartment building. The plan included solar energy, windwills, and a bio-digester that would convert sewage, manure, paper and leaves into compost.

During his communications time, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) mentioned in connection to Schlansker’s remarks that the oldest Net Zero home is now in the city of Ann Arbor on Seventh Street. [It's the home of Kelly and Matt Grocoff – Matt Grocoff is founder of Greenovation TV.]

Comm/Comm: Dam Maintenance, Drinking Water Fund

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) indicated that he and Margie Teall (Ward 4) would be bringing a resolution forward that would move the funding for maintenance of Argo dam out of the city’s drinking water fund. He contended that the planned repairs of the earthen embankment could be undertaken without using the drinking water funds. [See Chronicle coverage of the Argo embankment repairs, which includes the year-long history of discussion by staff and elected officials about the intent to move dam maintenance out of the drinking water fund: "PAC Recommends Argo Dam Bypass"]

Comm/Comm: Rehabbing of Houses

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) noted that two houses on Springbrook were now being re-habbed.

Comm/Comm: Design Guidelines Extension

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) indicated that the design guidelines committee – charged with completing the final piece of the A2D2 initiative to rezone Ann Arbor’s downtown – would likely be asking for an extension of its Dec. 3 deadline. There would likely be a January 2011 work session on the subject. Higgins noted during her comments that it was nice to have city administrator Roger Fraser back. [Fraser has been ill.]

Comm/Comm: Stadium Bridges

During his communications, city administrator Roger Fraser noted that the city had now received a total of $17 million in funding – counting federal and state grants – for the $23 million East Stadium Boulevard bridge replacement project. The 75% of the project that’s being funded with non-local money, he said, compares to 53% for the Broadway bridges project. He allowed that when construction starts, “it’s going to be a mess down there for a while,” but concluded by saying, “We’re on our way.”

Comm/Comm: CIP Survey

City administrator Roger Fraser announced that a capital improvement plan survey represents an opportunity for public input. The survey is being handled through SurveyMonkey.com: [Link to city of Ann Arbor capital improvements survey]

Comm/Comm: Golf RFP

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) announced that the city had received two proposals in response to the RFP it had issued for Huron Hills Golf Course. [Chronicle coverage in more detail: "Two Huron Hills Golf Proposals Submitted"]

Present: Stephen Rapundalo, Mike Anglin, Margie Teall, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Kunselman, Marcia Higgins, John Hieftje, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke.

Next council meeting: Nov. 15, 2010 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

AAPS trustee Susan Baskett and deputy superintendent for operations Robert Allen listen to the transportation consolidation proposal. (Photos by the writer.)

Brian Marcel, assistant superintendent of business services for WISD, walked board members through the proposal, and went through an extensive list of questions and answers about the plan. A few bus drivers from AAPS, as well as some from Lincoln Consolidated Schools, attended the meeting – one of them, Richard Miller, spoke during public commentary.

The only other business conducted at the meeting was to approve a set of minutes, and to schedule an executive session before the next regular meeting on Wednesday, June 9.

Transportation Consolidation Plan Overview

As discussed in some detail at the April 28, 2010 board meeting, the consolidation plan being considered would merge transportation services from at least five Washtenaw County school districts into one entity, managed by the WISD. In addition to AAPS, other districts that are considering joining the consortium are Lincoln Consolidated, Whitmore Lake, Willow Run, and Ypsilanti. [.pdf of FAQ on the consolidation design]

At Friday’s meeting, Brian Marcel shared with the AAPS board the final report of the WISD transportation consolidation administrative design team. Marcel briefed the board on issues that had come up during a meeting held with local bargaining units representing bus drivers and monitors. He also reported to the board on the Ypsilanti school board meeting when the transportation consolidation proposal was discussed.

Also present on Friday to answer questions were: Jim Regan, of Transportation Strategies, one of the consultants hired by the WISD to manage the consolidation effort; AAPS director of transportation, Brad Mellor; AAPS superintendent, Todd Roberts; AAPS deputy superintendent for operations, Robert Allen; and AAPS assistant director of compensation/benefits administration, Shonta Langford-Green.

Elements of the Transportation Consolidation Plan

The major elements of the plan that were presented and discussed on Friday included: wages and benefits; working conditions; organizational structure; oversight; district layoffs and WISD hiring; future restructuring of routes; bus ownership and use; and communication.

Wages and Benefits

Marcel began his presentation by showing a side-by-side comparison of wages and health insurance premium costs for transportation staff under four models: the current AAPS system, the proposed WISD plan, the rejected tentative agreement, or TA, (between AAPS and the transportation union), and privatization.

The current AAPS wage range – for both general and special education drivers – is $12.82 to $17.47 per hour. Under AAPS, monitors (bus aides) earn from $9.66 to $13.49 per hour, and mechanics make from $15.65 to $20.87 per hour. AAPS transportation workers are covered under a Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO health insurance plan. The AAPS share of the health care premium is a function of how many hours each employee works per week – insurance costs for a family plan range from $423.03 to $846.07 per month.

