Travis County Commissioners Court
November 18, 2008
Item 27
Now let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners court. This morning we did postpone until this afternoon the health and human services items. 27. Consider and take appropriate action on request to release a request for services for workforce development services.
>> good afternoon. Sherri flemming, executive manager for health and human services. And I have with me lawrence liman planning manager with our research and planning division and our lead on our workforce development investments. You have a memo that describes the plan for the services we are soliciting in the request for proposals and I will have lawrence go through with you sort of a summary of those services.
>> thank you very much. We have tried to do in framing our request is build upon the best practices both nationally but also importantly what we have done locally, the evaluation that the Commissioners invested in our work
>> [indiscernible] services. We have flexibility to more effectively address individualized needs, particularly trying to address those through single stops for job seekers. Also trying to more effectively leverage other resources in our community. Toward this end, we've -- what the rfs lays out is a series of outcomes which we have found through both research and application of common sense. Contribute to -- to help lead individuals to self sufficiency, ranging from adult based education, literacy, esl type of services through formal higher education programs to job search and placement and everything in between. Figuring that any step in that direction is helping lead our residents towards better earnings and more self sufficiency. We have also attempted to describe some basic criteria just to outline the box in which we want to fit these services. Looking for -- one, we want to have multiple options for clients through any one point of entry. We don't want to see people that are in need of help to find jobs, to get skills, travelling from one door to the next to get each and every single thing they might need. We want them to go to one place and find more than one option there. So if someone needs to -- to look for different levels of training, starting with basic education, they have access to those things at one point. But also looking from the perspective of what the job options are. We want to not see just a training program that leads to one career path or one industry, look for the job -- the range of options available to them. We also are looking for that. Looking at the job placement. Very meaningful connections with employers. We don't want to have a trainer say trust me, this is what we need to do. We want to have connections with employers to look at both what the jobs are going to be, what skills need to be available, helping drop curriculum or even so far as helping to offer flexibility for working residents to get into training. We are also looking for a -- require the participation in the evaluation that we have in place. We have the report the last -- our next evaluation report will be coming out very shortly. Hopefully we will be seeing good results there. To try to identify priority populations that are of most interest to -- to the county. Looking at formerly incarcerated persons, recipients of our emergency services program. The idea if we are helping someone to pay the represent, pay the utilities, rent. We may as well try to get them to come back to us. Recipients of other services, tanf and food stamps, foster care systems, we have such a large involvement in the foster care system with c.p.s. Also people with disabilities. So we -- we are -- we have intentionally left this fairly open to see what our community can offer us in terms of best ways to go about getting the desired results. We hope that we can get this out very quickly in turn and have our service in place probably by January I would hope. Given time to release, get responses back, get the review done and do negotiations.
>> I will call your attention to some of the evaluation considerations that we listed in the memo, also, the degree to which programs leverage other funding to provide services. The cost and time relative to other programs to deliver the desired outcomes, the likelihood of success compared to other programs, serving compatible populations. The utilization of evidence based practices and then the ability for the program to facilitate access to other supportive services because we know that folks will be more successful if they have access to child care and appropriate transportation and those other supportive services.
>> the list of evaluation factors that you just mentioned, what page are they on.
>> page 3 of the agenda memo. About mid-way through the page.
>> okay. I was looking in the -- in the proposed rfp.
>> page 19 of the rfp.
>> okay. Questions? Comments?
>> what does it really mean when -- when it says the minimum level of education and skills required to achieve self sufficiency obtains to rise. -- continues to rise. Why is it -- I mean, if you don't have it, you don't have it. If you didn't have it back then, you don't have it now, you have got the same problem. I mean --
>> I think as we go forward in time, that level has gotten progressively harder. That level of education is required for jobs, the desired wages. The number of jobs that, the quality of jobs, attached to jobs that are available if you have a high school diploma only or a g.e.d. Only are fewer and fewer and the wages attached to those are relatively lower and lower. So it's -- it's increasingly found that -- that self sufficiency wages that we are looking at we are hoping to accomplish required some degree of further education. In some cases is actual degree programs,
>> [indiscernible] capital idea for example is offering the bulk of their participants getting through an associate degree program to go into health careers, a large number. Could vocational certification. Could be -- you know, technical skills. There's a range of things. But we have increasingly found and the data is showing that this -- as every year goes by, the opportunities at lower educational levels shrink. You know, we can see now it's happening with -- with the manufacturing sector, increasingly -- decreasing portion of our labor market both locally and state-wide nationally. The job -- the job growth at high wages are at -- are at more technically involved skills and occupations.
>> I would add to that, that we know that a person living in the Austin Travis County area needs about $17 an hour to meet their basic needs. And that includes just their housing and their utilities and to be able to buy food. That doesn't speak to the quality of that housing or how they are able to meet their basic needs. And so -- so some of that also, I think, includes what it costs to live in our area. At that lower range. The lower -- the range might be lower, you know, maybe 12 to $15 an hour in another community where the cost of living is particularly -- and particularly the cost of housing is not as great as it is here at this moment in time.
