Love a millionaire ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Good morning. Today is Tuesday, March 10th. We're convening for a special meeting of the General Government and Social Services Committee. This meeting is a reschedule of our meeting last week, which was canceled. Call the meeting to order. The first item on our agenda is the approval of the February 3rd summary. Motion by Council Member Scutchfield, second by Vice Mayor Kay. All in favor signify by saying aye. That motion carries. Committee, we have three items of business on our agenda. The first one is an update, and I'd like to welcome to the podium Kevin Atkins, the city's chief development officer, to give us an update on our ongoing efforts for workforce development and job training. Welcome, Kevin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Get the PowerPoint ready. I wanted to start this morning by briefly touching on the timeline that we've submitted to you all. As you can see, back in December, we briefed a group of about 15 local stakeholders who perform training services here in Lexington. Council Member Henson was at that meeting to walk through some initial findings on some of the data that we had uncovered and get their thoughts on any other things they thought we should be looking at as well as get their take on the items that we had found at that point. So since then, we've continued to work as we've also worked on the redesignation process that the state is doing for local workforce districts. So as you'll see on February the 12th, the mayor, delegation from Commerce Lexington, Bob Quick, Luther Deaton, and others, and I met with the governor, the lieutenant governor, the cabinet secretary and deputy secretary to discuss the information that was left in you all's mailboxes about a week ago, the information on workforce redesignation. So as of last Monday, the rest of the timeline has changed just a little bit. The state workforce board met last Monday, and the governor came and asked them to step back, take a deep breath on redesignation. Let's go back to the steering committee and relook at the regions and not worry as much about geography as they had been looking at it in the past, and let's really use a data model. The other items he asked them to look at were competitive procurement of the workforce physical agents and service providers, as well as approving policies that would clarify the decision-making process and the roles of the local officials. Later in the meeting, the Workforce Board did approve those recommendations, as well as approve sending the process back to the steering committee. So where we have March 30 listed as the governor's redesignation, the steering committee is trying to set up a meeting that last week of March. So from that point forward, the timeline has changed slightly, and it will be dependent on when the steering committee finishes their work and it gets back to the state workforce board for approval to go to the governor for their recommendation. So, as you all are aware, the rest of this, last year we included money in the budget for Billy Peevler at Commerce Lexington to study the workforce issues for us specifically here in Lexington. What are our shortcomings? What are our strengths? So she's been hard at work in last year on that effort. But to be honest, we've taken up a lot of her time on the redesignation issues and helping us dig into the numbers there so we could provide the state with our thoughts along that line. So what you're about to see and what you received in your mailboxes is not, I'll repeat, is not her final report, but the information we've been working on on the redesignation process. You're going to get that report, her final report that the council funded sometime in April, and Council Member Stenet is going to hear that report at his June budget, finance, and economic development meeting. So it will be an opportunity for you all to ask more questions in greater detail. So what you're seeing today is the information that we've talked with the governor and others about regarding the redesignation process. Billie has been a crucial member in our efforts on this, and I really do appreciate what she's done. So with that, I'm just going to let Billie get up and give a little bit more detail and dive into the actual data of the presentation. Thank you, Kevin, and thank you, Council, for the opportunity to be here today. I know this is, as Kevin mentioned, this is not the final report, but in beginning to dig into this information, it is very important that we understand where we are, the changes to the law, and the opportunities that the new law presents as we move forward when we talk about workforce development. So having this data and this information, the education piece of it, is very important as we move forward as a community. Next slide, please. Oh, I have it. Thank you. Sorry. What you see here is the current workforce investment area, and I know I was at a previous meeting where workforce and how it pertained to our area and how we can make changes, some questions came up. So very quickly, high-level overview. The Bluegrass Workforce Investment Area is that blue area right in the center. It consists of 17 counties. Now, the federal law requires that the money come down to the state level through the governor. So the governor is responsible to do three things. Number one, he's responsible for designating the workforce investment areas. He's responsible for assigning a cabinet or an organization to oversee the dollars and their dispersal to the local level. And he's also responsible for setting up a state-level workforce investment board. So when WEA came out in 1998, the governor at that time designated these workforce areas that you see here. They're very similar to most of them are the same as the bluegrass ad areas. Eight of the ten, or nine of the ten actually, are bluegrass ad areas. Okay. Okay, WIOA, which will go into effect in July, is a great opportunity to redesignate workforce investment areas, look at what we're currently doing, how can we change that, and receive better services in our workforce investment area. So you may be asking why would we want to do that, other than the problems that have been highlighted previously in the auditor's report and the problems that the council reviewed with their resolution. Well, again, businesses don't do business the way they did 12 years ago. And if you look at when the ad system was set up 40 years ago, a lot has changed in Lexington. A lot has changed in that 17-county area as far as we're more of an urban, suburban core, and many of the outlying areas are still very agricultural and very rural. So we're a little different now than we were 12 years ago and 40 years ago. The workforce study so far has also shown if you compare Lexington and Fayette County to the Bluegrass Wia area overall, you'll see that about 40% of Fayette Countians have a bachelor's degree or higher. And in the 17-county total, that drops to less than 30%. It's really about 28%. So you see a difference in educational attainment. Data also shows that even though the Fayette County unemployment rate in November was less than 5%, we have pockets that are three times that. So unemployment is high as 15% in our urban core especially. So demographically, we're very different. we are about 25% minority versus 7% roughly when you take into account the 17 counties. So, you know, my question that I present, and I know Councilman Ford has talked about this, is are we getting services in the areas that we need services the most? So that's a question that I think we need to ask ourselves as Lexingtonians in Fayette County. So when we started looking at this and saw that we had the opportunity to make some changes, we identified first what are the problems with the current system. So when that money comes to the state, it's dispersed at the regional level. They call that a local level. And the state auditor's report identified with our local level several problems and issues. First, there were conflicts of interest, lack of accountability and fiscal integrity, transparency issues, lack of efficiency, and that creates a credibility issue with our employers in the area. So if you look at the next slide, this is actually a visual representation of the breakdown at the local level with the responsibilities identified, and you can see the color coding of the different problems under each of those responsibilities or tasks. So at the local level, we have our Workforce Investment Board, and then there's a locally elected official. And that local elected official is elected through the interlocal agreement, and currently it is written as the highest elected official on the Bluegrass ad. So when you look at who holds the contracts over on the left side, your one-stop program provider, the AD is the program provider. The AD is also the employer of record for the staff that is to support the Bluegrass Workforce Investment Board. They are also the fiscal agent. So they hold three of those contracts, and there's no reason why, as the local elected official being a member of the ad, would choose to give contracts to anyone else other than the ad. So that presents a huge conflict of interest. So with those problems being identified and the opportunity for change, if we look at the new WIOA law, it says that we can redesignate based on three criteria. So being consistent with labor market areas, new workforce regions must be economic development areas, and those regions must have the federal resources to provide workforce services, federal and non-federal resources. So the workforce investment board by the WIOA law, not the workforce investment board, the state workforce and education cabinet was required by the new WIOA law to identify a steering committee and to go through a process of changing or at least looking at the workforce investment areas. So as they pulled data, they made two suggestions to the steering committee. The first suggestion was to change nothing, leave everything alone. Their criteria that they used was if 70% of the labor market stayed in the workforce investment area, they made no change. So in each of these areas, at least 70% of the workforce stays in the workforce investment area to work. The second option that they presented was based on local elected official requests. So this was also an option in the federal law. If a local elected official or a group of local elected officials wanted to make a change, they could make that suggestion to the Workforce Cabinet, the Steering Committee, and the Governor. So you see two new red areas. You see Fayette County highlighted still in the middle of all the blue, and then you see a red area in southwestern Kentucky, and that's Bowling Green and counties with Bowling Green. I don't know if you all have seen some of their information that's been coming through email, but they are very interested in separating four counties out and making their own workforce investment area. When Lexington actually made the request to the governor, they put in the wording Lexington area. That meant that if other counties wanted to come along and be a part of this new designation, that we were open to that. But when the Workforce Cabinet looked at the information, they took it literally and only identified Fayette County. So, according to the federal law, the Workforce Cabinet pointed out to the steering committee that option two was not a viable option because it did not meet those three requirements that I just reviewed. It was not a labor market area. It was also not an economic development area. And it did not support the resources necessary to provide the services. Now, that's not just it wasn't all three. It was any of the one disqualified you from being eligible to redesignate. So when we saw