County seeks ways to share costs

Nick Schirripa
The Enquirer

Calhoun County Board Chairwoman Kate Segal wants to bring local elected officials and administrative leaders together Wednesday to look for ways they can cooperate.

The Calhoun County Summit on Intergovernmental Cooperation is aimed at bringing city, township, village and county officials together to examine how to lower costs and increase efficiency, said Segal, D-Battle Creek.

State shared revenue is decreasing. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has signaled her intention to require collaboration between local governments if they want to receive full shared state revenue in the future.

"We're being proactive in the sense of what the state is saying," Segal said. "This summit will give us a chance to examine local opportunities for intergovernmental cooperation."

More than 50 people already have registered, Segal said, including representatives from all levels of government in Calhoun County.

The daylong summit leaves time for lunch and conversation among leaders, Segal said.

The featured speaker and facilitator is John Amrhein, an expert in local government and a Michigan State University district extension educator.

Amrhein has facilitated other intergovernmental cooperation summits and has experience in state and local government organization and process, public budgeting and finance, taxation, intergovernmental agreements, strategic planning and meeting management.

Segal said the Calhoun County summit will be Amrhein's fourth such meeting in the state in recent years.

"We will be one of the first, more urbanized communities to look at cooperation," she said.

The goal is to establish a list of collaboration ideas, Segal said, and for officials to commit to working towards those agreements during the next year.

Segal said there also are plans for a series of smaller meetings after the summit to take a look at the implementation and progress of cooperative agreements.

Nick Schirripa can be reached at 966-0692 or nschirrip@battlecr.gannett.com.

Originally published April 21, 2007
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