OCM BOCES can be a model for the benefits of cooperation

To the Editor:

As district superintendent for the Onondaga-Cortland-Madison Board of Cooperative Educational Services (OCM BOCES), I am writing to heartily applaud the efforts of Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney and members of her shared-services panel for their efforts to improve government efficiency and lower costs for local taxpayers. 

OCM BOCES is pleased to be participating on this panel. In fact, shared services have been the essence of our organization for more than 65 years. Under the county’s shared-services plan, OCM BOCES is introduced with the words, “Anything that OCM BOCES does is done as a shared service between two or more school districts.” In that same document, an abbreviated appendix of our shared services for school districts stretches across three pages, with more than 100 services listed. These programs include instructional support for teachers; student programs such as special education, alternative education, and career and technical education; labor relations; management services; and an abundance of technological and instructional support through our Central New York Regional Information Center. In every category, our goals are the same: to improve achievement for all students and to do it in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Why so many services? OCM BOCES was created in 1948 for the exact purpose of providing shared services across school-district boundaries. “Shared services” is who we are and what we do. The resistance I have heard regarding “shared services” in our region — when OCM BOCES has been doing this successfully for nearly seven decades — often puzzles me.

The fact is, shared services save money and allow school districts to put tax dollars where it matters most: advancing student achievement. In 2015-16, OCM BOCES saved 23 component districts more than $50 million through cooperative business services alone. That included $977,134 for gas and electrical purchases, $1.97 million in workers’-compensation savings, $3.35 million in cooperative purchases, and a whopping $44.44 million through the CNY Health Insurance cooperative.

The financial model for OCM BOCES, as for other BOCES across the state, might be one to consider on a larger scale. If a school district is interested in a service at OCM BOCES, the two organizations sign a cooperative service agreement. That purchase, in turn, is often eligible for state aid. If a district does not want a service, it simply does not opt to buy it. In addition, at OCM BOCES, we partner with school districts to constantly assess, customize, and improve the services where they need them most.

As the first phase of Onondaga County’s shared-services panel comes to an end, I would like to commend the contributions of everyone involved. I would also like to encourage them — and our community — to look to OCM BOCES for the positive benefits that are possible when municipal entities cooperate and work together.          

Sincerely,

Jody Manning 

District Superintendent & CEO — OCM BOCES

Contact him at jmanning@ocmboces.org

Back in March, two young members of Congress from Texas, Beto O’Rourke and Will Hurd, became brief Internet celebrities. Unable to fly back to Washington, D.C. because of a snowstorm, the two hit the road together, tweeting, and livestreaming their trip north. They fielded questions along the way on everything from the war on drugs to immigration — and so ended up holding what O’Rourke called “the longest cross-country livestream town hall in the history of the world.”

What sparked people’s interest was a fact that, a generation ago, would have been unremarkable: O’Rourke is a Democrat, and Hurd a Republican. They disagree politically on many things. Yet somehow they managed to share Whataburgers, sing along to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” joke with colleagues of both parties — and wind up signing on to each other’s legislation once they made it to D.C.

That this struck a chord with the national press and hundreds of thousands of Facebook viewers shouldn’t come as a surprise. When I talk to people about Congress and Washington in general, I’m impressed by their hunger for bipartisanship. Americans of all stripes believe that the institutions of representative democracy are not working as they should. And they want members of the two parties to work together more.

The litany of forces tilting our politics toward polarization is long and dispiriting. The political extremes, left and right, make up perhaps a third of the American public, but they’re disproportionately active within their parties and help drive polarization. This is amplified by Americans’ increasing preference for associating with people who share their views, and by the army of consultants and politicians who use negative politics to bring out their “base” and sway those in the middle.

The institutions that once sought the middle ground no longer do so. The media has become more impulsive, more aggressive, and far less objective. Strong, sophisticated, well-financed interest groups have learned to play the political game hard and to brook no compromise. Political parties that made it their job to build consensus have set it aside. Political and congressional leaders, far from seeking to build the center, find reward in pursuing conflict and confrontation. As a nation, we are far worse off because of this. At home, we get deadlock, dysfunction, and loss of faith in our political institutions. Abroad, we’re seen as indecisive and incapable. So how do we fix this?

First, we need to bolster the middle by expanding the electorate: the more people who vote, the less influence held by ideologically driven activists who are unwilling to compromise.

Second, politicians need to step up — and most especially, the president and the leaders of Congress. They have to remind people that the job of the policy maker is to put the country before politics, and that it’s necessary for us to work together to meet our challenges.

Third, Congress needs to fix its practices with an eye toward reversing polarization. It should return to the deliberative order of doing business, and to real conference committees, which would require members to meet, discuss, and compromise with one another. It needs to reduce partisan control of elections, the influence of special-interest money, and gerrymandering for partisan advantage. Congress also needs to strengthen the integrity of the electoral system. I am heartened by several private-sector groups that are determined to push Congress and the president to work together to get things done.

Finally, we as citizens have to convey to politicians that there is a right and a wrong way to conduct the dialogue of democracy. If we want to keep this country strong, prosperous and free, we need to place a premium on politicians who know how to work together — and with people who don’t agree with them.           

Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years, representing a district in south central Indiana.