Flint water panel calls for new emergency management rules

(AP) — Michigan should consider abandoning its one-person emergency management structure and instead install a team of three experts when deficit-ridden municipalities and school districts fall under state control, according to a report released Wednesday by a legislative committee that investigated Flint's lead-tainted water crisis.

Nine current or former government workers have been criminally charged since doctors detected elevated levels of lead in some children due to the discolored and smelly water supply in the impoverished city of nearly 100,000.

Other recommendations include the adoption of the country's toughest lead-in-water rules, increased transparency about water rates and shut-off practices, and the creation of a commission to oversee the state Department of Environmental Quality, which has been deemed primarily responsible for Flint's water problems.

A 2012 emergency manager law has been pinpointed as a factor in the city's water crisis, and the panel's report recommends that emergency managers be replaced with financial management teams that include a financial expert, a local government operations expert and an ombudsman.

— a constitutional amendment making it easier to discipline state employees and the appointment of an ombudsman to hear confidential state employee reports of misconduct;