these proposals, we started looking and thinking, yeah, we're really not satisfied with the information that they're putting forth. So I did a deeper dive on the data. And we looked at, well, what do we really want? and what would really help change workforce development in our region. So we really are asking for two things. Number one, we're asking for systematic changes. That's what Kevin was talking about, the policy changes. We want those conflicts of interest eliminated. We want a mandated competitive bidding process overseen by that independent third party, whether that's at the state level or whomever, whether we build a different type of system and have like a workforce designated legal entity to oversee that, but we want those services competitively procured. We want to strengthen the transparency and the accountability of the system and the spending and enhance collaboration within the private sector to really meet the needs of our employers. We also are asking for a geographical redesignation, just as you saw initially. the one county was Fayette County, but when we started really digging into the data, this eight county region with Fayette and the surrounding counties plus Franklin County is really more of a labor market area for us. So we asked the workforce cabinet, the steering committee, and the governor to take a look at this as a possible option for redesignation. The delivery model that we proposed included that separate legal entity, a workforce foundation. And this is a model that Louisville uses to some degree. They have a few things that are different that we've actually changed because we feel like that we can make it better. But in talking to experts and benchmarking across the country, a separate legal entity that is only focused on workforce development is a best practice and seems to get some of the better results when this is in place. And basically what this Workforce Foundation does is they're your brain trust for your Workforce Investment Board. Your Workforce Investment Board is a volunteer board. It's comprised of business leaders, community leaders, education leaders, and labor representatives. So they're volunteering their time, and although they may have the best intentions and be very knowledgeable about workforce development, it takes somebody to pull all the data together. So this workforce foundation would be completely focused on serving their needs, also implementing what the Workforce Investment Board approves and decides. So they would oversee the competitive procurement of services. They would oversee the performance of the one-stops. They'd be your brain trust, but also your checks and balances system to make sure that your fiscal agent is meeting the performance indicators set forth to oversee and make sure that they are paying what needs to be paid when the Workforce Investment Board says that it should be paid. So none of the responsibilities changes at the local level with the Workforce Investment Board or the local elected officials. It's just we have this additional entity in place to help support the system as a whole. The redesignation model that we have here was very interesting when we started looking at the data. As I mentioned earlier, the state used a standard of 70%. If 70% of the workforce stayed in the local WIA, they weren't going to change anything. Well, when we started looking at the data, we found that 88% of the workforce in the 17 counties actually work in the eight-county region. 88%, okay? And 81% of the workers in the, let's see, 81% of the workers in the current area actually live. So your population is in those eight counties, okay? And what we found is only 8% of those who live in the other nine counties come to jobs in that eight-county region. And only 2% of the folks, of the workers living in the eight counties go to the other nine counties. Yes, sir. Billy, if I can interrupt you at that slide. We want to offer you five more minutes. Is there a motion to extend our time? Second. Motion by Council Member Akers, second by Vice Mayor Kay. I know you're almost wrapped up, but that slide I thought was an important stopping point. Please continue. Sure. Thank you. I couldn't see the time, so my apologies. I would have talked faster. So what we feel like is this really does represent a strong labor market area. This is where the people live, and this is where the people work. Okay? We have limited exchange with the other nine counties as well. So the question becomes, how do we build this eight-county area and what happens to those other nine counties? And that's the question that the state and the steering committee are looking at right now. But as this eight-county region stands, we feel like we do have strong data to support this realignment. Not sure that it will go that way. However, we did make a good push, and the data does show a very strong labor market area. We also have an economic development region that is already established. With the Bluegrass Alliance, economic development works together in these eight counties already. Jenna Greathouse and her team work very closely with the economic development teams in those surrounding counties, and if we don't have the land available or the infrastructure available that an employer needs, then we look at those surrounding counties so that we have employment opportunities for our people here in Fayette County. We also have the public policy group that also already operates in these eight counties. And as you well know, we have the BEAM initiative between Lexington and Louisville. And finally, you know we have the education resources available to support this region. There are 10 colleges and universities within 40 minutes of Lexington. that are mostly in these counties represented. Finally, and I just kind of reviewed that slide, this is a regional recommendation that the state has put out. So WIOA presents an opportunity to put in kind of a middle level. So currently we have that local level and then a state plan. This provides additional regionalism kind of in that middle space. So the proposal that they are looking at are three regions, and kind of over that blue area, that little pink area, shows our eight county region along with, I believe, ten additional counties. That's actually the beam area. So we're already working regionally with these, our eight counties, with other counties in Kentucky. So we just wanted to kind of show that slide to show that, you know, we are promoting regionalism. We are not trying to do this individually. Although Fayette County has very strong data, more than 50% stay in this county to work, and we are the core of the jobs, we also understand that we've got to work across Kentucky as well. Next steps. Am I running out of time? Very quickly, Kevin mentioned we are working on the policy changes, working on the interlocal agreement, moving forward, whether we get the eight-county realignment or not, the workforce study. We will have that due April 28th and do a report out in June. And my suggestion as we move forward is forming that P3 Workforce Development Committee. Workforce development in Lexington, we need to make a concerted effort. Once we have the results from that data, we'll know what our needs are, and we need to have that committee that can move forward and work with the Workforce Investment Board, work with grant opportunities, other opportunities that are out there, to pull the workforce resources that we need into our county. Right now, we really don't have that. It's really individualized. And so even though we represent more than 45% of the population in the 17 counties, and I've already showed you that we are kind of the core where the jobs are, we're not getting that percentage back in resources. And part of the reason is because we don't ask for it. So we need that concerted effort in order to bring the resources to Lexington that we need in order to support the advancement of our employers and of our individuals to get them the services that they need. Questions? Thank you, Billy, for your presentation. Committee, the floor is open for questions for either Billy or Kevin. First up, we have Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Billy, for the presentation. I guess I'm curious. I mean, I will strongly advocate for the businesses in Fayette County and the individuals in Fayette County that would benefit from these changes, which my personal experience is we have not benefited. But to give, I was thinking that we need to give everyone a real good understanding of exactly the responsibilities of the Workforce Investment Board and, you know, what do they do, what opportunities are available. So we get a better picture of exactly, you know, because I did point out at that meeting that our current workforce investment board, or not the board, I don't guess, but at the one stop on Industry Road, where it is located, has one of the highest unemployment rates in Fayette County. And I think that's very sad. And we can do much, much better. There's other pockets throughout our city that have high unemployment. And we need to try to reach as many of these people as possible. So would it be possible to have some sort of presentation or something on the responsibilities of the workforce? Yes, we can do that. I have a high-level overview of how the system works, but yes, we can definitely put some more meat to that. Right. What opportunities are available? Right. Does OJT still exist, which is on-the-job training? Right. And folks that don't want to go to college, but a manufacturer that needs good employees, you subsidize that person's wages while they're in training. Right, right. And those are some services that are actually available. If we get into the meat of it here, we'll be all day. Oh, I know. And that's what I was thinking in another meeting. Absolutely. I don't know if I need to place that in committee or if it could be a piggyback off of it. Council Member Henson, let me tick off the list that is now part of the state is going to mandate certain things in an interlocal agreement now. And that's part of the meeting we had last Monday. So one of those items, kind of to answer your question, is the functions of the Workforce Investment Board. So just quickly go over the list, and that is to develop the local plan, research the regional labor market, convene and broker and leverage those markets, employer engagement, career pathway development, proven and promising practices, a review of what actually works in the region, look at technology, program oversight, negotiation of the performance accountability measures for the fiscal agent and the service providers, the selection of the operators and the providers, the coordination with the education providers in the area, oversee the budget and administration of the program, and make sure that it is accessible to individuals with disabilities. Thank you, sir. Perfect, right? But I think we need to also review who's eligible for services and what services are available and how do we access those services. And that is part of when we start digging into what the real problems are. And I think two of the things that we're going to need to address pretty quickly are technology, okay, because that applies across all industries. So education and technology and opportunities in technology-based jobs. And looking at that core, that urban core that we have where unemployment is so high, why is that? Right. Is it because services aren't available, people don't know about services? We need to find it. We have people with disabilities. Is it where our high felon population is? I don't know the answers to that. So that will take a group really digging in, you know, boots on the ground, going and surveying people and really understanding what is the real problem here. You know, do you know that services are available right here or what services are available right down the road from where you live? Or is it a transportation issue? Can people not get there or does it take too long to get there? So, you know, those are problems that will really come to the surface once we really start digging into that data and doing our problem solving. Yeah, I agree. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Henson. If the committee will allow, I will ask to pass the gavel to Vice Chair Acres to allow me to ask a few questions. Sure. Council Member Ford. Thank you. Billy, thank you for your presentation, and we definitely look forward to the contents of your report coming forth. However, I wanted to ask Kevin to come back up for a second. Thanks again, Billy. Appreciate it. Let me begin by, for the committee, and this committee has the fortune that six of our ten committee members are new to the council this year. So I can understand that this is a new topic, but for the veterans that have been here before, Vice Mayor Cain, Council Member Henson, understand that we've been studying this for two years plus it dates back as a committee item to the fall of 2012. We don't want to hash out all of the problems, and even the newcomers, I imagine you guys have observed our activity. Kevin, explain just in a nutshell, if you will, the city's efforts with the existing workforce structure now. You represent the mayor's office over at the Bluegrass Ad. Talk a little bit about what has brought us to this point. I want to implore that we are not fabricating a problem. This is a real issue that our community is facing and that Lexington, in good faith, has attempted to bring about some reforms. If you could just speak to what has got us here to this point and all the work that you guys have done. Right. I think historically you have to go back, and where a lot of this started was the purchase of the property on Trent Boulevard. That led to Kentucky Auditor's report of the activities at the Bluegrass Area Development District. There were a multitude of issues, but part of those were related to the Workforce Development Program. And the study cites several. It's in the packet of information that you all have. all the conflicts that there are, physical mismanagement of money, that led to when the steering committee looked at the reports recently, one of the items noted that made this area be able for discussion in redoing the regions was a lack of physical integrity on part of the service provider. So we have attempted over time to work with them to interject some of our thoughts on changes that should take place. This council passed a resolution, I think it was last year, asking them to procure the roles of physical agent and service provider. That did not occur. So we have attempted to make those changes over time. Late last year, there was a new, part of the auditor's report required a new interlocal agreement to be put into place. This committee heard the proposed interlocal agreement. One of the things the auditor said was we need to do away with some of the organizational issues, the conflicts of interest. The new agreement, quite frankly, had more conflict than the previous agreement. I know that some will argue that point, but I think those that heard it on this committee would probably agree. This committee decided not to endorse that, so we did not sign on to the interlocal agreement. Now, one thing you will hear is that we were the one out of 17 that did not sign. Some of the others were also told that we would sign. And Scott County has now, in the last two weeks, their physical court meeting, heard a discussion on that very agreement and what they should do moving forward. So this, we're at a point now where the new law passed over the summer, which mandates that you have new interlocal agreements and a lot of other items, which has brought us to this point. And so we've tried to present what we thought to those in the decision-making roles, what would be the biggest benefit not only for our region, but the state economically. You know, if this region is doing well, the state is doing well. And what we thought, as the mayor said in his initial letter to the governor, would allow the regions that aren't part of this eight-county region to be in an area where it really benefits them more economically. So we continue that effort, and that's kind of the historical kind of lay of the land. And again, Kevin, we appreciate your leadership on that. And so for the last two years or so, we've really been dealing with working through turmoil and chaos. But where we stand right now is, and even unaware to me at the time that we started this, was the new federal law. So where we stand today is for Lexington to prepare to embrace the new federal law that's going to take effect in July. And we're hoping we'll have a determination from the governor's office in regards to what service area definitions. But irregardless of how that turns out, I would implore that our council, working with the administration, need to prepare to react and work towards a strategy that's going to benefit Lexington. And this issue of workforce, it has so many different impacts. It's an economic development impact because, of course, our main source of funding for our government is the payroll tax. We need folks working. It has a social service impact because the more folks are working, the less they will have to rely on the safety net that our community has. In your packet, and I won't belabor it, but I was fortunate to go down with Kevin and Bob and Billy and the mayor. excuse me and I just want to publicly highlight what my comments were to the steering committee is that there's a need in Lexington is in the heart of the bluegrass region but as Council Member Henson alluded my district has pockets of 20 percent unemployment there are other areas in the city that have the same need and I argue that an urban area as affluent and resourceful is Lexington, there's no need for that. That's really unconscionable. Something isn't working in the strategy and implementation. And again, this has been a measured and deliberative approach. We've been at this consistently. We've been fair. And it's been a lot of hard work. And it allows us to speak, I think, even this council, with the administration to speak with one voice. And I think that has helped us to this point. And Lexington is a regional leader and will continue to be in a myriad of areas, higher education, transportation, healthcare. And we're not anti-ad. You know, folks will want to paint Lexington as being anti-regionalism, and that is not the case. We are the heart of the bluegrass, and we share this region with our neighbors. And it crosses over county boundary lines or political lines, party affiliation. And ultimately, it's about jobs. We want to get folks in Fayette County and surrounding areas working. So we have a lot of work to go, but thank you for your update, Kevin. And please keep us posted because there's going to be very many developments here forthcoming. Council Member Akers, I'll resume the chair, and I will turn it over to Council Member Lamb. Thank you. Thanks. Mr. Atkins, if I could ask another question. I know that Lexington has had an interlocal agreement and or a memorandum of agreement with the Bluegrass ad from 1980 to 2007, I believe, is a fair statement. So I guess my question is, from 2007, when our mayor's training center was abolished, till a couple of years ago, Did we ever, I mean, did we ever, have we had this problem ongoing since 2007, or was there a time in this period that it was working okay? Is that fair to ask? Yeah, it's a very fair question to ask. You know, there are those who have been involved in this much longer than I, who were involved during that whole period in time. I will say that since January of 2011, it has not really worked well, and I think we're hoping that we could improve those efforts. Now, the mayor's training center obviously had some problems, and we've never proposed restarting the mayor's training center. But we do want a program that realizes what Fayette County and these eight counties mean to this region. You can't, to that point, as we've discussed previously, you can't set aside money like was set aside for the Mayor's Training Center previously. When that agreement ended, that also, you know, that was grandfathered over from a previous program. You can no longer do that, and once that agreement was done in the last administration and those funds turned back over to the Air Development District to use, you can't reinstitute it. I don't know if that answers your question, Lynn. It does. I mean, I just, I mean, I go, I date back to those days, and I remember the programs that they used to use, and I mean, it seemed like that they were effective from my view, And so I was just curious if the problem started at the time that that ended. And so, you know, when I think about the mayor's training center, though, and, you know, just because you had some issues doesn't mean it didn't do good work. And I think back to a meeting that we had late last year that Commerce Lexington put together. I remember Council Member Akers, you were there over on Georgetown Street with a group saying, you've got to help us find, you know, we've got to address these issues. We've got the 13%, 14% unemployment. We've got people who can't get jobs. There are barriers to those, their ability to be employed. That's one of the things that Billy's report is going to highlight, and we're going to then try to address how do we fix those things. So its ability to address those, you know, this is community and how you address different portions of our community, no matter where we are in the city. You can't just do it with a one size fits all program. I appreciate all the work that you all have done and continue to do. So this is very important to our community. And thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Council Member Lamb. Next is Council Member Maloney. I appreciate what you all are saying. And the only thing that I dislike about what has happened since 2007, this has become a political game. And the last thing we need to do with this kind of program is make it politics. And it became political in 2007 when they took it out of the mayor's training center. And I still think it's being political motivated now because I think we're being dragged along. And I think my question to you is, if the governor doesn't make up his mind by a certain time and he may want to wait after the election, are we going to go on to appeal to try to appeal this process? Because I just don't like the last thing I want to make it. This money is helping low income people. It's not helping politicians get better down the road. And that's what it's led to, what I've seen in the last seven, eight years. And the last thing I want to do is continue to go down the road and make a political career out of people. I want this money to be back where the Merit Training Center worked. It was a great thing for this city. It may have had some management problems, but you can fix that. But taking money out of this is hard to get back, and we're finding out right now. But I want to know if it is a political problem we're having, are we going to wait until a certain time and go forward with another issue to push it? I think to answer that question, Council Member Maloney, I want to make two points. Do what? I want to make two points. When we met with the governor, the last thing he told us was we need to get a system in place in the Commonwealth that it's not about who controls the money but getting people the training that they need. So he wants to move it away from just being an issue about, I have to have this money to do the other things I want to do at my organization, the