LEADERSHIP TEAM MEETING NOTES
May 14, 2009
In Attendance: Jerry Haisler, Roy Highsmith, Ben Lopez, Sue Bailey, Vickie Gideon,
Kimberly Patterson, Gerry Fluharty, Terry Gearhart, Vivian Naramore, Susan Kamas, and
Horace Dicks.
General Discussions, Last meeting:
Training Opportunities: See page 2 in handouts. Front line staff visited TSTC Waco and was impressed by the facility. Their “tailored” short-term programs will begin June 1, 2009. Heart of Texas is taking care of the WIA certifications. TSTC is also reaching out to the TC Taylor Campus. It is a work in progress. WF Administrators and LT: Market to staff (and customers) and discuss our high goals for training enrollments.
Closed loop Team: The Job Seeker part is in progress. BSU to provide more input on the business customer part. Have much of the JS side “fleshed” out now.
Start designing questions. What do we ask and, style, etc? What are the trigger points for the survey as the populations are different? ACTION: Comments to Linda by May 20.
BRAC: Applicants do not have to reside within the 60 mile radius but must be willing to work in the 60 mile radius. ACTION: Resolve policy on radius of impact.
ACTION: Also discussed change in policy to delete that which states that they applicant must be drawing UI at the time of application and change to show that they only need be a dislocated worker under the common definition. NOTE: I understand right now we are doing any dislocated worker on UI (broaden from Vets and Military exiters on UI) and getting pretty good participation and referrals. Jerry to discuss with Vickie and Lewis to see if we should broaden further (we have to get to 67% training enrolled!).
Stimulus Activities:
Summer Youth: See Debbie’s e-mail in handout. Program is full now. Job fair is set for Killeen on Saturday. Discussed who will cover and ensure arrangements are made in Debbie’s absence. Also need press coverage. NOTE: all this was planned and handled!
DOL Conference: Discussed DOL conference last week. May be some changes in the current TEGL. Still a work in progress. Transparency is the word and reporting, reviewing, auditing will be heavy!
Co-Enrollment: Can we and should we co-enroll stimulus and WIA? Yes but transition time frame is the question. We would have to ask for a DINT to go before 1 April, 2009. TWC says OK on customers enrolled after Feb 1, 2009 but none enrolled prior to that i.e must be new customers. Ben indicated that there is a precedent to getting the DINT waived but it must go through Reagan. The instance he was talking about is a performance issue however, and the feeling is that TWC won’t budge on this. Vickie asked about where support services funding comes from and can it come from stimulus? Yes and we are anticipating NEG grant too, but we must keep in mind the 67% training requirement. TALENT support services will continue to come from TALENT first. ACTION: Linda, follow up and line out the different eligibility groups, show funding sources for training and support services by grant such as TALENT, NEG, TAA. Provide a “chart” or some “visual aide” to organize where enrollments and expenditures should come from. Include performance targets and show where they intersect or are different.
Support Services: Roy is publishing a policy letter concerning revision of support services. Susan and Jerry indicated no on needs related payments.
Summer Program Video: Will be done this summer with the best sites highlighted. Show what the stimulus dollars are doing.
Transparency: Gerry reported on a website in Oregon that has links to what is happening to the stimulus dollars (transparency). We could do this as well to include the kinds of training available with dollars expended and the summer video as well as other ideas. Also noted that the CA website is one of the best. ACTION: Susan/Gerry to discuss in two weeks and create something local that does this for us.
Training: TAA and Rapid Response training is coming up in June. Training opportunity with Greg Newton is coming up. Focus is on Stimulus and what is happening. We may want to invite the community colleges. ACTION: By June 1, Jerry and Susan get info on what we wish to have and confirm subject matter and the dates for training.
Louise Ledeaux is having a training resources overview. ACTION: Ben to attend. Also possibly Debbie and others may go as well.
360 Assessments: All have had their conference with Ed Mullins. Ed was very complimentary of the organization and combined results from the 360’s; he said he has never seen an organization as well aligned as ours. Overall the LT and other comments were favorable about the process. Ed’s suggestions are on Page 19 of the handout. He wants to get us together and see how this fits together from an organizational perspective. Strengths and weaknesses. Next step is feedback on opportunities. This would include all those who participated in the survey. Jerry noted that anyone can do the skills builder sets and he would encourage that. We also have additional 360’s available. We might want to revisit Insights as well since we have many new staff. We do have resources now, but have a heavy training schedule for the year. ACTION: Jerry to schedule dates for the debriefing with Ed Mullen.
Texas Quality Examiners: Texas Quality is recruiting examiners and if anyone is willing to do the training we can pay for it. It is very, very time demanding. See chart page 23. TX Quality conference dates are out. If you want to attend let Jerry/Sandra know ASAP.
Newsletter: Gerry reported that he has received hardly any input for this month’s newsletter.(Lewis was the only one!). It can be news, pictures, LT or any other meeting minutes, etc. He reminded the team that administrators (Vickie, Lewis, Kimberly, Debbie, and Linda) are responsible for this. The goal is for the data to be to Gerry no later than the 25th of each month. ACTION: WF Administrators/Linda that have volunteered should submit each month. There was a question about who was responsible in BELTON – but Linda was identified!
Ad Campaign: Need to order new customer and center handouts. Billboards will be up in the next few days.
Quality Conference for Educators: Richland College was impressive with their presentation. Has a log-in system for employees with display of real-time data for measures. Our presentations were well done and well received!
New Assessment System: Roy presented a new assessment system that is available. It measures the work skills related to job retention and is not unlike the 360 assessment but measures different things. The LT doesn’t believe that, given the high cost of the system, the benefit is there and we need to wait and see where the emphasis goes on assessment as it may be mandated. In addition, business customers are not buying this kind of thing right now due to the recession. ACTION: Roy, Wendy, and Roseann to look at the Profiles assessments (we have $6000 credit) to see if there might be utility in those for our customers.
Performance: CHOICES staff are doing a good job. Single parent mandatory is at 50% and they are exceeding the other single parent measure. They are also climbing in the other measures. There is a penalty review to help the denominators. Participation rates up for Milam County. The denominator is about 350 for the last 3 months but increasing in Coryell. Nothing dramatic though. Food Stamps are where the increases are. Medicaid/FS on the rise and case loads are up. Also may have added pressures with RIO.
WD Letter on Transportation: See handout pages 26-29. This may be an opportunity for RIO. It is not clear on some issues. Getting transportation assistance requires tracking in fiscal and could be a staff issue if RIO is included.
Video Conferencing: Terry and Vivian discussed video conferencing options. We may now have the $$ reserves to get this and will explore. IT budget for 2009-10 has been adjusted. The focus is on infrastructure and upgrades.
Next LT meeting is June 18 in Temple.