In an interesting move, School Board Vice President Van Henri White sent a letter to Mayor Bob Duffy and City Council, including Council President Gladys Santiago, last week regarding mayoral control.

It was White and Duffy who got into one of the more heated conversations when City Hall met with the School Board about a month ago.

White has suggested all along that mayoral control is not the solution to the school district's most pressing problems. And he says that there are meaningful ways the two entities can work together.

For starters, White recommended that a member of City Council or the mayor's audit staff should be appointed to the School Board's Audit Committee.

And he recommends that the School Board change its bylaws to allow for a similar appointee from City Hall to join the School Board's Finance Committee.

The mayor and City Council have made it clear that they haven't got a clue about how the district uses the funds it receives from the city. Both committees address this concern.

It's no surprise that people outside the district, seeing a $750 million annual budget, make the assumption that there is waste, perhaps even abuse of those funds.

But it's always interesting to see that even School Board members who run on a platform of cutting the district's runaway spending get a crash course in reality once elected into office. A large percentage of that big pot of money goes to fixed costs - millions in transportation contracts, building maintenance, charter schools, and state-dictated spending.

The appointments that White recommends might give Duffy and City Council members greater clarity, so they can make meaningful contributions about where funding should be reduced or where more money is needed.

White also recommends that the two government entities create an Education Committee to address the many issues they face jointly. This would replace sporadic meetings with focused attention to the problems from both sides.

White has taken the initiative to look for real compromises that could produce the kind of outcomes Duffy has complained are missing. And frankly, his position is a clear first step compared to Duffy's incomplete responses about what he really proposes when it comes to mayoral control.

White's ideas deserve an airing.