Column: Chad Adams, City View

A few weeks ago, the League of Minnesota Cities, Association of Minnesota Counties and Minnesota School Boards Association released the report “Focus on Outcomes: Redesigning Minnesota’s Local Government Services.”

The report derived from six local government innovation forums held last fall throughout the state.

Albert Lea Mayor Vern Rasmussen and I had the opportunity to attend one of the sessions in Rochester to provide our insight on innovative measures we are implementing and to also learn from other jurisdictions in southeastern Minnesota.

One of the themes from the report’s recommendations and conclusions involved the need for local governments to strengthen our partnerships with our neighbors. An emphasis should be placed on “strengthen” because we have developed strong partnerships with a number of agencies and organizations in the past several years. Some examples include sharing a law enforcement center with Freeborn County, the boathouse project that included a partnership between the city, Albert Lea Community Education and community donations, as well as the animal shelter expansion, a collaboration between the Freeborn County Humane Society, the city and community donors.

There are a number of other successful partnership stories that could be noted, and city leaders recognize that other opportunities need exploration.

During the neighborhood budget meetings this past fall, one of the more frequent conversation points was on sharing services and collaborating with other agencies on providing services. We discussed other possible services for review in the next year and recently have begun the formal review of some of those areas, including the city’s fire organization, as well as possible partnerships or more sharing of resources for the Marion Ross Performing Arts Center, senior services in the community and the number of parks the city maintains.

The city has also been active in meeting with our area partners to discuss future opportunities. For example, city and county leaders have been meeting the past few months in a joint shared-services committee to discuss possible areas for strengthening partnerships and shared services.

The Freeborn County Board of Commissioners and Albert Lea City Council expect to meet in concurrent session later this spring to discuss options or recommendations. Albert Lea school and city officials have also been discussing existing shared services such as facility use, the Youth First program and the school resource officers, to mutually benefit each organization.

Working together with our area partners has helped the city maintain both services and quality levels of service while facing shrinking budgets and resources.

These budget challenges likely may continue to persist, but we will continue to explore and build on our partnership strengths.

Henry Ford once wisely stated that, “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”

We have demonstrated significant progress and success these past several years by forming strong partnerships, and I look forward to adding to those successes in the future.

 

Chad Adams is the city manager of Albert Lea. His column will begin to appear monthly.