Brighton Area Schools Reach Agreement with SELCRA

After about nine months of negotiations, Brighton Area Schools and the Southeastern Livingston County Recreation Authority (SELCRA) have finally come to an agreement on the use of school facilites. 

Brighton Board of Education members approved the joint user agreement during its meeting last week. 

Superintendent Greg Gray said the majority of the changes are in that it is a three-year contract instead of an annual one, and that SELCRA will now pay the district a flat fee. 

"The flat fee takes a lot of the administrative work out of it," Gray said. "We used to have to sit each month and go through bills and there were discrepencies, it was an absolute nightmare. We worked for months and months and months on this."

Beginning July 1, SELCRA will pay the school district $30,000 per year, which will be submitted to the finance department in 12 equal checks of $2,500 each month. 

The fees will not put Brighton schools in any better financial situation, Gray said.

"We looked at that and it kind of hit the sweet spot in terms of still being able to maintain fields, but not raise rates significantly for programming," he said. "Once again, we're not in this to profit large amounts of money. We're here to offer programming for our community. We want a viable SELCRA."

The agreement is retroactive from July 1, 2012 and runs to June 30, 2016. Disputes will be settled by SELCRA Director Derek Smith and Brighton Assistant Superintendent of Finance Maria Gistinger. 

"This is long overdue," Smith said. "It feels good to be done with it an moving on. The best part about it is in the best interest of both parties involved, we signed a long-term deal, so we don't have to go through this process again for another two years."

However, Gray said there will still be an annual joint meeting between both boards.