Travis County Commissioners Court
December 13, 2005
Item 15
15. To take appropriate action on staff recommendations regarding proposed expansion of Travis County's investment in workforce development services.
>> good afternoon.
>> [indiscernible] I will talk as fast as possible. [papers shuffling - audio interference]
>> we have been briefed on this.
>> you have. Okay. Great. Sherri flemming wasn't able to be here this afternoon, I am here in her place, martha with health and human services. And you have been briefed on this. It's a follow-up staff recommendation to -- to the workforce development proposal that we had in the fiscal year '06. Budget presentation. So to make all of this happen, which is basically kind of strategies we laid out during the budget process, we would actually have to have a follow-up item as appropriate in terms of amending certain things where we already have existing contracts to add more things and where we don't we would have to have new contracts; is that correct?
>> correct.
>> okay.
>> just wanted to run by you all just formally this is what we hope to do with the resources that you all put in front of us. The package, the first couple of slides were laying out the general concept that we are looking at. Trying to vike that balance between -- strike that balance between what are the needs of the residents in our community that we are serving, but also the employers in our community, that's where the option is for us to really get some good. For looking at those jobs that are really out there that people can take advantage of. Actually it's really fortunate, the timing is good since the first thing this morning you all heard from chief smith. Classic example, came to us a couple of -- several years ago now said look we have got a thing here, there are jobs out there, that can be filled, there's an option we can get some benefit from doing this, we can make it make all of these pieces fit together. And as I came in earlier this morning, I was struck coming in the back of the door, getting a lesson putting up this building next door discussing with the cadets what would you do in a building like that has this old brick, it was really a wonderful little microcosm of what they are doing there. We did -- the presentation tries to lay out the basic flow of what's been proven to be successful in workforce development. Extensive outreach, careful assessment, what is the best thing, both in terms of training, educational, what are the opportunities that are going to be feasible for a participant. Obviously if someone is an ex-offender you have to look at different options, career paths. Unfortunately the health careers aren't a viable option right now. That's a model that we have looked at. You have seen before different formats looking capital idea going back. Commissioners several of you were on the court back when that started, when I started doing this stuff. First part of the package is to expand what we are doing with capital idea. It's a longer term model. The main issue there is they are proven to be very successful as many of you all have seen. A participant as of a certain level ability to enter the program. A pretty large commitment. Talking about two years or more. Not all on our dime, but a two year or more commitment to get through the training, get started, get into those jobs. On the end when they have gone through that, you are talking about 15, $20 an hour wage jobs to start. Get through that, they are done, not coming back to the county for much of anything except maybe to get roads to the house to buy. That's one part of the package we put fort. The second part we are trying to be real innovative, trying to fill the gap in here. Pointed out in the capital idea for example you have to have a certain level of stability to make that kind of commitment to start. A lot of people come to the county, coming into our buildings from hhs looking for rental, emergency assistance, going to the clinics that you all are paying for through the hospital districts, coming out of the jails. They are not in the position to make that kind of commitment. What can we do right away to help get someone at least start odd that path? Started on that path. We are proposing a partnership with work source, we call it a rapid employment model. The idea someone will go to that basic laid out earlier in a slide, get through that whole process in a matter of a couple of months at most. We would enter it, points of entry through our community centers as well as through work source centers. Eligibility screening done on their sites by their program specialists, on our sites with the contracts with goodwill, get people on the right pathway. Working with them to use -- offer a preemployment training, deal with basic behavioral things that tend to get in the way when someone doesn't have a good work experience, history, evened out on the front end. We have got into place, working with work source now, they have done an r.f.p. Since they will be paying with most of the training to identify training providers that can get occupational specific work done in that short time frame. 8 have responded. Offers a couple of variety of options, some that are going to be viable for ex-offenders, some more for a more general disadvantaged population. We will be getting the review of those things done hopefully tomorrow and -- a little more solicitation for people out there that we know that could fit that didn't respond, they had the option to try to get a few more, more options we have the better.
>> what is the deadline.
