Cooperation

COOPERATION

MAR 2 7 1997

Ann Arbor, county find ways to improve service, cut costs

One could tell where the Ann Arbor city boundary lies by watching snow plow trucks turn around. Jurisdiction over traffic accidents on Pontiac Trail shifts from city police to the Washtenaw County Sheriffs Department at an invisible line near Arrow Wood Trail.

For more than a century, municipal lines have represented local autonomy, home rule status and community Values. Often, intergovernmental operations fall apart more due to parochialism than a lack of merit or desire. But Washtenaw County and the City of Ann Arbor are charting a new course in the collaborative sphere. For the past two years, the two entities have expanded joint projects to eliminate duplication, cut costs and enhance customer service.

As Mayor Ingrid Sheldon put it at a recent joint meeting of the City Council and the Board of Commissioners, the need to work together is ever more critical in times of “devolution.” That’s a term gaining wide acceptance across the country to denote the mounting burden on local governmental units as federal and state funding keeps shrinking while they are expected to produce more and perform better.

This “unfunded mandate” or “pushdown” trend - on top of the fallout of Proposal A that slows tax revenue 1 growth - leaves local municipalities no choice but to pool their resources.

And the city and county have shown that the opportunities for collaboration are abundant. Here are some examples:

• Employee training and staff development. City and county supervisors take management classes together at Washtenaw Community College; employees participate in monthly brown bag video programs and satellite television training sessions together.

Joint maintenance/garage facility. The city operates 490 vehicles serviced at two locations; the county has its own garage for a fleet of 204 vehicles. Five bids have been received to study the feasibility of consolidation and possible relocation of those separate garages, with a Garage Committee to be formed in July.

• Information technology. By simply using a joint Internet access, the city and county are each saving $20,000 a year. Imagine the savings and efficiency through other joint applications, such as: disaster recovery plan, Geographic Information System, equalization, planning, drain, road maintenance, staff training, citizen access, fiber optic conduit between the city hall and the Courthouse, unified court system.

• Regional dispatch. Joint funding has led to the creation of the Regional Dispatch Board, with an August goal for detailed plans for a regional emergency dispatch center.

• Affordable housing. Joint funding through Avalon Housing and Washtenaw Affordable Housing Corporation have resulted in the addition of nearly 100 housing units for low-income families and individuals. A task force on homelessness spearheaded by the county and the cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti is ready to submit a final report.

Mayor Sheldon and Suzanne Shaw, chair of the Board of Commissioners, share the vision of a prudent alliance where practicality makes more sense than turf consciousness. County Administrator Robert E. Guenzel and City Administrator Neal G. Berlin have crafted the mechanism for workable collaboration.

By this time next year, we hope to see more tangible results from this effort, which could serve as a model for other units of government.

Perhaps devolution isn’t all that bad. If nothing else, it is permitting us to prove that the "whole is larger than the sum of parts.”