Cities, School Officials Talk About Common Concerns

When it came to identifying their concerns, and city and Farmington school officials found plenty of common ground during a Tuesday night meeting, held at in Farmington Hills.

Working with facilitator Dr. Michele Harmala, officials spent more than an hour collecting individual ideas that were eventually organized under four prioritized headings: labor relations, funding, barriers to cooperation and education reform. Then officials came up with specific actions in each area, which included:

—Lobbying together for pension reform.

—Creating a list of barriers to cooperation.

—Holding joint public forums.

—Streamlining the union bargaining process.

—Modifying the Headlee Amendment, which places a cap on property taxes, and Proposal A, which shifted school funding from local to state revenues, including the state sales tax.

—Working together to identify legislation all groups could support and taking a proactive approach.

Harmala, who is the district's executive director for student support services, kept officials on track throughout the timed exercise. She was asked by Superintendent Sue Zurvalec to lead the discussion.

"I worked for Oakland Schools for six years and did lots of facilitating of groups," she said.

Harmala said every facilitator has a few tricks to keep the process moving. To get everyone's attention Tuesday night, she raised her hand and asked officials to raise their hands as soon as they saw hers. That was a sign to stop talking, and it worked, for the most part.

Harmala said the list of ideas will be compiled and shared with an existing Joint Intergovernmental Task Force, which has already identified a list of 10 opportunities for cooperation, from bulk diesel fuel purchases to shared dispatch services. Officials formed the task force at their last joint meeting in June 2010.

School board member Frank Reid, who works on the task force with Farmington Mayor Tom Buck and Hills City Council member Randy Bruce, said their discussion thus far has been wide open.

"Nothing is off the table," he said. The group has even talked about ideas that won't benefit everyone. "Even if it's a service upgrade ... it's worth pursuing."