>> the deadline for the r.f.p. Closed yesterday. So since it's more of a -- of a -- of not based upon dedication of any dollars, it's identifying people that are in community, willing to and able to provide the type of service that we want. We have 8 employees that at first glance appear to be responsive and meet the requirements laid out. What we are looking at is particular in the area of ex-offenders, we only have a couple of options right now on the table. We have earth moving equipment, available through a.c.c., which is an option, also two different proposers around truck driving, which is to some degree an option, although it can become an issue about if you are doing long distance travelling out of state kinds of things. We are looking at a couple of other people in community that have not responded, we are curious as to why, if they would consider the supplemental looking at the construction trades in particular, we would like to build some more options in there. Obviously as -- you know as we heard from kimberly before lunch today, we have a significant issue with jail overcrowding as you are well aware. If we can help pick some of those people up on the back end coming out, getting them into skills, getting them into jobs, they are making money, maybe they won't come back. At least that's the hope.
>> lawrence, one thing that is different about this is there is a pretty big spike under what's listed under evaluation. The explanation that I got from sherri had to do with there's a lot of one-time setup costs and then that number substantially drops in years out in terms of being able to measure our outcomes and our performance and it's getting into a new contract with the ray marshal center and it's really reflective of one-time costs and then it really becomes something that is quite cost effective.
>> we have looked at a pretty large chunk of money on the front end. Just to build the system, put it in place, get those reporting processes in place, do a lot of the setup that's necessary. What we are hoping to get is not simply an evaluation over a $400,000 investment. We are looking at an evaluation that's going to cover more like between the city and county, three plus million dollars that we are putting into workforce development, hopefully also covering a lot of the work that the workforce board is doing as well. We get a much better picture about a community wide impact which is something that I think the courts asked for a long time, done the best we can, here's an opportunity to get a really solid picture, put that in a sustainable process instead of me doing some -- some kind of sort of looks about the same, looks like we have got about 400, or 500 people in the jobs, that kind of thing. We can get a much better picture, sustain that over a longer period of time. Taking advantage of the relationships that they already have through twc. Through the department of labor, at the federal level. Also hopefully get them to do a lot more work around qualitative stuff, with petitions and employers that we are trying to serve in the process.
>> with that --
>> I知 finished now.
>> with that I知 trying to put my arms around this as best I can. [indiscernible] of course is -- as Commissioner Sonleitner mentioned a spike that really an evaluation process could [indiscernible] into this thing. When 7 rolls around, different allocations, as far as moneys are concerned for each one of these particular categories that we are looking for for fy '06. My question to you is when will we actually be able to have the necessary data in place doing the evaluation process to say, yes, this is a wise investment, yes, we are reaching the folks that really do need employment opportunities in this community. Yes, let's go forward because of ... I知 trying to -- because I see a lot of things in here and -- inner working parts. An example, opportunity Austin for one, somebody that we became partners with here this year as far as a partnership relationship that we have also had that partnership, relationship with others here. I知 just trying to make sure these that are just coming on board, I want to make sure [multiple voices]
>> two answers to that question. One is that everything that we are doing will go through the existing contract approval so we will have performance measures built into those contracts along the lines that we currently have. Basically we would ask anyone [indiscernible] to give us reporting. If you go back basically slide 8 in the packet that you have. How many people serving, completing training, of those completing how many are getting job, of those getting jobs how many are completing and what wages are they getting. We will substitute that with the contract with the ray marshal center is to get, move beyond that self reported process, which assume we have in place, they can provide those numbers for you at any time or at least after 20 days after the end of the reporting quarter. But we will add in working with the ray marshal center is a couple of things. We will add independent confirmation of that information. Right now we have self reported information. We put a lot of burden or there's a large burden for the contracts due to follow-up. They have to track down and find if they train 100 people, they have to track those down or at least the 70 or 80. Find out where those are. Working with the ray marshal center we can get a more independent confirmation of what they have been able to produce. That information largely will depend on two things. What is the time frame of the given training so in a rapid employment model we are talking about the complete training within as little as four to six weeks. Then we would simply have the time lag that exists from -- in the formal data systems. One of the primary information sources would be unemployment insurance records. Every paycheck going out, if an employer is paying unemployment insurance, that goes into the system. And it's just there's a six-month lag in being able to get that information back out. If anybody is getting paid, we can find out what we are getting paid. So it would be -- so if we started January completion by February, March, probably another six month lag to get that information out, so we could have that kind of formal information as we go into -- as we are going through the budget process next year. To have at least a basic idea. Granted that would be a fairly small sample, so it wouldn't be, you know, be all, end all, but it would be a start.
