I’m happy to say, last week was an exciting week in the City of East Lansing.

After months of negotiating and hard work by the East Lansing Healthcare Taskforce, last week’s Labor Management Luncheon and Budget Kick-off served as a much deserved pat on the back for all the union representatives and department directors who have helped in limiting our employee healthcare costs increases to 3.5 percent this year. In addition to a presentation of our five-year financial forecast, discussion of the FY ’07-’08 budget and engaging roundtable discussions, the luncheon brought together a lot of great people in our organization who have, through a collaborative process, helped to make East Lansing one of the more progressive municipalities in the state in a time of tight budgets.

The willingness of our directors and union representatives to keep lines of communication open has created a new and innovative type of bargaining process for our City. East Lansing is paving the way for other municipalities still utilizing traditional bargaining tactics, and that’s a great thing. I’m proud of all we have accomplished in the Taskforce’s five years, and am excited for continued cost savings and strong financial planning in the future.

After the success of our luncheon, it was great to hop back over to City Hall for the signing of a new VisionAIR contract alongside East Lansing Police Chief Tom Wibert. Through, yet another outstanding collaborative process, ELPD will now share new and more advanced software with six partnering municipalities. The new software, purchased to support better interoperability and data sharing among local law enforcement agencies, further conveys East Lansing’s willingness to consolidate resources by collaborating with local municipalities. I would like to extend a thank you to every staff member who helped with this new initiative.

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