The wage range for general education drivers under the WISD plan is $13 to $16 per hour, with $.50 per hour more paid to drivers on special education routes. In addition, a premium of $.25 per year of service (YOS) in a local district will be added to the hourly wage. Bus monitors under WISD would make from $10-$13 per hour, and mechanics would make a flat rate of $21 per hour. WISD transportation employees would be offered a Priority Health HMO, with a family plan costing from $167.80 to $335.60 per month. If employees received coverage through a spouse, they could choose to opt-out of health insurance and receive additional payment.

Neither the rejected TA nor the privatization numbers were discussed in detail at the meeting. Trustee Susan Baskett did note that wages would be higher under privatization. Allen pointed out that although wages would be higher, employees would have no pension. Marcel noted that, in addition, co-pays are higher under the Aetna plan offered under privatization.

Trustee Andy Thomas asked how wage ranges were set, and Marcel answered that they were benchmarked against local and national public and private sector wages. Thomas asked how many drivers were currently at the top of the pay scale, saying “I’m just trying to get a feel for how many drivers’ salaries will decrease.” With input from Mellor, as well as some of the bus drivers in the room, Thomas determined that if current AAPS drivers’ average wage is $17 per hour, and their average YOS 7.5, the average loss in wages under the WISD system would be $1.50 to $2 per hour – over a 10% decrease.

Board president Deb Mexicotte pointed out that some drivers would make more money than they do now, and trustee Simone Lightfoot reiterated Thomas’ question, “How many drivers are at the top of the pay scale versus the bottom?” Allen said he could bring the specific numbers to the board’s second briefing on the issue. Board secretary Glenn Nelson requested a grid with the row showing YOS, and the column showing the hourly rate. Board treasurer Christine Stead requested that the proposed wages also be included on the grid.

Next, Marcel presented a list of recommended salaries drafted by the administration design team for central administration staff, ranging from $115,000 for the transportation director to $35,000 for the field trip coordinators. He noted, however, that though the recommended salaries are based on the benchmarking described above, some of them may need to be adjusted to fit within the existing WISD administrative structure.

When questioned further by Baskett and board vice president Irene Patalan, Marcel gave two examples of proposed salaries that might need adjustment to fit into WISD norms. First, he explained, the director could not make $115,000 because the WISD does not have salaries that high; Marcel estimated a salary range of $100,000 to $110,000 to be more likely. Secondly, given the large number of employees managed by the supervisor/trainers, WISD would likely set their salaries about $10,000 higher than the design team recommended – closer to $60,000 instead of $49,150.

Stead requested that a chart be created for the second briefing on Wednesday, which would compare, side by side, the design team’s salary recommendations and the salaries as they would be set by the WISD’s pay scale.

WISD is proposing to grant each employee five sick days and one personal day, along with paid holidays to be determined by the time driver positions are posted. Baskett requested an additional chart be created for the second briefing, comparing sick days and paid holidays given employees under the AAPS and WISD structures. She also asked about the “attendance incentive” noted in Marcel’s report. Marcel explained that the WISD plan would pay cash bonuses to employees with few absences.

Working Conditions

Marcel noted that the WISD plan does not guarantee a certain number of hours of work per driver per day. AAPS currently has a minimum of four hours. In addition, AAPS pays drivers the same rate for down time between routes, while the WISD plan sets driving hours and waiting time at different rates.

Lightfoot commented that it seems “inefficient” to not be able to schedule drivers in at least four-hour blocks. She asked if there were many two- or three-hour routes. Regan answered that the goal is to “operate buses at target capacity against the clock,” noting that the guidelines require students not to spend more than one or 1.5 hours on a bus. He said that it does not make sense to hire a driver below a certain number of hours per day, and judged that the “market reality” indicates about 5 hours as the minimum number of hours a driver should work – a 2.5-hour run in the morning and a 2.5-hour run in the afternoon.

Jim Regan describes a part of the proposed transportation consolidation plan. Regan is with Transportation Strategies, one of the consultants hired by the WISD to manage the effort.

Mellor added that some people might be looking for part-time work, and might want a single, shorter run. He stressed that the current AAPS system would not allow a driver to work less than four hours per day, and that this new plan affords more staffing flexibility.

Stead asked Roberts if AAPS had the option of altering school start times next year, and Roberts said no – next year, general education routes and times will be the same.

Marcel added that driving experience will be part of the consideration of route assignment. More experience working with kids or parents, he said, could lead to being assigned a “tougher route.”

Nelson confirmed that drivers under the WISD plan would not be private sector employees. Marcel confirmed that, no, they would be WISD employees, and still be part of the state public schools retirement system. He added that drivers could choose to unionize, but which union they’d choose would depend on which districts join the consolidation, since districts have contracts with different unions.