>> what I知 really embrace more than anything else, we look at job training, job creation, but also very important to me is job retention.
>> correct.
>> without that job retention we will see persons that may have had a job this week, but next week is unemployed again. I知 trying to embrace that job retention because in my mind that is the true measurement of what we are doing here for somebody to be employed, not only retain their job -- I知 sorry, go ahead.
>> our contract [indiscernible] the real key outcome as long as I have been working on this stuff which is five, six or more years, has been job retention at six months. We've had one contract that had an exception that was focused exclusively on ex-offenders, looking at a three month retention. Giving them latitude giving the stiffer challenge they were taking on. We are going to build that in right now in working with work source, joint component of this, going with the six-month retention. The advantage that we also have in doing the contracting with the outside evaluation is that using data systems that can continue providing that longer term. Six months gives us a good indication of reasonable stability, but we are not creating a -- an overwhelming burden for the provider. You know, if we start asking the providers to do that kind of work, not just at least months, but -- at six months, but 12 and 18 months, they end up doing all of their time --
>> but are we just tracking it? Or do we have a program that insists, because job retention to me, job retention is whoever has the job, doing it. Now the program is not what -- we are going to whip you into staying somewhere for six months, is it?
>> what we tried to do is build in some support as a transition. Knowing that someone has not worked for a long period of time, then -- then they are going to take -- it's going to take a little bit of additional support to get in and get started. But over time that's -- it's weaned off. So for the first period of time when you are making that first jump into the workforce again, we will work with say for example at goodwill, if they are a goodwill client under our contracts, we would be able to help with troubleshooting if something comes up. Someone they can call. So, you know, my car breaks down, I can't get to the office. Well, we'll have a -- the job coach essentially is in place to help figure out you know either help them fix, not fix it for them, but help fix the problem or at least make sure that they say, well if you can't get there, you need to make sure that you are going to contact your employer, let her know what's happening so you don't just not show up. So it's trying to strike a balance between what kind of help is appropriate for someone to get started and get on their feet, but also not so much that it's -- that it's a gift. So it's -- it would be a transitional thing. Once you get on the job, there's probably a lot more that's going to take place in terms of coaching, helping, supportive stuff. But over time you get a little more in the habit of working and getting into the mindset to keep a job than you know you are on your own. If -- if the job has been done around the front end in terms of training and development and placement, proper placement, then it's -- they should be able to -- to make it work.
>> we need to put it in the contract, the contracts that we need a status report in six months?
>> we will have --
>> otherwise it would be difficult for us to make next year's budget decision without some sort of a report, won't it?
>> we will have a-- a -- quarterly reporting process will be in place anyway. So we expect to have the first quarter, the programming hasn't begun under the -- under the -- with the fiscal year starting, we will look at the first quarter it will be done as of January, February, March, we would have that information in April and then we can look for partnerring with using the contract [indiscernible] to do some more ad hoc information collection, so we can make sure that we have good information in hand for you all's attention.
>> okay.
>> judge, this won't be a surprise to you because it came up last Friday during the community action network meeting. But I want to make sure before we sign-off, before we sign-off on the contract. That we have a full and lively discussion with them about their commitment to the community action network, the possibility that opportunity Austin is the source of funding, not our money, not the city's money, but their money to reinvest back into the community action network because some of us are -- are on the -- on the stirred and agitated side in terms of the pulling of the beyond modest contribution into the community action network, somehow there's not an inner relationship between c.a.n. And what's going on with the economic development and workforce development. So -- so big-time sending that signal that I intend to have some -- some discussions about all of us being in on this together and knowing what their commitment is to c.a.n. Before that contract is finalized.
