Travis County Commissioners Court
March 8, 2005
Item 33
Now, we did indicate our intention to call up the chamber item and that is number 33. At 2:15, we missed that. 33 is to consider and take appropriate action and request for financial partnership, greater Austin chamber of commerce, on opportunity Austin.
>> and that will call up the line item next. Mr. Davis?
>> yes, judge, as you know, we [papers shuffling - audio interference] and of course had a chance to get back with the opportunity also both chamber folk and they in return gave us additional backup to this particular request and of course we are going to look forward into moving forward with this, however, we want to make sure that the county session of what we're doing is for a lot of things and some of these are also display and depicted, and so each one of you have a copy of the thing that was sent to you through hhs and other departments that deal with workforce and other outreach programs, after school program, and things like that, and of course we would like to land on an opportunity to go into the direction of workforce and see if there can be a link by having a financial commitment and hopefully on a five year basis, however, I know we couldn't do it every year, have to come up before the Commissioner's court, we couldn't commit after five years but I think we can intend to go in that direction of that commitment, so I asked hhs basically to look at what we're doing as far as workforce, and a lot of the things that we're doing with the child after school care. In fact one that was here this morning was another organization that had retrieved national recognition, so I wanted mr. Rawlins to come back and respond basically if the Commissioner's court had any questions, questions from the hhs folks, to see how we connect this together, so that's the point and this is where we had it this time to how we can take the $100,000 commitment and also break it up into more for five years basically into the workforce into that and how we can end up getting the hhs representatives involved at this to bring about the connectivity and this is basically for the employment end of it, judge, so hhs and representatives to come up, be glad to go with my other questions.
>> we do have a few representatives here from the greater Austin chamber of commerce.
>> and judge, as they're coming up, I thought you also added well to Commissioner Davis's request here in term of how to frame our discussions today in terms of how to indicate support and to basically figure out process that allows us to kind of match up what we are interested in or already doing to the workforce development initiatives because it certainly -- we -- between capillary turning foundation, and there are multitudes including what we heard this morning from the american youth work, there are multiple contracts that we've got underway already that can be augmented or carved out to match our goals with financial partnership with opportunity. I -- I知 trying to get to both places in terms of I had already had an opportunity to hear about opportunity Austin but to get to a place of this is consistent be our budget guidelines that talk about that is something that can get preferential treatment as we go through the budget process is things related to workforce development. I知 not going to use the words work source because quite frankly that is a different issue entirely.
>> mr. Richards, jeffreys, congratulations, and also if y'all are ready to go ahead and get started, mr. Rawlins and -- and -- and mr. Richards, uh, we'll be glad to hear, you know, what you have given us and to see where we land on this this morning but basically to see the connectivity and again it appears to be workforce is the thing that we trying to look at as far as the linkage with the chamber and Austin Travis County. If you want to focus on other things I guess you can too, but I知 trying to narrow it down.
>> thank you, Commissioner, I知 mike rawlins with the greater Austin chamber of commerce. Let me first introduce jeffrey richard who is with me as my vice-president workforce initiatives for the greater Austin chamber. The information that we provided to the Commissioner's court along the lines of workforce development, the strategies of opportunity Austin, really can be framed in three overlying goals and that is to enhance the capacity of k 12 education system and graduating academically prepared students. Number 2 goal there would be to ensure greater numbers in a broader spectrum of students graduate from post secondary or higher education institution, ensure effective workforce training programs exist to train or retrain the current workforce residents of Travis County. Now, we can go into as much detail as desired or we can answer direct questions you may have and I may yield to mr. Richard to answer some of the questions.
>> one person that proposed how would it be able to -- let's say that we decide to grant your wishes and let's say that we end up in a partnership with you, financial partnership, and it's -- look at the -- maybe the high need category of -- of some of the folks in our workforce, and looking at the employment surveys and things that you do to employee us, how would we be able to indicate the actual person that is recruited and actually retain for retraining and also for training for those kind of jobs that the industry is asking for, how are we able to depict that and how would we be able to actually know that is the case and that person actually received help in Travis County?
>> Commissioner, let me attempt to answer that question.
>> okay.
>> under opportunity Austin, it's a multifaceted approach to job creation. One of the major components of opportunity Austin is our business retention and expansion effort. In that effort where we talk to c.e.o.s of local companies, in a confidential interview, we hope to identify workforce training need, existing business needs and workforce. When that is identified. We have a partnership of a number of organizations including work source who meets monthly with our group and once there is specific training needs of an employer or employer needs a new workforce that is communicated to work source who in turn as I understand it tracks their placement of individuals in there, so there is that opportunity that exists now, our effort and that arena is really to identify and communicate and facilitate that opportunities through work source. Now, as one of our strategies here, too, as you may have noticed in the information provided, we worked directly with skill point alliance former catf in meeting those adult workforce training needs, and they also do attract too the people who they work with that they place in the workforce, and i'll see if mr. Richard has any other comments.