Organizational Structure

Marcel described the organizational structure of the proposed plan, totaling 30-32 people for a 5-district consortium. The central administration team would include a director, assistant directors of three departments – operations, business services, and central dispatch – and their staffs. Marcel noted that the business services staff would be organized under WISD human resources, rather than with the other transportation services staff, which may realize some cost savings. He also pointed out that supervisor/trainers, though common to AAPS, are rare in other districts. The administration team, he said, believes that training is important to ensure the safety of children, and includes four supervisor/trainers in its operations department.

Allen and Regan added that selecting the WISD option could create opportunities in the future to downsize AAPS central office staff, since the workload for each person in human resources would decrease if all transportation services were handled outside the district.

Oversight

Marcel explained that the WISD will use a different infrastructure/tracking system from the software currently used by AAPS – one that better integrates with WISD’s accounting system.

Stead responded in defense of the software used by AAPS, saying that a lot of her clients used it as well. She noted that, while recognizing the transition as a “serious shift,” AAPS would be watching to be sure the infrastructure chosen by WISD accommodates drivers and manages drivers well.

Stead later asked if the WISD had a survey tool that could be used to assess community satisfaction, and noted that AAPS will want “to monitor how things are going” with other metrics as well, including costs and length of time kids are on the buses. Nelson concurred, saying that hiring good drivers is the way to achieve satisfaction, and that even while under budget pressure, the board still wants to ensure an excellent educational experience all around.

Regan said parent surveys could be sent twice a year, and that ongoing management reporting would be provided: “You can tell us what you want in the report, and how often you want it – monthly or quarterly.”

District Layoffs and WISD Hiring

Baskett and Thomas asked about a timeline for laying off current district employees if AAPS decides to join the WISD effort, and if they would be eligible for unemployment. Thomas also asked whether employees who were laid off, but eventually hired by WISD, would need to COBRA their health insurance over the two months of summer.

Langford-Green explained that 10-month employees are not eligible for unemployment over the summer, since they are generally assured of returning in the fall. This year, she said, it would be different, so workers could apply for unemployment. Marcel added that AAPS would not want to lay off all its drivers in June, since some would be needed over the summer.

As for health insurance, Mexicotte suggested that the district could time the layoffs to bridge the two-month gap, but Langford-Green pointed out that that would not be necessary, since the district has already paid for health insurance for all transportation workers through August. Allen added that each participating district honors the pay out of retained sick/personal days differently, depending on the collective bargaining agreement in play.

Nelson asked what the “drop dead” date was for districts to sign on to the WISD consolidation, and when drivers could apply for jobs. Marcel said that five of the administrative positions are already posted, with a closing date of June 8.  But he acknowledged that “people are applying knowing it might not happen.” The driver positions would be posted once the administration team was in place, he said – likely by the end of June. Current employees of the consolidating districts will have priority in hiring before candidates are sought outside the county.

Lightfoot asked if driver seniority would be a factor in hiring. Marcel answered that seniority would not be considered in hiring or routing, but reiterated the slight increase in wages it would mean, and asserted, “I have no reason not to want to hire your people.” Regan added that, though seniority per se is not taken into account in hiring, experience with specific schools could be. For example, he said, if a driver has run a specific route for a specific school, the intent would be to “keep the stability of the system” by hiring that driver for that route.

Thomas questioned the hiring criteria as they relate to wages, arguing that there was an incentive to hire less experienced people. “If someone was really looking to game the system,” he stated, “WISD could reduce costs by hiring drivers with the least seniority.”

Regan responded, “That’s not the intent,” to which Thomas replied, “Could you say, ‘That’s not going to happen.’” Marcel offered, “I’m not going to intentionally drive down cost at the expense of having more experienced people.” Mellor added that from a training standpoint, it would not be feasible not to hire experienced drivers.

Baskett asked about drug testing and background checks to be done on drivers, and who would cover those costs. Mellor said that AAPS already does quarterly drug tests, and Marcel said the WISD system would pay for them (not the drivers). Marcel also explained that full background checks would only be done on drivers who had not previously worked for a participating district. Current drivers would be screened only with the Internet Criminal History Access Tool (ICHAT).

Regarding future hiring, Lightfoot asked if the WISD would hire drivers only from the substitute pool, and whether the sub pool would be filled with drivers who were good enough to be hired, but for whom there were not enough positions.

Marcel said the WISD would keep names of qualified drivers on file who were not chosen initially, and Regan noted that people who have had experience on the district’s routes and in the WISD system would be logical fits, if positions open up in the future.

Saying it reminded her of other sub pool issues the district has had in the past, Patalan asserted that, though it seems logical that the sub pool would be made aware of any opening, she would like to be sure that the “door would stay open for other people to apply.” Nelson agreed, using teachers as an example: “Quite often the best teachers the next fall are not the ones subbing now.”

Lightfoot asked what happened if districts join the consortium late, and who would cover the new routes. Mellor said WISD would need to hire to fill out the routes, and add staff to the necessary capacity.