>> I speak to their commitment to -- I can't speak to their commitment to c.a.n., but we have had discussions back and forth with them regarding, direction going back, something that was made regarding what kind of deliverables can we expect from a deal with the chamber of commerce and opportunity Austin. When we began the discussion, the focus was on relating the -- the work that they are doing in the schools, around the schools in career readiness, higher education awareness, trying to focus and make certain that the people are participating in the youth employment program, the county operates, are getting into those opportunities. There has been a change in staff. As many of you all know, jeffrey richards was the vice-president, he has since left to take another job in the community. The new person in his position has come forth with a proposal more -- more focused on literacy, adult literacy, workplace lit literacy questions. So we are kind of back and forth, sherri is still more interested in the -- in the youth focused aspects of it. So we are going to have to go back and sit down with them, okay what is it -- what are they going to be able to do that's going to get us what we want. I think the question we have heard the further question, certainly in the discussion --
>> so there is no misunderstanding, the chamber has been a $2,000, two, 2,000 a year contributor to the community action network in terms of that large planning group. Of course all of the large area that's we deal with related to -- to education, special needs, health care, anything and everything and they need to be at the table, they need to be a contributing member and they want to 0 out their contributions thinking somehow they don't play a role here. I think they do. I think that it is very much interconnected to what's going on with opportunity Austin. So I知 staying on task here so that my county attorney does not scowl. But those are good discussions that we can have, they need to be at the tail. This is a lovely point to be able to have those substantive discussions with them.
>> is your recommendation we pull the [indiscernible]
>> I知 comfortable with this as being a strategy. What I am saying is that before that contract is finalized and voted on, we need to have those discussions with the chamber where where they are on the community action network. I would tell the staff to not be prepared for a -- for an affirmative, positive answer from the chamber.
>> the basic action would have to be discussions on many of the existing contracts with -- goodwill, capital idea and american youth works, completely neglected to cover is small [indiscernible] partnership, so those would be amendments to existing contracts. We also ask your permission or permission to -- I don't know if that's the proper term, but we would like to go fort with a contract with work source for the joint components of the issue, primarily the rapid employment project. That could also include the small child care investment that's included there, which follows up on some issues that came to light about this time last year about how families are removed from care rather abruptly in many cases because they failed to pay their portion of the required fees. What we hope to accomplish is to help those families get whatever waivers they can so that they can get their payments down to what they can make so they can stay in care, so they can keep going to work, keep going to school, obviously if some parent loses care, then they are back to square one in many cases. The last portion would also be a contract with the ray marshal center for evaluation services as Commissioner Sonleitner pointed out, fairly large investment on the front end, drives down significantly as the maintenance of effort over the ensuing years. Also trying to work with some other partners in the community both work source and the city of Austin others to see if we can get them to take some of the ongoing costs of evaluation as well.
>> when we invited, when opportunity Austin, the chamber of commerce, wanted to enter into a relationship with Travis County, as they have done with other governmental entities, city of Austin, 291, among others, it was in the -- my understanding of that presentation, when we went through it, it was looking at the job retention, those things that are brought up. But however also working with work source and this is -- as one of the entities. Now, I really don't know exactly how extensive that's been. But I do know that they are a part of this process and maybe again a lot of these things may need to be exhausted to the point where we know that this is still their position. I don't think that's changed. Now, I just now I just feed to know how do we get there with what they say they are going to do, be able to measure and the time frame, I think the judge brought up a good point. We need to look at this in six months, as far as the status, as far as implementing, having this as part of the contract. I can virtually go ahead and support something like that. But I definitely want to know if the integral and moving parts of this thing to make sure that all of the partners that have come into partnership with us in this particular effort are doing their part, doing their fair share to address the needs of those that are in dire needs of employment opportunities here in this community. Again I知 really looking forward to working, you know, as much as we possibly can to make sure those things happen with all of the partners.
>> we have clear direction, every intention to make sure whatever agreement is reached with the opportunity Austin, the chamber of commerce will be able to clearly show to the Commissioners court in the future what it is that we are getting for that money and what --
>> exactly.
>> with our investment.
>> exactly.
>> move approval of the recommended strategy.
>> second.
>> with the understanding that the contract ought to have a provision that -- that requires a six-month status report to the Commissioners court.
>> yes, exactly, judge. Thank you. Any other discussion today? We will see the specific contracts as they are presented for approval.
>> as soon as I am able to work through with marietta, yes, sir.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you all very much.
>> let the chamber know Commissioner Sonleitner is headed down that way for a discussion with them.
>> I think they already know that I知 coming [laughter]
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, December 14, 2005 9:40 AM