In its first full meeting since June, the Ready to Work Advisory Board welcomed four new members, who sat through a two-hour meeting jam packed with data, stories and recommendations that tried to answer the same questions that have animated the board since its inception.
How can the city’s $200 million workforce development program reach more members of the community? How can the program get employers more involved? How does it ensure that those who complete the program find a quality job?
Advisory board meetings are supposed to take place every other month, but did not happen in August because there were too many vacancies to make a quorum. The City Council approved the four new members and reappointed several others earlier this month.
The new members got their first taste of the complexity of the program, which includes dozens of partners and lists almost a thousand possible training paths on its website that promise to ready participants for good-paying jobs in the region’s top industries.
Mike Ramsey, executive director of the city’s Workforce Development Office, ran through charts and graphs showing whether the four major partners — Workforce Solutions Alamo, the Alamo Colleges, Project Quest and ReStore Education — are on track to meet the program’s goals.
The ultimate targets, in place since February 2022, when City Council approved the program’s first full fiscal year budget along with $183 million in contracts, is to “intake” or interview up to 39,000 applicants, enroll up to 28,000 in training and place 15,600 in jobs. The program’s second year began July 1.
The last time the board met, on June 20, roughly 440 people had completed training, with 162 of those placed in jobs. At Wednesday’s meeting, the advisory board learned that 697 people have completed training, with 263 people reported to have found jobs.
The goal of the program is to move 80% of those who complete the program into good jobs within six months.
“So we’ve got some work to do on the back end of the pipeline getting people placed into employment,” said Ramsey.
The median hourly wage for these jobs continues to be $18, pushing the average salary up to $37,440, more than three times the median income participants report at intake.
The Ready to Work dashboard shows 8,466 people have been interviewed by intake workers, and 4,412 are in the training pipeline, up from about 3,000 people in late June.
Board members also heard stories behind the numbers. Ramsey described two participants: Diana and Joselyn, who enrolled in Ready to Work through Project Quest. The women became friends while completing the dental assistant training at the University of the Incarnate Word, and both now work at Downtown Dentistry, making $17 an hour.
Steve Nivin, who chairs the Economics Department at St. Mary’s University, later shared the results of an economic impact study commissioned by the city’s Workforce Development Office, showing a $61 return for every tax dollar spent on Ready to Work.
That return was driven largely by the increase in wages, Nivin said, but also included money that would not have to be spent on various social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The study “just reinforces how important the work that we’re doing is,” said board Chair Ben Peavey. “This is about people.”
With so much information presented, the board had little time to dwell on the study’s results, or the recommendations of a leadership group from the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, which did a deep dive on the program and offered suggestions to the board for strengthening it.
The board voted to add two new occupations to its list of approved jobs: clinical research associate and clinical research coordinator, two jobs within the allied health field that are showing strong demand and median hourly wage of $46 to $48.
In June, the board voted to include certified nursing assistants to the program.
After the onslaught of information, new board member Allie Perez, the chief marketing officer and chief operating officer at George’s Plumbing, and the founder of Texas Women in Trades, didn’t mention the success stories or the economic impact of the program so far.
“We have a lot of work to do,” she said. She said she was struck to hear Walter Perry, executive director of Suit Up!, a company that offers workforce training — and is an approved Ready to Work provider — describe how his 20-year-old daughter attempted to enroll in the program but was unable to get help. “That broke my heart,” she said.
Perez is joined on the board by Priscilla Aguilar, senior coordinator of student success at Palo Alto College; Stefanie Gaines, director of human resources at StandardAero; and Geronimo Guerra, president of the Communication Workers of America Local 6143 and of the local AFL-CIO.