Future Restructuring of Routes

Patalan noted that she appreciated not having to put together new general education routes in the next 60 days. Baskett asked when parameters for establishing routes in the future would be decided. For example, she said, she questioned whether 75 minutes was too high a maximum student ride time, arguing, “At that point, you might as well take AATA or walk.”

Regan said that by mid-year, perhaps January, the WISD would convene planning meetings for the following year with participating districts. Roberts added that routing would be “the big decision left” at that point, and AAPS would need to consider how far it wants to go to reduce costs. He noted that the AAPS currently has a 1.5 mile walk zone, and currently keeps kids on buses for no more than 45 minutes. As an example of the decision-making that would need to be done in January, Roberts wondered, “Do we want to increase our ride time to 50 minutes? What would it save?”

There was some discussion of how it would work to have different districts set different standards. Baskett noted that if some districts modified the standards to decrease walk zones or ride times, the overall savings would be reduced for all participating districts. Allen agreed and noted that because of the interplay of factors described, routing decisions directly become budget decisions.

Nelson stated his understanding was that if a district wanted to change routes in a way that increased costs, that the district would pay the difference. Marcel confirmed this as correct, calling that difference the “fully-burdened rate” that would be billed to each district. Lightfoot asked how such cost allocation would be ensured, and if language guaranteeing it would be included in the resolution.

Marcel confirmed that the “efficiency section of the routing guidelines” contains this binding language, and would be attached to the resolution. Regan added, “You are both the stakeholder and the customer. You have the front end, and the back end, with WISD in the middle.”

Thomas noted that decreasing future routes would cut miles, hours, and therefore drivers needed. Mellor responded that the district re-routes every summer, saying routes are close but not identical from year to year, and that increases in efficiency are usually covered by attrition from year to year rather than the need to lay off drivers. Nelson noted that special education routes are “being redesigned as we speak,” and that there may be cases in which some general education routes could change too if huge efficiencies would be possible.

Allen added that the district is still in conversation with AATA possibly to provide bus passes for high school students. AAPS needs to staff for providing service to high schoolers, even though they don’t always choose to ride the bus, Allen pointed out. He asserted, “The budget situation won’t improve in the next few years – we need to keep looking for savings.”

Bus Ownership, Use

Regan explained that the Michigan Department of Education would prefer that the buses themselves remain the financial responsibility of each participating district.  Therefore, the plan will be for each district to sell its bus fleet to WISD for $1 for use in servicing the routes of its own district. If a district decides to stop participating in the consortium, Regan said, the WISD would sell the same buses back for $1.

He added that there is a line item in the WISD budget to track amortization, but that individual districts would pay for any future buses needed for their routes.

Nelson asked how much of the 2004 bond fund was left for buses, and if it could be used for other improvements if AAPS enters into the WISD arrangement. Allen confirmed that there was $1 million slated for buses that could be used for other non-operating expenses, but Lightfoot questioned whether it would be wise to spend the money in case it doesn’t work out.

Lightfoot also asked whether buses would be shared among district routes. In general, Mellor said, no – general education route buses are designated. However, during inspections, or in the case of an emergency, sharing between districts already happens, and that “flexibility” would continue under the WISD plan.

In addition, special education buses would be purchased by the WISD and shared among all participating districts.

Communication

Lightfoot asked how the public would know who to call with specific questions, such as “Why is our bus late?” Nelson continued that line of questioning, adding, “I would contrast a ‘late bus’ call with a call about two students getting in a fight  – those would demand calling different places.”

Mellor answered that all calls would be logged first at central dispatch, and then student discipline issues would have to come back to the district. Roberts added that this is similar to what happens now in AAPS, saying that if a student gets left at a stop, the call comes to central administration, but if a kid comes off the bus and says someone hit him on the bus, that call goes directly to the building principal.

Regan offered another pitch, “It’s not like someone is bringing in an outside system. Most of the sub processes, systems, and routines are already what you are doing.” The only time, Regan said, that WISD processes would be different from what AAPS is already doing would be if a better practice was found outside the system.

In response to Lightfoot’s concern, Marcel also offered help from WISD, saying the WISD has a communications person who could help “craft” communication with the public.

Baskett asked if there was a plan for communicating regardless of how the board moves forward, and noted the condensed timeline. Usually, she said, there would be more time between a first and second briefing.  The second briefing of the transportation consolidation plan will come before the Board on Wednesday, June 9.  After the second briefing, the board will vote.

Amy Osinski, secretary to the board, said she would post the full report presented at this meeting on the board’s website.

Patalan, who had taken over the chairing the meeting when Mexicotte had to leave mid-way through the meeting, thanked the trustees for their questions, saying, “Change is something we want to do as well as we can.”

Bus drivers from AAPS and Lincoln Consolidated Schools attended the June 4 AAPS board meeting, held at the district's Balas administration building on South State Street.

Public Commentary on Proposed WISD Consolidation

Richard Miller, a bus driver for AAPS, spoke out against the plan. Though he called his attempts likely “futile,” Miller argued against the consolidation, saying it has already taken a toll on the drivers’ morale. Citing the praise and thanks drivers have received over the years as “insincere,” Miller called the consolidation process “cold water thrown in the faces” of current drivers.

