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Ramsey County Workforce Investment Board

2011 Accomplishments

Strategic Goal:  Ensure alignment of education and resources to meet future business needs and opportunities.

I.  The WIB will strengthen its role as a strategic leader in workforce development through oversight, communication and advocacy efforts.

Evaluate workforce development programs for which the WIB provides oversight, recommending action needed to utilize WIA funding most effectively for Ramsey County.

Providing community leadership for workforce development and program oversight to the implementation of WIA Title I funded activities in Ramsey County, the WIB completed the following:

-     Completed and submitted the 2011 Local Plan to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) identifying how local resources will be spent.

-     Assisted in developing and approved a Request for Proposals for WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Services, reviewed and selected vendors to provide these services in the community.

-     Reviewed proposals and selected vendors to provide YouthLEAD services in the community.

-     Reviewed performance outcomes for the YouthLEAD, WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker programs.

Position the WIB as a main point of contact for State, Regional, County and City economic, business and workforce development partners. 

The US Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employment and Training Administration’s Office of Workforce Investment is leading a Career Pathway Initiative with an aim to help the public workforce system and its partners build effective career pathway programs for adult and dislocated workers.  Minnesota was chosen for the project by the DOL and Minnesota chose the WIB’s Healthcare Initiative as the project on which to base the state’s work.  A team of 13 representatives from the WIB, DEED, Goodwill/Easter Seals, MN State Colleges and Universities, MN Department of Human Services, Saint Paul Public Schools Adult Basic Education (ABE), Greater Twin Cities United Way, Saint Paul College and MN Department of Education attended meetings in Washington DC where they worked with experts to further develop the FastTRAC model.

The WIB participated in DEED’s strategic planning sessions intended to develop a statewide plan for workforce development to ensure that resources are effectively reaching Minnesotans with greater impact.  Recommendations were developed in the areas of Education and Training, Focused Populations, Employer Involvement and Integration of Services.

Raise awareness of legislative developments affecting the local and national workforce system through data collection and information review.

The WIB’s 2011 Legislative Agenda endorsed the MN Workforce Council Association’s state and federal legislative agendas and Ramsey County’s request for Building Lives funding. Additionally, the document included a statement that acknowledged funding challenges and supported maintaining funding for workforce system clients and strategies to meet Ramsey County workforce development priorities.  Updates on state and federal funding were provided during the year including the effects of the state shutdown, the decreases in WIA funds and movement of WIA reauthorization.

Convene a Blue Ribbon Commission to recommend strategies and action steps to reduce racial disparities in employment in Ramsey County.

In response to recent data showing employment disparities in the African-American and American Indian populations locally, the WIB, with the support of the City of Saint Paul and Ramsey County, led a Blue Ribbon Commission of 20 WIB and community members.  The Commission’s charge was to identify and recommend strategies to reduce racial employment disparities in the Ramsey County metropolitan area over the next five years.  Meetings focused on information and data gathering with presentations by subject matter experts, as well as processing and identifying strategies.  The final report, Everybody In:  A Report to Reduce Racial Employment Disparities in the Ramsey County Metropolitan Area, was presented to the WIB, the Board of Ramsey County Commissioners and the City of Saint Paul Council.

II.  The WIB will actively engage in workforce opportunities through local and regional collaborations to meet the needs of employers and jobseekers in Ramsey County and beyond.

Conduct a comprehensive environmental scan utilizing various sources, including labor market information and business-specific data, to allow the WIB to inform policy direction and take action on workforce development opportunities.

The Issues Awareness Program was developed by the WIB as a vehicle to process information in order to inform WIB members, businesses, funders and other key influencers about key workforce issues in Ramsey County and position the organization as a strategic thought leader in workforce development issues. The first brief was developed which identified manufacturing and healthcare as the sectors on which the WIB should focus its resources.  Community partners used this issues brief as a resource for their sector selections.

Tom Stinson, Minnesota’s State Economist, presented on the state economy during the great recession, the current recovery and operating in a “new normal” to the WIB.

Minneapolis, in partnership with Workforce Solutions, received $4M from the Department of Labor to provide short-term green training to individuals from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Saint Paul and Minneapolis in an initiative called RENEW.  The WIB’s role in RENEW was to coordinate business outreach and conduct an environmental scan to identify the need for and availability of green jobs in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.  Efforts to inform the environmental scan included gathering information that is available to the public, creating a list of questions for local employers to identify their understanding of green jobs and the availability of such jobs within their companies and working with outreach partners to interview businesses. 

Continue collaboration with local healthcare and community partners through the WIB’s Healthcare Initiative as well as metro-wide or statewide projects.

In response to data predicting a dramatic shortage in healthcare workers, the WIB has continued its work in addressing workforce needs in the healthcare industry with a focus on medical office careers.  These positions can serve as significant entry points into the healthcare field, growing the pool of healthcare workers who may be trained to fill other in-demand healthcare careers and increasing the individual’s earning potential. The Healthcare Initiative addresses the employment, training, and education needs of low- and limited-skill workers within the context of employer needs.  The WIB’s partners, which includes HealthPartners, Goodwill/Easter Seals, Saint Paul College, Saint Paul Public Schools Adult Basic Education, Saint Paul Community Literacy Consortium, Saint Paul Public Housing Agency, Lifetrack Resources and Workforce Solutions, were able to leverage an existing wealth of knowledge and community resources that ensures the initiative addresses the needs of employers, job seekers, incumbent workers, and Adult Basic Education participants.   The resulting training program is a unique blend of technical education with adult basic education coupled with support systems that shows promise of higher student success in attaining the credentials needed to secure an in-demand position.  A goal of this initiative is to replicate the model for other training opportunities, meeting the needs of employers while assisting job seekers obtain jobs with laddering potential.

The Healthcare Initiative has received four rounds of funding.  During 2011, the Collaborative Grant and FastTRAC I were completed, FastTRAC II continued and FastTRAC III was initiated.  FastTRAC II brought the initiative to the credit-side of Saint Paul College and FastTRAC III proposes to conduct an environmental scan to determine additional jobs that are in demand along the medical career pathway and further develop the support systems for the students in the program.

Due to interest in the Healthcare Initiative, partners presented to a MnSCU Trustees Board Study Session on Developmental Education and participated in a presentation on Learner Web (an online tool being used in the HI) for the NY Regional Adult Education Network in New York.  The WIB provided information to Workforce Strategy Center, New York for their research project on “Building a Higher Skilled Workforce: Results and Implications from the Bridge Connect National Survey” as well as to HealthPartners Human Resources.  DEED’s FastTRAC 3 kick-off meeting included a detailed presentation on the program.  Additionally, the Healthcare Initiative partners were part of a plenary session for the Joyce Foundation Shifting Gears Cross-Site meeting with teams from Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, and Wisconsin and provided an update to United Way as a part of their 2011 Lasting Change Tour.

The Healthcare Initiative partners created a checklist for practitioners in FastTRAC modeled programming that outlines the action steps helpful in planning and implementing an integrated program.  It includes how partners interact and what is required by participating agencies as they work with the students and partners.  The goal was to eliminate the need to reinvent the wheel each time a group embraces a FastTRAC initiative.

Collaborate with regional partners and professional organizations to create and implement coordinated workforce and economic development efforts, keeping WIB members and partners informed of challenges and opportunities.

In support of RENEW, the WIB conducted an environmental scan and coordinated business outreach.  In their business outreach, the WIB contacted business organizations and worked with DEED Business Services and Minneapolis staff to connect with metro-area businesses.  The WIB’s goal was to identify 20 jobs for RENEW; through the partnership the WIB identified more than 305 job openings related to RENEW training for participants.