administrative fees that are taken off the top. So to answer your question, I don't think the governor will wait out his term to make this decision. He's really supposed to make it by July the 1st, and I think his intention is to do that. We will then, as both administration and council, have to make a decision. There is an appeals process that you can make. You make the first appeal through the State Workforce Investment Board, which then goes to the governor. I mean, you can be re-heard there. After that, if it's still not the decision that this community wants and approves of, there is an appeal to the U.S. Secretary of Labor. However, that appeal is based on some issues like the lack of physical integrity. So there are options for appeal throughout the process. But none of that can begin until the governor makes his initial decision. And going back to what this is for the people, Central Kentucky, when you have a homeless person in all these other counties, nine out of ten will bring them to that county line because we have the programs to have them here. And that, to me, is so important. Why whoever makes this final decision in the next two months, that we get the majority of their problems in here to help them out. And by doing that, we should be rewarded for bringing jobs to make sure that the jobs are there to keep them their lives straight and make sure they don't become homeless. So hopefully, I appreciate what you all are doing, And I hope the politics gets out of this. And it happened in 2007, and the last thing I want to do is see another political out-of-low-income people that need jobs. Thank you. Well, I will just add to that, if I may, Mr. Chair. There are options outside the current fiscal agent, and I don't know if Wes Holbrooks, he's still here. Wes, Billy, and I are taking an active role right now in about three different workforce grants that we're taking a look at that don't have to go through. They're open for whoever may apply. They may be cities or others. So we're looking at the option because our goal is to get people to work, get them the training that they need to be productive. Very good. Thank you, Council Member Maloney. Next up is Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. I just want to thank Kevin and Billy. This is, I think, a great report, and I want to thank you all. I know that it's a lot of work, and we've been doing it for some time. And the update is excellent and very clear and understandable, I think, especially for the new folks. I hope that it is anyway. It's not an easy issue to wrap your mind around. So I remember a year or so ago trying to get into this. And Billy brought up a great point of the work that we have been doing a little bit, I mean, barely scratching the surface in the Georgetown corridor and in that area, and Ed Holmes doing his analysis of the area. And that's, I guess, the beginning of what we would look to do throughout the city and in other pockets where unemployment is so high. And that's what I want to go back to. Also, what Council Member Henson said is that I guess my question is, you know, what is the timeline? And I understand the timeline, I guess, with the Fed or the governor and all of that. But regardless of that, I think that we need that boots on the ground. We need to be looking at those pockets of our city where unemployment is triple what it is throughout the rest of the county. and that no matter whether we get this eight-county region or how it changes, that we need to start looking into those reasons why and what we can do as a city to alleviate that and facilitate, whether it's job training, barriers you mentioned to transportation, whether it's child care, whether it's education and felons. I mean, there's lots of reasons we all know that the problems are difficult, But I don't think that we should wait for the governor's decision or we should wait for anyone, really, that we need to begin this process now and with the council members that are most effective, bring this all together or start in one corner of the city and spread it around. I'm not sure, but I think this is on the right track and will help us in that. But I just wanted to say that I don't think that we should wait. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Ford. Council Member Akers, I think you're exactly right. And as you remember, when we put the money in last year to take a look at the numbers, the one thing we said was this was not going to be a study that sits on a shelf somewhere. Once the data was developed, then the next phase, which would be the coming year, what is the plan to solve the issues that we see? Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Council Member Akers. I wanted to just echo on your comments. We share the Georgetown Street Corridor that was mentioned earlier. And I talked about the impact that workforce has on economic development, that it has on social services, public safety, quality of life. There are a lot of reasons why we want to be invested in this. So we'll keep working on that. Vice Mayor Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I'm not a member of the committee, so I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question, make a comment. I don't know whether it's for Kevin or Billy, but I wanted to go back to the proposed redesignation, which would have the nine counties, basically Fayette County and the contiguous and somewhat contiguous counties. I presume there's been some consideration for how that affects the eight counties that would not be in that new designation. When you look at the map, they're basically strung out all around the edges. And I presume you have to make a case that however the governor decides about designation, something has to happen with those eight counties. And it looks like, if you just look at the map, it looks like they're just kind of left out there. So has there been some consideration for how the whole map of the region would look with this redesignation? So there has been some talk. If we can go. The slide he had up was, I thought, just for us to show people what. Yeah. If we can look. So the gray areas are the other nine counties. And if we look at the current workforce area, potentially, Nicholas County, Estill, Powell could be absorbed into the workforce regions that they are touching. So you have the light greenish-yellow at the top and the eastern Kentucky area. um anderson mercer and boyle county garrett and lincoln there's some discussion at the state level as to how to where to designate those a lot of people in all five of those counties go to jefferson county to work so there's some discussion that those could be absorbed into those areas. There are some problems with that. Each of those areas would have to agree to take those counties because it would require a new interlocal agreement. It would also, the state is considering the cost of adding additional workforce areas. So not everything is positive, but we have not been told no yet. So the state is looking at that. We did not feel like it was our responsibility to tell the state where to put other counties, but just to ask them to look a little deeper into the data to see what would be feasible. So, Kevin, do you have anything to add? Great. Thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Committee. Billy again thank you Kevin thank you as well just one or two comments I want to make as we wrap this up and go to our next item of business is not only is Lexington making this request but the folks down in the Bowling Green South Central Kentucky area they actually preceded us in making their formal request to the governor's office and to the state cabinet in the stakeholder group for which we went down on February 4th the timeline is slightly delayed because there's not consensus and I raised that point to as an indication that our work is gaining traction it's not in vain the recommendation for the Bowling Green the Warren County and their three counties surrounding them to split off to the new area was tied at a 7 to 7 vote I believe and correct me if wrong Kevin the proposal of the Fayette County area was non-affirmative on a five to nine vote however that means that we didn't win the committee steering committee vote which is only a recommendation to the state workforce board but it indicates that there is enough support there's enough doubt being raised that this may be a feasible idea and that is why the state workforce board has pushed back its time frame to go to the governor so we'll just continue to ask Kevin to monitor this in last comment that I would like to make and I made these remarks and you guys can find them in the packet that I shared with you guys I alluded to it on page 25 as governor Bashir ends his second term and prepares to leave office in December, one thing I think can be said about it, he began his career here in Lexington. This is home for governing the First Lady Bashir, and not to politicize it at all, and we know that Frankfurt is only 20 minutes down the road, but I hope that that means that the plight of our workforce situation here in Lexington and our desire to improve it is not falling on deaf ears. We're hoping to be receptive. Again, thank you guys for your report, and please keep us posted. Next on our agenda, we want to welcome Commissioner Derek Paulson, the Department of Planning. This item is a proposed reorganization within his department. Welcome, Commissioner. Good morning. I think we were supposed to do this last week. We had a little fire, so hoping we can not need to build an arc this week. This is really an update of a presentation that started with the Affordable Housing, the Office of Affordable Housing. Many of these slides were in the original presentation that we gave about the Office of Affordable Housing. So in a lot of ways, this is kind of an update of something we promised to do when we created that office. What we are proposing is to move, we'll kind of go here, from the Office of CAO. It's kind of a reorganization of the Office of CAO and the Department of Planning, Preservation, and Development. And it would be to move the Office of Grants and Special Programs to the Department of Planning, Preservation, and Development. And one thing I want to kind of point out here quickly is that this is not about what grants and special programs is doing or how they're doing it. It's more about an opportunity to enhance what we as a government are doing in the initiatives of community development through increased coordination, communication, and planning. And that's really what we want to talk about. Nothing is intended to change for grants and special programs in terms of where they are or what their function will be. But this is really what we think is an opportunity to increase that ability to do more community development through a coordination with affordable housing, with the Division of Planning, something that a year ago we could not do. We did not have the Office of Affordable Housing. And in many ways, even the Vacant Property Review Commission, which I think would be important here, was really not up and running a year ago. So I think when we look at where we are now, it's about sort of changes and opportunities and a way to kind of coordinate a little bit better. Again, not about what they're doing now, but about what we think we can do through this move. This is, and again, just I'm not going to, I will do my best to not read through this presentation, but to provide some other information. Having talked to students for years, they don't like when I read my slides. So quick little overview of what the organization is now. And then this is just one example of how we will improve or enhance that coordination. And this is very much a slide from what we gave before with the Office of Affordable