Minutes Approval & Executive Session

On a consent agenda moved by Andy Thomas, and seconded by Glenn Nelson, the board unanimously approved passage of meeting minutes of the May 26 regular meeting. Stead then moved to schedule an executive session on Wednesday, June 9 at 5:30 p.m., for the purpose of negotiating and attorney-client privilege. The executive session scheduling was seconded by Thomas and was also passed unanimously. There were no items for agenda planning, items from the board, association or committee reports at the meeting.

Present: President Deb Mexicotte (for the first half), vice president Irene Patalan, secretary Glenn Nelson, treasurer Christine Stead, and trustees Susan Baskett, Simone Lightfoot, and Andy Thomas. Also present as a non-voting member was Todd Roberts, superintendent of AAPS.

Next regular meeting: June 9, 2010, 7 p.m., at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library, 4th floor board room, 343 S. Fifth Ave.

Pizza was served at Wednesday's pre-board meeting rally held by AFSCME Local 2733 in the parking lot next to the county administration building, at the southwest corner of Catherine and Fourth. The union wanted its members to turn out as the county Board of Commissioners considered cuts to the 2010-2011 budget.

Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners meeting (June 3, 2009): Before commissioners met on Wednesday, about 50 people gathered in the parking lot next to the county administration building for a rally organized by AFSCME Local 2733, the largest of the unions for county workers, representing about 700 employees. This wasn’t a marching-while-carrying-picket-signs rally, however. It was more of a eating-pizza-and-talking event, designed to get members to attend the 6:30 p.m. board meeting as a show of support for the unions.

Union workers mingled with commissioners and other county staff to talk about how to deal with a projected $26 million deficit in the county’s budget over the next two years – a topic that was the main item on Wednesday’s agenda for the board of commissioners.

Recommendations made during the meeting by county administrator, Bob Guenzel – which were aimed at balancing the $102 million general fund budget – included cuts to many departments and to funding for local nonprofits, the elimination of 26 positions (including 12 that are already vacant) and a caution that there’ll be more cuts to come.

Discussion of those recommendations by commissioners during the Ways & Means Committee portion of their meeting resulted in approval of four budget-related resolutions. Those resolutions will receive a final vote from commissioners during their regular board meeting on July 8. Meanwhile, the administration hopes to negotiate concessions from the 17 unions that represent roughly 1,000 of the county’s 1,350 work force. All parties agree that the outcome of those negotiations will be crucial.

Pre-Meeting Union Rally

Tonya Harwood, the union’s interim president, said it’s hard to get members to turn out for board meetings, even when the stakes are high. So the union offers incentives – in this case, 25 Little Caesars pizzas. Harwood said she wasn’t planning to speak during the public comment section of Wednesday’s meeting, but the turnout would send a message that the union membership is concerned about the situation. (And, in fact, the boardroom was filled to capacity at the start of the meeting, with many people spilling out into the lobby, where they watched proceedings on Community Television Network.)

The parking lot gathering was also a way for union workers to share their concerns informally with commissioners, Harwood said. Several commissioners – including Kristin Judge, Jeff Irwin, Leah Gunn, Mark Ouimet and Wes Prater – attended the event.

All 17 unions have contracts with the county running through 2010, with some contracts extending through 2012. It’s up to the membership to decide whether they’ll make concessions or not. Based on conversations The Chronicle had with workers on Wednesday, it’s not clear what they’ll decide.

Some expressed frustration, feeling that unions were being asked to shoulder more of the burden than the county’s nearly 300 non-union members. They believe the administration hasn’t made sufficient cuts elsewhere. Others told us that they were most concerned about keeping their jobs, and had been shaken by last week’s news that General Motors plans to close its Willow Run plant next year. They said that in Michigan’s struggling economy, no one is immune and they’d rather take concessions than lose their jobs – that’s a possibility if the administration can’t find enough other ways to cut costs.

Public Comment

The Ways & Means committee consists of all the members of the board of commissioners, and meets before each meeting of the board.  At the start of the Ways & Means Committee meeting, two people spoke during the time allowed for public comment.

Ken Harrison: Harrison, an Ypsilanti resident, said he was concerned about funding for the Good Samaritan food program operated by Brown Chapel AME Church. The program feeds about 150 people every Friday, he said. They hadn’t heard back about grant funding from the county, and wanted to know one way or another so that they could make contingency plans. He told commissioners that Ypsilanti had for a long time in its past been the breadbasket for the county, but now “we need money, and we need help.” He wanted to see more funding in general for the eastern side of Washtenaw County. As a final note, he said he was proud to see Conan Smith as a commissioner, and remembered voting for Smith’s grandfather. [Smith's grandfather was Al Wheeler, Ann Arbor's first and, to date, only black mayor.]