>> thank you, mike, judge Biscoe, Commissioners, I would add and bring to your attention page 3, if you have these th document where the last paragraph talks about a labor market information report that we do on an annual basis that speaks to the heart of that survey, finding those matters and finding about market trends, personnel, where they're going, how long they're staying, so I think that would answer directly what you were asking about.
>> that was basically a linkage I wanted the court to see on that particular question and of course there may be other persons or other court members additional information has come from the hhs department and also the information of the backup that was supplied to us by you from our last meeting. So are there any other -- may have additional questions, so continue questioning.
>> in the same documents we got here, jeff, are there specific -- i'll call it agencies, dollars, attached to each one of these particular goals already, it's almost like somebody going through the list of being registered for a wedding of who has already got what. Do we have attached to different kinds of things here already, or are these still outstanding issues that you need to try and attach names or organizations to?
>> Commissioner, I think the short answer to your question, all of these objectives are budgeted out of over a five year period of time and the numbers that you're seeing next to -- the dollar numbers that you're seeing under each objective is that amount. We have as far as implementation an meeting that objective, we have strategies in place, we're not searching currently for any additional organizations, if you will, to execute those strategies, we decided that on the front end, the corporation board, how we were going to execute them, we have two partners specifically that we are working with. One is skill point alliance which was cofounded by the chamber a number of years ago, a focus on k through 12 education which we also founded a number of years ago, so those are the two primary partners who will be working with us in successfully implementing the strategies. Obviously there's a lot of collaborative effort that is not financial arrangements with other organizations exist in the commune.
>> I guess where I知 headed is I think in terms of where my greatest interest is is to find something that gives us a real deliverable in terms of something that we can say, yes, we made blank happen, and when I知 kind of going through here, the one under short-term workforce development, and this is basically dealing with education and worker retraining, which is consistent, there are some real deliverables here related to the college and career fares, getting people involved with the financial aid -- financial aid, orientation at colleges, these are things that there are true deliverables attached to it and its got an annual funding of $122,000, whereas the others are all extraordinarily important but they seem to be more gathering information, et cetera, et cetera, and that was the one that just caught my attention is that it really seemed to be about more of a harder deliverable and that's the one where I was kind of not my attention.
>> if I may, we would welcome the court's investment in those areas and I use that term advisedly, investment. We talk to all of our partners in terms of investment, some are interested in longer term approves which is why we talk about k through 12. Others are interested in more immediate and you have expressed an interest in something even more concrete in the short-term and I think there's nothing wrong with an investment that can be targeted there. I would say that the -- some but not all of our investors have had a similar question and desire. Others have -- in fact I say the majority, we have a list that we provided last week which say we want to invest in the whole package because we have big shoulders and this is for the entire community for, you know, 72,000 new jobs, 3.9 billion in net new payroll, but other investors are more concerned about the here and now, and so either one of those approaches would be acceptable, I think.
>>
>> (one moment, please, for change in captioners...)
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>> ...the piece that we choose to bite off ourselves. As long as we are attached the investment and the [inaudible] to results, then I知 happy. I知 say why didn't we leave that commitment open. The emotion is at least $100,000. It may well be that after that the sky is the limit or it may be one dollar more than that is too much.
>> judge, and with that I want to make sure [indiscernible] short term or long term, I know in both instances they are both needed, but then again we have some very critical employment needs in the short-term setting. And of course -- and I guess -- well, also I conclude that i'd like for my office to be notified on whatever we do with h.h.s. And far as its commitment and still working with the opportunity and anybody with the office that would like to be continually involved, I think we would like to be involved in that.
>> I知 very much interested. I think we all are.
>> so keep us posted on where we are on this because this is a real big deal of the county and the people of Travis County. So we've just got to make sure that we firmly commit that with this investment [inaudible] and things of that nature. So, again, it's a lot of good information and a lot of good things you all are doing for 2008 and we're just glad to be a part of it. I want to thank you all.
>> Commissioner Daugherty.
>> well, I feel obliged to say something. Commissioner Davis asked me if I would commit to $20,000 a year or $100,000 commitment because last week what I understood was there was an asking [inaudible]. Now I知 hearing there's $100,000 and it could be $100,000 a year. Commissioner Davis, would this motion -- I do owe it to you that I will not be voting for this because of that. I did vote -- I was going to vote for $20,000 a year seeing what we were going to get after our first year. I mean y'all, I think you are doing a great job on getting out and raising these dollars, but, I mean, we just had a group in here that we fund, you know, life works, youth works, at 17,000, 57,000 for the metro trails and workforce development for $61,000, and I will assure you that most of the people that are on the page that we fund, and out of the $3 million that is funded for workforce development out of h.h.s. From the city and the county, we do about a million one and the county dogs about a million does about a million eight. I just don't know where all the dollars come from, y'all. You come to us last week and you come to us and want to us hold tight on our -- on what we're going to set the tax rate at. You come to us, you want us to give abatement that's over and above and beyond, and I think that the home depot data center was still a great vote for this court because it made all the sense in the world and that is -- those are the kind of things, I know you all worked hard on them and I didn't have to think twice about jumping in behind that deal. But I知 telling you there are so many needs that come at us, I知 going to have to tell somebody no. And it is -- I mean I think that this is also going to be one of those things that I was going to feel real bad about saying, okay, I want something very objective about what we get out of our $20,000, now we're fix to go spend $100,000, I think.
