Mediation gets results, official says

Mediators can help officials reach an agreement
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- You've read story after story about officials fighting for a bigger slice of the financial pie.
Columbiana County Commissioner Daniel Bing has a better idea.
"I can mediate," Bing said.
He has just completed training to become a mediator who can help solve problems to increase cooperation and stretch tax dollars.
He recently attended a seminar hosted in part by a little-known state agency, the Ohio Commission on Conflict Resolution.
"A lot of people don't know about it," Bing said.
As a mediator, Bing can be called to be a volunteer, independent third party to try to reach a collaborative or consensus-based agreement between elected or appointed officials.
The commission oversees mediation efforts in the state but also suggests ways government officials can avoid political slug-fests.
He said his mediation efforts will likely be out of the area to prevent any claims of political or personal agendas. But he believes those efforts will help the county in the long run by helping to make contacts in other parts of Ohio.
But the biggest benefit may be here in the county.
Commissioners generally meet with each county official over that official's budget annual budget. Because of the county's often-tight finances, determining how to divide the dwindling pie of money is often difficult and contentious.
But Bing said he has learned how Fairfield County has used mediation techniques to determine spending since 1996.
How it's done
All elected officials and department managers go to a daylong meeting that considers all requests for discretionary spending.
Fairfield used what the commission calls a "paired comparison" or "interpretive structural modeling."
The method can be used to rank budget items, capital improvements, or steps in a long-term plan. Those voting must decide which items have a higher priority than others, or which items should be done before others.
Bing said each office or agency sends two representatives, but each is placed at separate tables with officials from other offices. As the mediator brings up a specific issue, each table must decide its vote.
The results, Bing said, break up the turf and political wars and help officials see the big picture.
In Columbiana County, officials at the end of one year generally pass temporary appropriations to start the next year, pass another spending measure that runs into March, and then a final measure before April 1.
Bing said that one county that uses the comparison process passes its full appropriations well before the new year starts and ends the year under budget.
Fairfield County officials have said the method reduces or eliminates budget battles, creates an environment of compromise and helps officials realize they are part of a bigger entity.
wilkinson@vindy.com