Housing, coordinating with our partner agencies and grants and special programs, along with the Division of Planning and Code Enforcement. I'm sure you may be thinking why Code Enforcement, but when we wrote the ordinance for the Office of Affordable Housing, One of the things that we put in there was a yearly check on the conditions of the properties, which will be done by code enforcement. And then vacant property review commission also is going to be what we think can be a key part of affordable housing and then just coordination through, and not just for new construction, but for rehabilitation as well. This is, again, we're starting to move more with vacant property review commission. Some of the things we're finding now as we get towards our first year and having sent out the notices that people have a vacant property. And as they begin to appeal, we've actually had some people say, we'll give you the house. So we'll talk about that on Wednesday, Councilmember Eggers. So that was something we were not expecting, but we may see more of that. And it also provides an opportunity where people are wanting to get out from underneath the property. and this may provide us an ability to coordinate with some of our partner agencies about ways to provide affordable housing. That could coordinate through home dollars. That could coordinate through our affordable housing funds as well. And we'll kind of get to how we feel this coordination can take place. And really, there's quite a few different ways, we think. But in a lot of ways, this will help us focus a little bit more on neighborhoods and our coordination, again, through this community development, through our division of planning already works, in some degree with grants and special programs on the consolidated plan. We are really hoping to marry up the timelines as best we can between the consolidated plan, the affordable housing plan, and the comprehensive plan so that they are all on the same page. And so they're all saying the same things and trying to coordinate in the same time frames about achieving those goals of improved affordable housing. Truly, the affordable housing fund and the home dollars are key parts of this coordination, as well as CDBG funds as well. With regards to construction and maintenance and management, engineering is obviously kind of the other part of grants and special programs. So the part that I think everyone will attest is just phenomenal, and that is the grants management. Everything that is in engineering, and so this is one of those questions. We want to make sure, this is one thing I've heard, We want to make sure that everything that grants and special programs does right now does not change. We know that they touch a lot of different divisions throughout government. Engineering is one of those. Engineering does have a role to play in terms of community development through the CDBG funds, in which we are working on specific neighborhoods. But everything that comes through engineering in terms of all the road projects, all those grants are managed with grants and special programs. That is a key area for us, one that engineering values greatly, just because they have always been in compliance. That's an extremely important part. And when you talk to folks in other cities, their compliance is not always something that's very strong. That is not something we've ever worried about, and that's something that I want to make sure people understand. That is not something that will change through this reorganization in any way. A couple other ways, and again, this is in many ways reiterating what I've already stated here, But coordinating with the other divisions in terms of how we do affordable housing, how we coordinate that five-year strategic plan, coordinating with compliance on grants, and really trying to marry up those different plans to try to get them as much in lockstep as possible so that we can achieve as much as possible. Again, I view this more, or we view this more, as an opportunity to enhance what we as a city already do. through that improved coordination, communication, and planning more than anything else. So, again, I wanted to be quick, and I'll open it up to questions. Thank you, Commissioner Polson, for that timely presentation. Council Member Maloney has a question. Derek, I appreciate what you do presentation. I've got a concern about moving this department over there. I mean, looking at things which you're looking at, it's not even putting a dent in what this department does. This is the easy part. The hard part is after the projects are done, for the next 20, 30 years, they've got a say in compliance. That's where their job is. And not only this here, but they have to do it for police. They have to do it for parks. They have to do it for the public works. And I put it in there when I was CAO, I put it in that division because I thought it was fair to be still with a balance for across the board for all the commissioners. Nothing against you. I mean, I think you're great. You may not be here next year, two years or three years, but this program will be. And I have a problem. You're putting this into one. If I was a commissioner of any department, I would not support this because I don't know. I think you're fair. But whoever comes in to take your place may not be fair. And they may want to spend most of the time on this program than anybody else's program. And I think being in the CAO office is a great place for it to be because this department is making sure we stay in compliance. And let me tell you, it goes back to a couple things that I voted on, and that's the Mayor's Training Center. I thought that was a mistake, and I feel this is going to be a mistake. Kentucky League of Cities, when we did the insurance, I felt that was a mistake, and it's coming back and biting us. Why fix something that's not broke? And the last thing I want to do is put this department in any division, and I think it should stay under the CAO's office, and that's just my pitch, and I just hope this council will realize I've been here a long time. This is one of my favorite departments because she does a tremendous job. We're in compliance. Go to Louisville, they're out of compliance. Look at their records, they're in bad shape. The last thing we want to do is get our HUD money or any federal money we get and get it out of compliance. And so my recommendation is why fix something that's not broke. So I hope you all not support this. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Maloney. Next up is Council Member. I just appreciate it. So, Richard, we've talked this and I agree, and I understand your point, and I want a couple things. One, you know, it can be fine where it is, and I don't think that's the issue. And what I don't want people to think is that we're trying to fix something. And nothing is going to change in terms of the compliance that is going on. And really what we've talked about in terms of the coordination and the planning on what we're attempting to do are things that are currently being done. This is, again, I think I've tried to couch this as enhancing what we can as a government do, not changing the mission of grants and special programs, not changing at all how they do their job, what their job entails, but really trying to coordinate a little better on those parts of the job that they do right now that cross over into our divisions and in terms of our departments. That's really what this focuses on. And, again, I respect your opinion greatly on this. And I think when you were CAO, there have been some changes. There have been some opportunities. Again, I think just a year ago, there was not an Office of Affordable Housing. The Vagan Property Review Commission was not doing what they're doing now. And so I think there are just some opportunities there that were not in existence previously in terms of that coordination. And, again, it's not about changing what they do. It's about enhancing what we as a government have the ability to do. In no way, and I completely agree with you, you talk to other cities, there are compliances, one of the things that a lot of cities just do not do well. We do it in a phenomenal way. And I think it's a testament to the division of grants and special programs and how they work. So this is not in any way, shape, and form trying to fix something that doesn't even fix anything. It's really about trying to just enhance in some ways what we are doing now, but trying to do it a little bit in a more coordinated way. Can I follow up? And I appreciate that answer, but also looking at your division, you've got a lot already. You've got one of the most important divisions in here. You've got building inspection. You've got all these problems. I just think putting that in there is going to add more to your plate that I don't want to put in on anybody. The last thing I want to do is put in more problems on anybody. But to me, I think, like it goes back to us, it's not broken, so I don't think we need to fix it. Thanks, Council Member Maloney. Next up is Council Member Lamb. Hi. Thanks, Mr. Paulson, for the presentation. I have some similar concerns to Council Member Maloney. I know that this office has been extraordinary in its accomplishments and how it provides grants for all areas of the government. And I think I'm concerned about changing it as well. I know if you do change, that gives you eight areas to manage for oversight. And I know that you have, I think, two administrative officers under you. But, I mean, that's a huge amount of responsibility. And I know that it has worked well under the CAO's office for years, and I'm not trying to say that I'm anti-change. And as far as the other, about working across the government with each division, I think that we've done a pretty good job as far as working with each other through each department. And I think we do that well, and I know that we can continue doing that. So I do have problems and concerns with this as well, but thank you for bringing this forward. Thanks, Council Member Land. Next is Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate this, Derek. I think I see and understand what the intent is. Recently, for example, and I talked to Sally about this too, the grant that was submitted to the city from a neighborhood association to pay for a $750,000 tourist shelter of sorts. And I thought, why did we submit a grant for that? couldn't have been used for other projects in the city and asked those questions and then learned that it wasn't really us, but it had to be run through us. And so at that time, so when I saw this, I thought, well, this would be good because we don't want to compete with ourselves. I mean, that was my concern is that if we had a project we wanted to submit for that same amount of funds of $750,000, which is a lot of money, that we would be competing with in our own government or your division for a CMAC grant or whatever. We don't want to compete with neighborhoods. We don't want to compete. And so I felt like this was a good idea, kind of to know what the left and the right hand are doing, and that you might not always know what grants are coming through from neighborhoods or elsewhere. And so that could help you in planning or in homelessness or in housing. And so I see and understand that and appreciate that, because I think collaboration is good and coordination is good. But I also hear Councilmember Lehman Maloney's concerns. And so I guess my thought, maybe one, is what to hear from the CAO, which her thoughts are. And I guess also how it would work differently as far as compliance goes to Councilmember Maloney's concerns. I mean, because I think, you know, if we're doing great on compliance, I can't imagine that would necessarily like fall apart under your watch, I would hope. But