Paquetta Palmer: Palmer was the only county worker to speak during the public comment session, though more than two dozen employees attended the meeting. She said she was grateful for her job, but had been stressed out for several months about the budget situation. As an employee who works with the Washtenaw Health Plan – which no longer has the capacity to accept new participants – she said she deals with the county’s most vulnerable residents. She urged commissioners to schedule community forums that were accessible to poorer people, at times and locations that would allow them to attend. And she said commissioners needed to look twice at projects they were funding, saying it wasn’t fair for some people’s pet projects to remain funded while the health plan had to turn away applicants. They need to fund human services in order to keep this the kind of place where people love to live. “Things aren’t ok,” Palmer said. “I hope you remember the most vulnerable when you make your decisions.”

Resolution: Commissioners’ Budget

The commissioners first considered a resolution to cut their own piece of the budget by 11.3%, and to create “flex accounts” that would pool previous line items for per diem, travel, and convention/conference expenses. The budget calls for $3,550 per commissioner for these flex accounts. The total budget for commissioners after the reduction is $532,885, an amount that includes salaries ($177,387), consultant fees ($55,150 for a lobbyist in Lansing), fringe benefits ($41,979) and an amount to cover administrative expenses (called the Cost Allocation Plan, at $143,462), among other things. The resolution also includes new guidelines for administering the flex accounts.

This resolution is the third iteration of an attempt to cut the commissioners’ budget, following two resolutions presented at the board’s May 20 meeting that did not receive sufficient support to pass. There was little discussion on the issue at Wednesday’s meeting.

Outcome: The motion carried, with Barbara Levin Bergman, Leah Gunn and Jeff Irwin voting against it.

Budget Recommendations: 2010 and 2011

Guenzel then presented recommendations for cuts and efforts to grow revenues in 2010 and 2011. Some of the recommendations could be implemented later this year, if approved. The Chronicle previously reported on those recommendations. They are also detailed on the county’s website, along with other information about the budget process.

Rolland Sizemore Jr., chair of the board of commissioners, talks with Lisa Greco, center, director of the county's children's services department, and Angela Tabor, AFSCME Council 25 union representative.

For this report, we’ll summarize the Wednesday evening discussion  following Guenzel’s presentation.  Their conversation was wide-ranging – here, we’ve grouped the commissioners’ comments topically, as they relate to each of the resolutions.

The board was asked to consider three separate resolutions: 1) accepting the first phase of the administration’s budget recommendations; 2) accepting recommendations for cuts to non-union compensation, and 3) approving cuts to nonprofits funded by the county.

Resolution 1: Overall budget recommendations

Rolland Sizemore Jr., the board’s chair, said he would be supporting the recommendations for now, but he would reconsider if he didn’t get answers to several questions and concerns before the final vote on July 8. His questions included: When job openings are available, does the county try to fill those positions from current employees? As a way to address the budget crisis, some employees are asking for changes like flex-time and a cut in the number of paid holidays they receive – is the administration considering those ideas? What are other communities doing to deal with their budget crises? What’s the pay scale for executives at Ann Arbor SPARK, which the county helps fund? Is there any way to streamline the number of unions that represent county employees? Do the non-union employees have any input into the recommended cuts to their compensation and benefits?

Sizemore concluded by saying that maybe it’s time to ask the unions to come up with a plan, rather than putting all the responsibility on management and the board. Guenzel said he’d look into the questions that Sizemore raised.

Commissioner Jessica Ping had concerns about a proposed millage that is intended to raise funds for economic development – specifically, it would cover funding for Ann Arbor SPARK ($200,000) and SPARK East ($50,000) that’s currently allocated from the county’s general fund. [The millage could be approved by commissioners, rather than requiring voter approval, because the enabling legislation – Act 88 – predates the state's Headley Amendment. It would levy 0.017 mills, which equates to about $1.70 per year for every $100,000 in a property's taxable value.] Ping asked when a public hearing on the millage would be scheduled – Curtis Hedger, the county’s corporation counsel, explained that it was proposed for July 8, but that commissioners could change that if they wanted.

Commissioner Kristin Judge had several questions and comments. She asked Guenzel to be sure that he listened to union leaders when they met, rather than just passing along information. She also was concerned about a proposed 18% cut to the public health/environmental health department, and asked the department’s director, Dick Fleece, to speak about how those cuts would affect services. [Recommended cuts would slash $476,493 from the department's budget, and eliminate five positions.]

Fleece said the proposal had been made when times were a little different – namely, before they’d found out that state funding to the department would also be cut. He said that the recommendations have a footnote stating that the department’s general fund allocation might be altered (i.e., increased) after the final state funding level is determined. Judge noted that public health was a mandated service, and she was concerned because the county might face a public health crisis in the fall, referring to the swine flu outbreak. She said she’d be uncomfortable short-changing the department.

Lloyd Powell, left, the county's public defender, talks with commissioner Leah Gunn and Janis Bobrin, the county's water resources commissioner.

