City, school leaders in Saline to discuss sharing services
Officials with Saline Area Schools and the city of Saline hope to start brainstorming ways to cut costs and share services.
The Saline Board of Education will vote Tuesday on whether to allow Superintendent Scot Graden to enter shared services discussions with the city.
City Manager Todd Campbell said some ideas were tossed around at a joint city-schools meeting in April for possibly collaborating on building and grounds maintenance, sharing information technologies services and partnering the city’s parks and recreation department with the schools' community education program.
“Obviously, it’s been a continuous thing for us to try to see how we can provide quality services to our residents as government funding continues to contract and shrink,” Campbell said.
He added the actual sharing is “step 1,000 and we’re on step No. 1.”
“We don’t know what is feasible or practical yet, but we certainly think there are some possibilities,” he said.
Campbell said the two groups plan to sit down together sometime in the near future to work on some of these things, provided the Saline Board of Education gives its OK at tonight’s meeting.
Staff reporter Danielle Arndt covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleArndt or email her at daniellearndt@annarbor.com.
Comments
Les Gov
Wed, May 9, 2012 : 3:58 a.m.
the real question is....why hasn't this already happen?
sellers
Wed, May 9, 2012 : 12:43 p.m.
They really do serve different audiences though, so the ideal situation would be to have independent. Take snow plowing, students, parents, teachers think keeping the school grounds clear prior to school starting is key, while other residents would rather have main streets clear before work. Technology: The district needs attention to needs from August through June, and after hours for many after school activities, clubs, concerts, etc. The City needs it 9-5 every weekday through the entire year. So the schedules don't line up. The city may also have governmental compliance and strict control needs while the schools are very academic in nature and require a different approach to technology. Can you guarantee that a Lodi township resident will not be funding the janitorial services for the City of Saline offices? Will such need for rigor in dividing time/resources cause more harm that good?
sellers
Wed, May 9, 2012 : 2:52 a.m.
Sounds like a good idea. It seems something like this may benefit the city residents more than the non-city district residents, but all should benefit none-the-less and a healthy city is important to the surrounding communities (e.g. help ease sprawl)