if you could maybe address some of those concerns. I can speak to the class. I think an important part, and we did talk to Irene at the very beginning of this. Sally and I sat down with her and asked her about this. And then I think an important part to understand is Irene's daily mission is not going to change. What she does is not going to change. In fact, I'm not, I guess I'm not sure why coming underneath me, we would be changing her compliance mission or how she goes about her compliance. We're not even changing where her offices are or where she is. She is going to stay where she is. She's going to stay what she is doing. What we are attempting to do is get, again, enhance that coordination in terms of those things that we have new opportunities for. Again, the consolidated plan, they're in the midst of doing it now. This is not a new thing. This is not something that I created or that we're starting to create. We have to do a consolidated plan. So this is something that's already out there. We do a comprehensive plan as well. Those are things that are already out there. The affordable housing plan that we're going to do, we are starting because of the new office that is there. So this is about trying to coordinate those things just more, I guess, more directly, working on those in ways that we haven't in before. This is not about changing what grants and special programs does. This is not about changing how they go about compliance. This is truly about trying to coordinate on some areas that we haven't had the opportunity to coordinate before and trying to make sure that those are areas that we're not, that we can, rather than just kind of go through the paces and do them, but really try to make them a little bit more of a focus on ways that we can improve that we just haven't had that opportunity before. In terms of the CAO's comments, I will let CAO Hamilton speak. Thank you, Derek. I have something really profound to say here. It's whoever gets to me last on this issue. I'm real split on this. I mean, it's who I talked to last. I think we've all said it over and over again, and I don't want to belabor that. Irene does a great job. Irene is absolutely no problem to us. We can continue with Irene and do, I think you've heard that the coordination is still working, still working over the things. The original idea here is, and this came up before, before when the other council was here, was, was to see if we could coordinate all these, if, if the coordination would be more effective if all the programs were in one area, if affordable housing and community development were in one area. I think Richard raises a very good point, excuse me, that Council Member Maloney raises a very good point and that Council Member Lamb raises a very good point. The worry has been, is this too much in one particular area? Now, I don't have anything to do, so, you know, it's not much in my area. But it's a difference. Seriously, it is a difference all in one area. And I think there are really good points on both sides, and that's why I said it's sort of the last person I talked to. I personally don't think that, to use a very common phrase, that this is a particularly big deal because it works. It works whether it is in my office or it works whether it is in Derek's office. It works because of Irene. And that's sort of where we are. So I don't think this is, there'll be certain things that I will appear for you really strong about. This one I think would, this is fine either way. And I do really see, I don't mean to cop out. I just see both sides of this. If I just a quick follow up, I mean, we just have a letter in my stack of mail here from Irene talking about the upcoming consolidated plan and ESG funds and CDBG monies and all of that. And coming from the housing world in my prior life, I mean, I understand how it is difficult and how we are trying to do something really new with the Office of Homelessness and with the Vacant Property Review Commission. And so to coordinate those offices with the CDBG money and with those home funds and with those applications and with other opportunities or creative finance mechanisms or whatever that we might find from, like, vacant property review, I can really appreciate how it would be really helpful to have Irene in your division. So I'll just end with that. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Council Member Akers. Next is Council Member Brown. Thank you, Chair. I think Sally's already alluded to it. That was one of the questions I had is how she felt about it being in her office. I guess my main question is who initiated this? And I can see the reasonings here and what's been promoted, but who initiated this action in the first place since if it's not broken, do we need to fix it? We talked about it last year when we did affordable housing. Okay. When we did affordable housing, we talked about two things in with affordable housing. And one of them was that this office would move with affordable housing, and the other was the office of the homeless, homelessness, that is still in my office. And the mayor's office and I deal with that, deal with the office of homelessness. And Charlie, because if you really go and think about this, we've talked about, I'm just sort of talking here. Is that all right? If you think about this, if you want to really coordinate, then you're talking about the homelessness office still being back with me. and then moving this one. Charlie is not ready to move yet, and he wants some more time. He is doing a phenomenal job and did a phenomenal job through this winter, too. It really paid off for us to have that office. He wants to take another year to really develop his whole scope and develop his whole office to see where he really needs to be. You know, we've talked about social services. We've talked about everywhere. We've talked about affordable housing, the whole thing. That's why we're still keeping him over in my office. So it started, long story, Council Member Brown, it started with the creation of the Office of Affordable Housing. Okay, thank you. That's all I need. Thanks, Council Member Brown. Next is Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I thought I'd jump in here and share my thoughts. I agree with Council Member Maloney and Lamb that it's probably not a good move because I think Irene does a great job, and she would be fine no matter where you put her. But because she coordinates with so many different divisions in government, social services, fire, police, and just along with planning, affordable housing. Now, I could see someone from that office assigned specifically for affordable housing or for the planning division. but not to move this entire division under planning. So those are just my thoughts, and I wanted to share them, so thank you. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Next up is Council Member Adams. I think we're all just sharing our thoughts at this point, and I'm going to let Council Member Henson just two cents for what it's worth and just to kind of maybe take it to a different angle. Yeah, I was still a little concerned about if it's broken, why do we need to fix it? But I guess even maybe a slightly different concern is just the appearance to the other divisions and other employees and what that looks like when someone who deals in grants for the entire city, what that looks like putting it in one. And then I think that leads to morale issues. And as a government employee, I understand it's the slightest little thing. People can interpret that however they want to. So that's kind of an additional concern, just what it looks like. Even though it could work perfectly well, nothing's going to change. I think the perception could be a concern to the employees. And then a bigger concern is what happens when Irene leaves, kind of going back to Councilmember Maloney. You're great. Irene's great. But what happens if we get two people in or one person that's not willing to say, no, I need to work on grants for the entire city or someone that just says, you need to work on ours? So that dynamic, I don't think we're looking at just right now. we're looking at four or five, however long you want to be here, you know, how many years down the road we're looking at. And if it gets stuck there, you know, that, that concern and, and what it would look like in the future and how that might have some unintended consequences, just based on the personalities that are in your position. So that, that's my two cents for what it's worth. It might just be that maybe not right now. If there is still some concern about where Charlie's going to be, maybe it's just too soon right now. I don't know, but I'm glad everyone else feels torn and understands the intent, which is great, but also what the downfall might be. So, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Council Member Evans. Council Member Akers, may I pass the gavel? Yes, sir. Council Member Ford. Thank you. Derek, thank you for your presentation. I want to ask the committee to perhaps use all five minutes because I want to do two things. The first thing I want to do is really refocus the agenda item where we are now. I think everybody is, all the comments have been great, but in Help Me Attorney, who's in the audience, if this is correct, What we have before us is a proposed reorganization of this division to a different department, and I appreciate the administration giving us this opportunity to discuss it in committee. Of course, the administration can propose reorganizations, but the council has the authority to actually put it into place. So that's what's being proposed here today. If everybody would turn to page 32 on your packet, this is a, just to illustrate that, this is the current oil chart for the CAO's office, I believe, if you can put that on overhead. Council Member Henson and Council Member Akers may remember this just from last summer. the proposal currently the Division of Human Resources is in the CAO's office. This time last year, it was in the Department of Law. And we had it in committee. And it was indicated for it to stay in the Department of Law. But after our discussion, and I'm speaking personally for myself, my personal preference and my position, not preference, but my position was so strong that I felt that it should be in the CAO's office because of its central function of government. And our CAO, Sally, of course, as she always responds to it, she said, if it's the council's will, we'll make it work. What she did ask for is we didn't make the reorganization effective until after the budget. So I think that actually moved in July. But that's, I say, I bring this reference to look at what's going on in the CAO's office right now relative to council reviewing reorganizations. And just for a footnote, we have two more proposed reorganizations that we're hearing in this committee next month. And there's so many things going on in the CAO's office right now. flip that chart I guess the next chart to the departments and of course it takes on that HR you know we did well it did starting committee yesterday and then we council took official action. This is what we have proposed here now. When the mayor, when Mayor Greg took office, I was fortunate to serve on one of his task force committees for the transition team. And one of the recommendations was to change the name of the division. The division, before this administration came in was, and this had several name changes, I believe, over the years, but it was the Division of Community Development. Many of you guys know that I was a staffer a few years back in the Division of Community Development. And I had the pleasure to work along with Irene and also her predecessor, Paula King, who is working with Council Member Maloney now and volunteer over at the