Judge also had concerns about funding cuts for the public defender’s office, which is slated for a reduction of six legal clerk positions (four that had previously been agreed to last year, and an additional two in the coming year). Lloyd Powell, the head of that department, said his public defender’s office was taking a hit but that they would be able to maintain the same level of services. They’d use interns and volunteers who were licensed attorneys, as well as temp help on an as-needed basis, he explained. He joked that he’d congratulated his friend Brian Mackie, the county prosecutor, for emerging from the budget crisis untouched. [No cuts are recommended for the prosecutor's office.]

Judge responded by saying that if the county is a union shop, which it is, then they shouldn’t cut jobs and replace them with temporary workers – a comment which elicited applause from union members in the audience. She said she wanted to make sure the public defender’s office had the resources they needed to do their job.

Her final comment expressed disappointment that the administration hadn’t been more creative in looking for ways to cuts expenses. She said she’d been hoping to see more proposals like cutting cell-phone usage or asking people to pay for parking. She hoped to see recommendations along these lines in the second phase of the budget proposal.

Commissioner Barbara Levin Bergman responded to Judge’s remarks, saying that the county wouldn’t be acting alone in dealing with a potential health crisis – the county is part of a consortium that includes local hospitals and schools, she said. Regarding Judge’s concerns over the public defender’s office, Bergman said that this wasn’t a union-busting move, but rather an attempt to use the county’s resources in the best way possible for the community good.

In his remarks, commissioner Jeff Irwin warned his colleagues that these budget recommendations were just the first salvo – what comes next will be even harder, he said. He asked Guenzel whether they’d considered increasing the economic development millage to help fund other areas, such as the Food Systems Economic Partnership (FSEP), which is slated for 20% cuts in county funding (to $12,000 in 2010) and the Small Business Development Center, also in line for a 20% cut in funding (to $8,000). Curtis Hedger, the county’s corporation counsel, said that as long as the entity was a nonprofit that did economic development work, it could be funded by the millage.

Irwin asked Ellen Rabinowitz, executive director of the Washtenaw Health Plan, to talk about why the plan had been closed for enrollment – a fact mentioned at a previous meeting and by Paquetta Palmer in her remarks during the public comment session. Rabinowitz said their revenues haven’t decreased, but they had to close enrollment due to an unprecedented demand for services. (The plan offers health insurance for low-income residents.) There are simply many more people in the community who are uninsured, she said, and the county doesn’t have the resources to serve everyone who needs insurance. She said she’s confident that the recommended funding levels will allow her staff to continue leveraging federal dollars for the program. She noted that the county has a mandate to provide health care for indigent residents, and no cuts are recommended at this time.

Moving to a different part of the budget, commissioner Ken Schwartz asked whether the budget recommendations reflected an increase in staff for the sheriff’s department when the jail expansion opens in 2010. No, Guenzel said – he’d be coming back to the commission to adjust the budget when that increase is necessary. Sheriff Jerry Clayton, who attended Wednesday’s meeting, came to the podium and told commissioners that his department was doing a full analysis of staffing levels and operational costs. [Clayton was elected last November and took office earlier this year.] They are trying to reduce costs by renegotiating food and medical services contracts with the jail’s vendors – he said he hoped to have details about that effort by the commissioners’ July 8 meeting.

Schwartz said that he also hoped to see more progress by July 8 on negotiations with the Trial Court, which is currently negotiating with the administration over its lump-sum budget payment received from the county.

Commissioner Ronnie Peterson spoke at considerable length about his concern over how budget cuts would affect the public, though he did not offer any alternative recommendations to deal with the budget deficit.

Commissioner Wes Prater noted that an additional $12 million in cuts were yet to be made, reiterating Irwin’s comment and saying “the tough stuff” is yet to come. “I hate to think what it’s going to look like in the next round,” he said. “It’s going to be be dramatic.”

Responding to Peterson’s comments, commissioner Leah Gunn said the administration has worked incredibly hard to come up with their recommendations, and has responded to commissioners’ questions and provided information throughout the process. She warned that not supporting the recommendations would reflect badly on commissioners who chose to do that, since it would indicate that they obviously haven’t been looking at the situation very carefully. A lot harder work is ahead, she added, noting that she doesn’t like to see people losing their jobs or to see the county cut services. “It distresses me, but we have no choice.”

Outcome: The resolution passed Ways & Means, with Ronnie Peterson voting no. It will be considered for a final vote at the July 8 board meeting.

Resolution 2: Non-union compensation

The board voted on this resolution with little discussion. Recommended cuts, outlined in this previous Chronicle report, include salary reductions of 3% in 2010 and 2% in 2011, among other reductions.

Outcome: The resolution passed Ways & Means, with Ronnie Peterson voting no. It will be considered for a final vote at the July 8 board meeting.

Resolution 3: Funding for nonprofit agencies

Much of the discussion and commentary focused on the recommendation to shift some of the funding so that it would be administered by the Office of Community Development, a joint county/city of Ann Ann department. This affected three areas: 1) children’s well-being and human services funding, with $800,000 budgeted in 2010 – a 20% cut from the $1 million budget in 2009; 2) the Fair Housing Center, with $40,000 budgeted in 2010, a 20% drop; and 3) Michigan Tenant Counseling, budgeted in 2010 for $13,800, also a 20% decrease from 2009.