>> it may be that we spend 20,000 a year. I知 just saying let's look at the program first.
>> but we're not committing -- with this vote, this does not commit us for $100,000 commitment.
>> it's committing to $100,000, but it could be $100,000 or five years or ten or one. I知 just saying let's make the call later on. There will be an opportunity to review a specific recommendation; that is, a program, a date, an amount. You see what I知 saying?
>> $100,000 commitment is what gets my attention. Ultimately what we're going to vote on if I vote yes, I知 voting to spend $100,000 whether it's one year or five years. And I was prepared to go, okay, i'll do $20,000 and then i'll want to know what we got out of it. But I think I tpwhad the --
>> and I can still see your point and I understand exactly what you are saying, Commissioner. But I hope you understand exactly what I asked mr. Richards and mr. Rollins. I told them that I would like the court to be connected into this as we go through the process. And, of course, connectivity meaning that I知 looking at performance, I知 looking at how many persons have been helped, how many people have we looked at as far as that commitment that we're dealing with. And my opinion, the $20,000 was the thing that we talked about earlier and that's what it really came out of last week's discussion and this is not to say that that still is going to be the $20,000 setting of $20,000 per year. And so it's not to say that at all. But it's just the pointed that everything is still going to have to be scrutinized and examined closely as we go through the process, otherwise what's the use of spending the money if it's not doing any good. I understand where you are coming from on that. So really the commitment is still there, but, of course, I think what the argument was last week is that I would like to have made a motion that I commit something over a five-year period however I wanted to break it down into 20-year increments based on the performance of what they are doing each year.
>> that's not the motion.
>> I知 not visualizing us handing a check to the chamber of commerce. I知 visualizing us supporting a program that compliments greater Austin, greater opportunity Austin, is that the name of it? See what I知 saying? This gives us an opportunity, I think, to implement what we have always or already said is an important budget guideline for '06. We will do it our way. I知 just saying let's do it more specifically with a specific program there, specific budget with a specific recommendation on what action to take next year and how to do it. So [inaudible]. It may well be that we conclude rather than spending anything in '06, let's wait until '07. But at that time we will have a specific program before us that we're looking at. I知 not sure that would make sense if workforce development is a priority of ours and we -- we-even if we have short-term goals. I知 saying we retain the flexibility, but we are on record to go committing at least $100,000 to help implement opportunity Austin. The workforce development part of it.
>> I think it bears a telling piece of what happened this morning with the folks from american youth works was the young lady who came and testified that she was a part of our criminal justice system and a drain on us related to her children and health insurance and certainly being a resident of our jail system. And now because of a job and job development, she is on the path to self-sufficiency. And as my county judge loves to say when he speaks, the best crime prevention is a good job, and i've never forgotten that and I believe it. I want to get less people in jail as opposed to more people in jail. I知 there. This is the kind of upfront -- it's an investment in prevention because I will already tell you we are spending way too much money on the criminal justice system. Over a 10-year period it's more than $1.2 billion. Think of what we could do with that human capital if we could turn lives around in a positive manner.
>> can I ask you a question, please? Do you think that we will not be asked for any more money out of any of this list? That you gave us for our workforce development? Are you not going to come to me and say I need more money, this program needs more money? I知 not against workforce development. I mean I think that we -- we show every year that we're willing to make a commitment. I mean I vote for most of those things. Now, if we're saying are not producing the outcome that we want. I guess in answer to your question, sir, I think if we have quality investments in quality workforce programs, I can't envision myself at this point coming in and saying those programs should be discontinued. However, I think that -- that what h.h.s.'s responsibility to this court is is to come back to you with a menu of programming that maybe encompasses what opportunity Austin wants to do in addition to the investments that you are already making. Now, I don't know that that answers your question in the way that you would like me to, Commissioner, however, I can't --
>> [inaudible] I think I know why I voted for you to get this job. And not to put you on the spot anymore, but thank you very much.
>> [inaudible] come forward with more requests [inaudible] asking for more money too. All I know is the investment in jails and that kind of stuff is a lousy investment. This is a fabulous investment. I think you've got three votes. Show Commissioners Gomez, Davis, Sonleitner, yours truly voting in favor and Commissioner Daugherty voting against.
>> the recruiting plan, I want to make sure we don't leave anybody behind.
>> and that $100,000 commitment is something that we have talked about initially and I don't want to back off that even if it's $20,000 increment, but it's still $100,000 commitment in my opinion.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 11:02 AM