Lyric Force. Let me give you just my introduction to the Department of Community Development. About 10 years ago, I was working, and this kind of summarizes why I felt the need to change the name to Grants and Special Programs, because it better reflects what they do. You know, it better reflects what they do. But I'll tell you just a very quick story. I was working on a grant program over at UK Hazard Mitigation. and we disperse grants and reporting for emergency management all across the state. Our emergency manager is Pat Duggar. We all know over at Dean Nails Brooklyn that has a mitigation plan. So we get the city's request for reimbursement. You spend money first and you request a reimbursement commissioner. You know how that goes. And so we were communicating with Pat. And I would get a letter from a colleague of mine who's still up there now in the Division of Community Development. and he would say, okay, it was an instructional part of the process. Okay, we received it, and then he would forward me to the Division of Accounting. Okay, I get a Division of Accounting because we're trying to send money back and forth. I could not figure out why we have a dean project. I understood accounting, but why am I getting a letter from the Division of Community Development? And it wasn't until after I came here to work for the city that I realized that then the Division of Community Development, now Grants and Special Programs, is the clearinghouse of all grants, local state, federal, private, etc. And he was performing a compliance role to keep Pat and Dean compliant, working, I guess, very closely with accounting. So I think that name better reflects what they do right now for our government, and there's no doubt about what they do is important. Commissioner and CEO Hamilton, I would like the liberty, if it's okay, to ask Irene if she would quickly, only for the purpose, this proposed reorganization is being brought forth by the administration and will ultimately be decided by the council. but just briefly describe what your division does on behalf of, I think that may be helpful for the purpose to educate and inform the council. One of the programs that I'm particularly interested in is the program that I work in that office, which is Housing Rehab Commissioner, so Irene very well may mention that, but very briefly, Irene, just for the purpose of introduction, education, and information, what is the division of grants and special programs? What do you guys do day in, day out? We try to assure accountability for all state and federal grants that the government receives across the entire government. We handle the blue sheet process for making sure that you know that the grant application is being submitted, that you approve the submission, that you approve acceptance of the awards, and that, you know, after they're awarded, we work with the division making sure that the program is being carried out. We let those other divisions manage their own program, but what we try to do is financially manage them so that the government collects all of its money, which we think is important, that we're always compliant with submitting progress reports and financial reports on time, and that we're able to close the project out so that when we go back to get more money, they at least don't see a little black check mark against their name. So what we're trying to do is assure compliance across the government for federal and state grants. Now, we also operate programmatically a housing rehab program. We manage a home ownership program through some nonprofits. and then we work with some developers who are developing rental housing programs through our home program. We also work with organizations that deal with the homeless population. We work with justice grants, and as Council Member Ford mentioned, We also have several projects out there with FEMA funds for hazard mitigation. And right now, most of our business, I think, is with transportation grants. We have lots of CMAQ grants. We have TE grants. And we have a lot of SLX grants out there. We work with engineering primarily for those. Okay. Irene, how long have you been with the division? And you've been there a long time. If you care, how long have you been with the division? I have been there 24 years today. And that's an illustration also. Even though my tenure up there wasn't very long, most of the staff there are very experienced and long-tenured in their work. Irene, thank you. Thank you. I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but thank you for that information and bringing us forward. Speaking of, and this is just closing committee members, so thank you for allowing me an extended period of time. Historically, it's always been where it's been. I think is capable of performing and to depersonalize things, to depersonalize folks in their current, the incumbents in their current positions, because, of course, those change over time. I'm perhaps more concerned about, not concerned, I'm more interested about the housing rehab program, because I believe it's almost synonymous with the work of this division. The question before the committee is whether or not this should go forward to the entire council. although my preference may not necessarily be for moving the division. The reality is that it's a proposal that has been brought forth by the administration, and at the same time, my preference is not at this point to a level of concern that it could not perform well in the new department that's being placed and as recommended by the administration. I think as it's been mentioned it could work either place where it is now where it's going. So I guess the question is for the committee is should this go forward to the entire council for the the other five colleagues of ours to have a vote on it tonight. Council Member Lange. I guess I just have to say to my colleagues up here that I have seen reorganizations brought forward in many, many different ways, and this by far is one of the most kind ways of doing it. So I give the administration accolades for that because there's been some uglies. There's been some really unrealistic reorganizations that this government and council has to come back and fix. But I still do have concerns with moving a division or office that does run well. And I just, I really, you know, with all due respect, I can't see the true reasoning about moving it. The enhancing the coordination, I really truly believe that our government, that you can still do that between divisions and between departments because I think that we do work well together in that way. And I would hope that we would just continue in that way. And thank you. Thanks, Council Member Lamb. Returning to Council Member Maloney. I, too, want to follow up with Susan. When I was CAO, that's what we did for the three months. We had to go back and fix the problem that was done back before this administration came on. and it took a long time. And one of the things I'm proud of is we did put this back under the CAO's office, and it has worked well because if you all remember from some of the council members who were on there, Irene was able to work with Jeffrey to get some funding for additional police and fire when we were going through some tough times. So it goes back to what I said. This is unique. And then Frankfurt Department of Local Government, it's by itself. It's not with Kentucky housing. It's not with sanitary sewerage or streets, anything like that. It's by itself, and we need to take that same example that the state of Kentucky does and they follow the HUD and state regulations, and they work with all these departments. So I agree with Susan. I don't want to get back into the reward. I think it's like it goes back. It's not broke. Thank you. Thanks. Council Member Maloney. Is there a motion to be brought forth from the committee? Hearing none, we'll move forward to the next item of business. Commissioner Paulson, thank you for your time. We'll keep you apprised of how this item will move forward. We'll keep it in committee at this time. Point of order. Yes, sir. Council Member Brown. You mentioned you want to keep it in committee. Can I make a motion to take it out of committee? Yes, sir, you can. There's any motion that wants to be made by a committee member is appropriate at this time. You want to make that motion? Yeah, I move that we take this out of committee instead of it prolonging, and I think we've made a decision. Second. Very well. There's a motion to remove this item from committee. There's the first second by Council Member Maloney. Any discussion on the motion? Thanks for your point of order, Council Member Brown. That helped me out there. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. That item will be removed from committee. The last item of our business on our agenda is the inclusion of veterans as disadvantaged business enterprise by Council Member Akers. Contents on pages 38 through 45. I will turn it to Councilmember Akers for introduction. Thank you, Chair. As I believe all council members, committee members should know, we have a program in the city called the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program that provides for a goal set by the city of 10% minority and women-owned businesses in our RFPs and funded projects. I'm losing the word here. So I was recently introduced or met someone, a constituent in the city, who asked me if we would consider also including veteran-owned businesses in the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program. Having worked with a nonprofit who served veterans, I am aware of the number of veterans we have in the state, the number that are unemployed, and the barriers to employment upon reentry from their service in the military. So I asked our staff member, Craig, to do some research for me. And what you'll find on pages 38 through 40 is a summary of his research and mine as well. And if we could put, can we put this up on the screen? I'm not sure if everybody has the map itself in color, but the map on page 39 shows states that have enacted some sort of legislation that allows for the inclusion of veteran-owned businesses in their similar programs. On page 40 is a list of cities and municipalities that have also enacted this kind of policy or legislation, including Indianapolis, Albuquerque, Pembroke Pines of Florida, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Prince George's County in Maryland. In doing my research recently, I also found that the state of Kentucky actually has a bill pending called House Bill 497 that would create a certification program for veteran-owned businesses at the state level for consideration of inclusion in their procurement processes as well. So I just bring this forward, I guess, today and ask that the committee would consider the inclusion of veteran-owned businesses. And not just veterans, I guess I should clarify. A lot of policies actually designate disabled veterans specifically. And I am not requesting that it be only disabled veterans, but that it would be any current service members or veterans. because you could be currently in the military for the past 15 years and own a business and not necessarily be a veteran. So that is my proposal, and that's what I bring forward for discussion today. Very good. Thank you, Council Member Akers. First up for discussion is Council Member Ryan. I'll make this quick. I'm looking at this definitions in here, and I've got D on page 2 in red. Is that what you're adding? Yes. The red text would be— Everything else is already in place in our statute and the definitions, and you want to add D under 2, disadvantaged individual. Yes, and that is under the administrative plan. He's talking about page 43 in the packet for everybody. And then your motion just involves D? Well, that would be just