November 14 2023 Minutes

Workforce Development Board Minutes

Employment Services - 315 N. 11th Ave, Bldg. B, Greeley, CO 80631
Meeting Location: First Floor Conference Room
Meeting: November 14, 2023 - 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Board Members Present:
Alex Kloehn, Lutheran Family Services, Rocky Mountains; Amanda Ericson, HRx Services; Bill Johnson, Yoder Family Companies; Casey Katofsky, Future Legends; Cecil Courtney, Denver Pipefitters Local 208; David Zumbrun, Chicken Salad Chick; Elizabeth Barber, The Greeley Dream Team; Jill Eaton, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation; Kelly Folks, Colorado Department of Labor & Employment; Lisa Taylor, The Weld Trust; Lisa Vaughn, Golden Aluminum Lori Cuno, Community Educational Outreach; Matthew Hortt, High Plains Library District; Michael Wailes, Weld RE-5J; ; Phil MacHendrie, City of Greeley; Rich Werner, Upstate Colorado; Robert Rigg, Elder Construction; Scott James, Weld County Board of County Commissioners; Shawn Croissant, Envision; Victoria Cordova, Banner Health;

Absent:
Aimee, Hutson; David Thompson; Justin Booker; Nick Spezza; Zach Huston

Quorum Present: Yes

Others Present: Andrew Chadwick, ESWC; CeCe Majchrowski, ESWC; Greg Cordova, ESWC; Karina Amaya-Ragland, ESWC; Ruth DeBoer, ESWC; Jesus Borrego, CDLE; Thomas Hartman, CWDC;