Commissioner Ronnie Peterson was particularly upset that funding for children’s well-being and human services would be shifted to the Office of Community Development, and he wanted to know why. [Background: 28 local nonprofits received county grants from the $1 million previously committed to children's well-being and human services. Here's links to listings of the grants awarded: children's well-being ($700,000) and human services ($300,000).]

Mary Jo Callan, community development director, came to the podium and explained that the goal was to create an integrated funding system. In the past, nonprofits had to go through three different grant application processes – one for the county, one for the city of Ann Arbor, and another for the Washtenaw Urban County, a group of 11 municipalities that participate in the federal Community Development Block Grant program. Funding from the city and Urban County – specifically in the areas of housing, health, children’s and youth services, and economic stability – is now administered through the Office of Community Development. If commissioners approve, the county will be included in this integrated funding approach.

There are several advantages for the funding agencies, Callan said. It brings increased coherence to the funding process, allowing the city, county and other municipalities to better understand how their investments are being used. It gives the city/county staff more time to work with nonprofits and it makes the monitoring process more efficient for both her staff and the nonprofits. For years, she said, they’ve asked the nonprofits to collaborate with each other. By integrating these three funding sources, she added, the community development office is following its own advice.

Peterson wasn’t satisfied, saying he was concerned that an already busy office was taking on additional responsibility. He also didn’t want the county to lose control over how the funding would be allocated.

When asked by commissioner Mark Ouimet, Callan confirmed that one consideration in determining whether a non-profit got funded was its overall financial health.  In general, groups with diversified funding sources and healthy reserves are seen as a good investment, she explained: For financially unhealthy agencies with longstanding difficulties, the reality is that they’ll have a difficult time providing services. Community development’s job is to know how these nonprofits are doing – and they should be concerned if a nonprofit doesn’t appear to be financially sustainable, she said.

Commissioner Leah Gunn said the point of an integrated approach isn’t simply the financial piece. It’s also a way to better coordinate how services are delivered and how funding supports the county’s strategic plan. Further, the community development office can also coordinate with other funding agencies, like Washtenaw United Way and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. She also maintained that this approach doesn’t mean the county is losing control over its funding.

Commissioner Kristin Judge urged Callan to come up with creative ways to help nonprofits, beyond funding. She suggested the idea of providing space to house nonprofits, given that some county buildings have vacant offices available – though she cautioned that the county shouldn’t compete as a landlord with the private sector.

Responding to a question from commissioner Ken Schwartz, Callan said that the county would select three representatives to serve on a review panel – the city and the Urban County each have three representatives as well. Her staff had developed a scoring matrix to use in selecting which nonprofits would be funded. Criteria include how well the nonprofit serves a community need and how well they leverage local funding for state and federal dollars, among other things. Noting that she’d been on the other side of the process as a director of a nonprofit [she previously served as executive director of Ozone House], Callan said her goal was to make the funding process fair, transparent and objective.

Both Schwartz and commissioner Jessica Ping urged Callan to factor geographic distribution into her office’s funding decisions. They were concerned that their districts – located in the county’s northeast and southwest quadrants, respectively – were getting left out. Callan said her office does notify nonprofits throughout the county to alert them about available grants, though it’s up to the nonprofits themselves to apply.

Callan said that ultimately commissioners had to trust the process, because funding would be made based on objective criteria, not on the whims of individual reviewers.

Outcome: The resolution passed Ways & Means unanimously. It will be considered for a final vote at the July 8 board meeting.

Budget Update: First Quarter 2009

Jennifer Watson, the county’s budget manager, gave a budget update on the first three months of 2009, January through March. Despite slashing more than $15 million from the 2009 budget late last year, the county is facing a $3.3 million deficit for the year. Proposed solutions include continuing a hiring freeze that was implemented last year, and enacting the cost cuts recommended for 2010 and 2011 as early as possible. If necessary, she said, they can tap balances from the county’s risk management fund ($1.15 million available) and the child care fund ($630,000 available).

Next steps include implementing the administration’s budget recommendations. Another update on the 2009 budget will be made in August.

Final Public Comment

Thomas Partridge, who regularly speaks during public comment periods at meetings of the board of commissioners as well as other local government entities, was the final speaker on Wednesday evening. He spoke of the need to maintain government services and not seek quick fixes to the budget, like cutting payroll.

Next board meeting: The board is starting its summer schedule, with regular meetings held only once a month. The next meeting is Wednesday, July 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the County Administration Building, 220 N. Main St. The Ways & Means Committee meets first, followed immediately by the regular board meeting. [confirm date] (Though the agenda states that the regular board meeting begins at 6:45 p.m., it usually starts much later – times vary depending on what’s on the agenda.) Public comment sessions are held at the beginning and end of each meeting.