>> yeah, I don't -- I agree with you, sherri. I mean part of that sentence that does make the most sense to me is required to achieve self sufficiency. That is because everything continues -- seemingly to get more expensive. Oh, I don't know. Maybe rents will come down because of the economic times, I mean, because there's an ebb and flow there with just economics. But yeah there's no question. I mean that -- that making the minimum amount of money just does not allow you to live in -- in our community. I think the only thing that's really affecting from the positive side of that, is the fact that there are the -- there are the economies that are creating albeit small windows of more affordability in some places just because of the market and -- and it being reflected by what's going on just economics-wise, but -- I mean this -- you know, y'all this stuff -- well, I have only got six more weeks to lament over it. But it is really, I mean, something that I don't know how we get our arms around it. I mean, it's -- the numbers of people not getting educated, not getting the things or not taking on the responsibility of doing the things that you have got to do in order to make it in life, to where you don't have to continually be propped up by public funding. I mean I realize there are some people that are just for whatever reason they can't ever get out of that. But boy I'll tell you what, if we don't find a way to really to really shrink the numbers. Unfortunately with more population, even if you don't have a greater percentage, you just, you know, have a greater number so -- so a smaller percentage still nets you more people that are in line with these services.
>> Commissioner, I think you are on to something, I mean, if you don't have education from which to -- to get some skills, then it's impossible to make it. That's why you need to make a sacrifice to get into some training. Go back and catch up with what you left behind. You didn't graduate, well let us help you get the g.e.d., so that you can -- can continue with a little more education, more skills, because otherwise I think that you will slip back. And then not have the -- have the safety net of education. To be able to bounce back. Then the other difficulty is when the dropout rate becomes cyclical and becomes the family and they never get out of it. I think that's a real, real difficult thing to not address.
>> the data is clear. Locally, state-wide, nationally, with more education earnings do go up. Annually, lifetime. So what we're really looking at is -- is in many cases a second chance. For whatever reason we're -- we're serving residents of our community for whatever reason we have fallen behind. Whether it's circumstances beyond their control, they didn't see it as valuable at the time. Whatever the cost. Those residents looked to us, our programming, county direct programming sometimes they look to other program that's funded through state dollars, local dollars for the city, workforce solutions, food stamps, tanf all of those options. We are trying to create more opportunities to break out of that. The only way to do that is -- is -- not the only piece, but the most central things to make that possible is to offer opportunities for education and skills. Those skills and education to give someone a chance to get into the workforce and get ahead. Just to get to as you describe Commissioner Daugherty to get out of that, just to get stable at least.
>> I empathize with what you're saying.
>> do we communicate with work source solutions enough to determine whether our efforts complement theirs?
>> yes. We are -- we are all times trying to work closely to make sure our investments are complimenting the much larger system to put into place. You have invested for several years, used our dollars through their system to help fill the gaps that they are unable to do. One of the programs that we have looked at to try to design what we want to see now is to try to learn from those lessons. We are now involved in a process working with workforce solutions, city of Austin, united way to really map out those local investments. What do we as local authorities have control over, what does it look like, whole investment going. It's not a matter of are we planning around our -- which I think after -- adding this one time investment is something in the neighborhood of 1.8 to $1.9 million in county money. It's our investment, the city of Austin, 2 to $3 million, workforce solutions has a total budget of something around plus or minus a few $3 million, about half of which is going into training and placement services. United way has some investments, really trying to get a good grasp of what that whole picture looks like. Make sure that what we're doing is flexible and responsive and is -- we're together most effectively meeting the whole need instead of what we think it is.
>> so we have got -- we have got essentially $250,000 here.
>> yes. We have $215,000 of one time funding and we have another $50,000 of ongoing funding that has been set aside for the rfp. We are asking that the court approve a portion of that for us to continue evaluation. We have said to you that -- that it's -- especially in your last, recent investments in workforce that being able to have our evaluators shepherding the process along with staff, has tremendously increased the quality of the information that we are able to provide to you about the performance of these investments. So we would like to continue that by dedicating a small portion of these funds toward the evaluation of this effort.
>> okay. Move approval of staff's recommendation.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much.
>> thank you. We didn't give you an opportunity to give comments. Do you have any cyd?
>> I apologize.
>> [inaudible - no mic] I have been so busy with so many things, I didn't realize they were asking for approval to issue the rfp or rfs today. I just need to look at it. I notice they want to have some community folks on the evaluation committee. I just need to understand that and talk a little bit about who that is and make sure they are on the key list. I am sure they have covered everything.
>> they are.
>> I didn't realize they were asking --
>> if we need to revisit it, by all means let us know we will be do it.
>> okay.
>> okay.
>> thanks.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 1:38 PM