  1. Call to Order: 11:05 am
    1. Introductions
  2. Changes to the Agenda: Yes, there is an action item added.
  3. Approval of Minutes - Motion to approve by Matt Hortt, seconded by Amanda Ericson
  4. Unfinished Business
    1. Veterans Service Office
      1. The VSO is going to be joining ESWC soon; on Oct 16th Jeff officially took over that department and has been spending most of his week working at their building with them. They will officially move to ESWC's building this month. Tim Marquart is coming from the state DVOP team, Tom Gonzales is coming from AAA; they are both veterans and will be receiving training to accomplish all that the VSO office offers; Gwen Jenkins is coming from the VSO office as an administrative assistant once Tom and Tim are trained. We will be starting services from our offices on Nov 27th.
    2. Program Year 2022 Annual Monitoring
      1. CDLE staff came into ESWC's offices for 3 days at the beginning of October to monitor our files and processes to ensure we are meeting state and federal measures; upon our exit interview with them, we were given high marks in many areas. We do need to work on case notes in some units, bringing them up to the current CDLE standards; training is in place to accomplish this as we speak.
  5. Announcements, Updates, and Celebrations
    1. Awareness Committee
      1. The awareness committee is excited to take on a newsletter project, like that of Andy Yost’s WBL Blast. We would like this newsletter to be a quarterly and be filled with information about upcoming events that may interest employers, chambers, and other workplace entities. Andrew and Ruth are working with Weld County’s Office of Public Information to put together a template; The Awareness Committee will meet in December to discuss and fine tune the details of what else the newsletter will contain; more information to come as this project evolves.
        1. Amanda Ericson made the suggestion of putting a list of calendar events in the newsletter.
    2. Youth Committee
      1. Lisa Taylor – This month we have a slate of speakers for apprenticeships.
      2. Connor and Olivia are doing great, taking a more proactive role in opening and closing the meetings, transitioning the speakers and such. They attend meetings to help plan the agenda for the upcoming meeting. They are accountable to assist us in finding replacements for them when they are ready to move forward with their lives. This has been a great leadership opportunity for them and we hope to continue with having youth involved on this level.
      3. Our last meeting was at the south Weld County office; we try and meet there once a year. We had the rusty melon attend and cater, they spoke about their WW4Y participation and how they structure their work environment to promote a healthy atmosphere that teens love to work at.
      4. We had a great speaker from Roosevelt high school attend and encourage us to hold a meeting in 2024 there, and have the kids that are in the cooking program cater the event.
    3. Weld County Youth Conservation Corps
      1. ESWC received their accreditation this year. Holly Bernhardt, WCYCC supervisor, and Karina met with the monitoring committee for a full day earlier last month, they didn’t have anything that WCYCC needed to work on. They are going before the WCYCC board this month and plan on recommending ESWC's accreditation for another 3 years.
      2. WCYCC applied for a planning grant with ServeCo to get back into water conservation and ESWC is excited to serve the Weld County communities through water audits, toilet installations, and more.
    4. One-Stop Certification
      1. ESWC submitted the One-Stop report and was recertified; we do this because we are a local that the board is under.
    5. High Performing Board
      1. We have received high performing board status for a 6th year in a row; we are the only County in Colorado to have this standing. We appreciate and thank our board members participation in helping achieve this and look forward to another year with our continued High Performing status.
  6. Board Focus
    1. NAWDP Youth Symposium
      1. Greg, Shelby, Andy, Lisa and Liz all attended the NAWDP Youth Symposium in Las Vegas; The keynote speaker was impactful, his name is Chef Jeff, he owns a restaurant, is an American chef, bestselling author, and popular public speaker. He is also a former felon, having served nearly a decade in prison.
      2. We visited some local hubs while out there that incorporated not only their local library, but also local businesses. So, a person could visit a local hub in their neighborhood instead of having to go to a workforce center. The hub concept is basically anything a client can receive service-level at a workforce center they can do at a hub. Maybe not assessments, but they can meet with their case manager, job search, get assistance with resumes, etc. One of the hubs was in a library, and was open the hours of a library, which gives options to help people outside the 8-5 hours.
      3. Another interesting fact learned while there was how their centers promote and job search based on the ABCs – Any Job, Better Job, Career Job; Meaning, meet the current need rather than what you want them to need. From an employer perspective – It’s always good to ask as an employer are you the A, B or C employer, know it, and own it.
      4. There were discussions at the hubs, about how sometimes our services are not accessible, so how do we make our services more accessible? This is a great topic to think on; maybe this is a topic we can incorporate into our Regional and Local Plan?
    2. High-Plains/ESWC Weld Trust Letter of Intent
      1. Matt Hortt – This has been a long time in the making, we started the discussions of a Mobile Workforce Center after the last NAWB Conference in March. High Plains Library District (HLPD) have joined forces with ESWC and submitted a letter of intent to the Weld Trust to help fund this project. We may travel with the food bank and provide library and ESWC services all in the same place; we may choose another route. More information to come as this partnership unfolds and this project gains more footing.
    3. NoCo Works
      1. At the last training and development group meeting it was discovered that there is a need for a resource guide for businesses of all sizes. There are talks about how to accomplish this. Another meeting will take place the week after thanksgiving to see how we can categorize everything according to the size of employer. A website should be on the horizon, but for now we need to figure out how to get the information public.
      2. Lisa Taylor - Now that sub committees have all launched, now the steering committee wants to know what their purpose is, so they are working on how they should function from here on out. We are hoping for feedback from the NoCo Works Committees.
  7. Miscellaneous
    1. PY23 Q1 Dashboard
      1. If you have looked at the dashboard you will notice, we are looking good with our program enrollments. I know it looks like we have already spent most of our funding from WIOA, WP and EF, but we will receive the bulk of our income in November so don’t panic. We are doing good and our future projections look good.
  8. Action Items
    1. Policy Updates - Motion to approve by Lisa Taylor, seconded by Amanda Ericson
      1. We had to update our sub-recipient policy (which was included in the agenda packet for your review).
      2. Approval of the 2024 Schedule – Motion to approve by Shawn Croissant and Seconded by Elizabeth Barber.
  9. Adjournment – 1:10 pm

Strategic Goals

Continue seeking clarity and improving connections for programs and services between Employment Services and the businesses and individuals in the Weld County Community.

Increase awareness and clarify the impact of Weld County's workforce network by attracting organizations and businesses to utilize the available funding provided to Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) targeted populations.

Increase Weld County Workforce Development Board (WCWDB) member engagement by involving board members in planning, leadership pipeline development, and committee involvement.

Working with intention by participating and supporting ESWC, sector partnerships, and their workgroups to ensure our regional workforce has equitable access to opportunities for quality, life-long education, and individual advancement to secure the future of work in Northern Colorado.

Board Recruitment

We do not have any vacancies – great job recruiting everyone!

Upcoming Events

Required Meeting: TBD
Awareness Committee Meeting: 12/12/2023; 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM (12:00 PM-1:00 PM Virtual)
Youth Committee Meeting: 11/28/2023; 11:45 AM to 1:30 PM (12:00 PM-1:30 PM Virtual) 

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