the administrative sort of definition, but then also in the resolution on page 41, you'll also see red text there of how it would change the current resolution. On 41? Yes. Okay, thank you. So currently it is minorities. On the clarification of what you was adding to the existing resolution. Yes. Thanks, Council Member Brown. I also want to reference to make the committee aware. I think Council Member Acos will concur as well. We do have Todd Slayton and Marilyn Clark, both of our purchasing department, and we have legal counsel here as well if there are questions in regards to the proposed resolution and the program itself. Next is Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, Chair. Can somebody ask you to answer where we stand right now? Our goal was 10% for disadvantaged populations. My concern is I like veterans fine, but I don't want the veterans moving out, minorities or handicapped. If we're already at 10%, what would happen? We typically hover between 8% and 10%. We had a really good run a couple years ago when we had a lot of big projects, and we got up to about 12%. But on average, it's in the 8% to 10% range. And we've been tracking that for, I want to say, the last five years. Well, we've improved our tracking over the last five years. So say we're 10% right now. Do you not give any preference treatment beyond that? Well, again, it is a – I'm speaking of the goal and how that's – the 8% to 10%, that's how much of our annual dollars that we spend currently with minority and women-owned businesses. I would envision that by adding veterans to that category or to that group that we would go from 10 to 12 percent perhaps. I think it's difficult to say. Other agencies have done extensive, costly studies to determine how many viable businesses there are that can meet their needs. I think, in my opinion, we would add it to the goal and see where we are six months from now. If it's made a huge impact, maybe we need to raise the overall goal to 15%. So I was wondering, is there a financial impact on us if we raise that? Does it cost us more money? It doesn't cost us more money. I think at some point I may be coming back to the council to ask for some funding to expand our programs. But as far as the way it works now, we don't pay any more to do business with a minority or women-owned business as we would a non-minority or woman. I just want to make sure that the veterans aren't competing with minorities and handicaps, so that's not a concern? No. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Gibbs, and thanks, Todd. Council Member Akers, did you want to? Well, I just wanted to ask Todd real quick, if you could maybe back up, and I should have probably asked you to do this in my introduction. Can you just let all the council members know how the process works currently So if we get proposals submitted, how we give preference to minorities and disadvantaged businesses. Right now, it is a 10% goal. It is not a requirement. We ask that vendors submitting to our formal bids and formal RFPs, they have to go through a good faith effort if they're unable to help us meet the goal. So if a company is looking, if it's an engineering contract and they can subcontract 10% of the work to a minority or woman-owned business, then we'd say you met that requirement. If they can't, they have to show why they can't. And did they try to find businesses that could do the work? Is there no opportunity for subcontracting? There are several things that they have to go through. Once we get to the evaluation of proposals phase, the inclusion of minority or women-owned business participation is typically a wash because if everybody has met the 10% goal, it becomes a non-issue. Where it becomes an issue is if you have one company that has met the goal and one company that hasn't. And in that case, if there's truly a tie between the two, then the company that helps us meet the goal would be awarded the contract. But there's no specific points awarded to your percentage of minority or women-owned business participation. And we've been advised by law to not do that. Very good. Thanks, Todd. Next up is Council Member Evans. Thank you, Chair. Sorry, my phone just went off. Yeah, I had probably some of the same questions Council Member Gibbs had, because I'm not quite understanding if we're adding an additional category to this resolution, how they ultimately would not be in competition with those class of people that we deemed have been disenfranchised. And it doesn't, I guess I didn't, I was interpreting competition differently. It does, in my opinion, dilute the goal because we've got a bigger pool to pull from. So that is correct. And I think Marilyn and I had both discussed this at one time. Do we make this a separate goal? Do we increase the minority and women-owned business goal and make a new number? And then I kind of came to the realization that without a lot of effort and expense on our part to truly determine what that number should be, maybe we just add it in there and see what happens. We can always adjust it later. I don't know if that's the best system, but to me it seems like if we need to increase it, we can increase the goal. Well, and I guess that would be my thought to, you know, if we can meet 10%, if that's where we're, you know, we said 8 to 10, and quite honestly, 8's not, that's not meeting the goal. So I would like to see consistency of 10 for numerous years before we start including additional groups or expanding that, because 10% isn't a lot. So that was my initial concern. And then if we're going to talk about changing the resolution or the language, what is the real impact? And why choose this group over other classes that we know are being discriminated against? And what was the real purpose of it? So I feel like we find ourselves on a slippery slope if we just start adding categories of people in for noble reasons or not. But, again, my concern is diluting, like you said, the impact of what we have now when we're still not steadily reaching our goal annually. And if we're going to look at the language, what else needs to be changed in there? I did have a brief conversation with Marilyn, and there was some language about the results. What are the penalties, if any, for not meeting those goals that we have? And the real meat and potatoes. I mean, it's nice to add people in. It feels good. but if we're still not really being able to track what we really need to track and even adding categories that can skew what our results look like, I have a big concern, again, when we're not consistently reaching the goals that we had set 20 years ago for this specific group of individuals. Well, when the original resolution was drafted in 91, I think that's kind of how it worked is somebody said, well, Louisville's doing a 10% goal. Cincinnati's doing a 10% goal. Let's make that our goal. What is hard to gauge is how many businesses are there that meet those, that are in those classifications that can actually do business with us. It doesn't do us a lot of good to have a ton of businesses in a commodity or a service that we never buy in the area because they're never going to bid on our stuff or they're not going to have any work that they can do for us. We need engineers, architects, construction. That's where the real dollars are, and that's why ours varies from year to year because in a heavy year when we have a lot of engineering and architecture and construction work, you see the numbers go up in the years when we haven't done a lot of projects, they drop. And a lot of that's just, you know, as we spend more, that percentage increases. But there, I mean, we could do, there's a lot of avenues to how we would proceed as far as coming up with a more solid number and deciding that maybe it needs to be 10 or maybe it needs to be 12%. And I know in some localities they have done disparity studies, and they realize that our 10% goal should really be a 7% goal because that's the only available companies in that area. But, again, it's at the whim of the council as to how we want to proceed. Do we want to investigate it further with some outside consultants' help, or do we want to try to baby step along and see what happens? And I see where you're coming from as well. Thanks, Council Member Evans. Thank you, Todd. The only comment that I would have before I turn it back over to Council Member Akers is it appears the resolution dates back to 1991, and I've always been, and Todd can attest to this in Maryland as well, I've always been an advocate for us to further review and perhaps update it, how it could perhaps be a better benefit to the work that we're doing now in purchasing, now that this issue is more universal. So that's my only comment, but the matter before us now is what's been brought forward by Councilman Breakers, and I turn it back to you. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to point out a couple of, I guess, additional historical information, if you will. The federal government originally passed the Veterans Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development Act in 1999, requiring that 3% of federal contracts be awarded to disadvantaged or disabled military veterans. And then since that time, more than half of the states in our country have passed similar legislation. So this is not an arbitrary designation. we have we do have a target goal of 10 percent for women and minority-owned businesses including disabled adults i'm not opposed at all to increasing that goal and and then looking at it a year from now or six months from now and looking at how are we improving are we meeting the 10 are we blowing it out at 15 do we need to separate the goal and have 10 percent remain for women and minorities and have a three percent goal for veterans i am open to any of those you know, creative options for the policy. But I just think that it is important, looking at the data from the state, that we have 339,000 veterans in Kentucky. We have 162,000 in the state workforce, almost 20,000 veterans residing in Fayette County, and 254 registered veteran-owned businesses in the state and 20 that we could find in Fayette County. Again, I don't think that we will see a large spike in veteran businesses. As Todd mentioned, you know, these are engineering proposals and bids that we give the largest amounts of funding to, but I'm happy to consider this again, you know, in six months and bring it back for review and consideration. But for now, I guess I will make a motion to include and add in a current member or veteran of the Armed Forces in the resolution on page 41, the red text, as well as in the administrative policy on page 43, paragraph D. So moved. There's a motion. Is there a second? Hearing none, that motion dies for lack of a second. Okay. Council Member Akerson, one thing that I would say, as we're approaching a very hard break, committee members, we need to adjourn very quickly to prepare for our next meeting. If we can, if it's your desire, we can keep this item in committee to perhaps bring it back. And my only concern when you distended your motion is we weren't going to have enough time to fully debate the motion. But however, thank you for bringing this forward. You're welcome. And we can keep this and hopefully bring it back for another future committee. Thank you. Council Member Lamb, Council Member Henson, Council Member Lamb. I just wanted to point this out for this and another reason for us to keep it in committee. Mr. Slayton, I know that this ordinance was passed back in 91, but Ms. Clark didn't actually start working on this and trying to keep up with this and trying to really work. When did she start working? Maryland started about five years ago, probably here in another month. So, yeah, and we didn't have a dedicated person to develop this program, and we didn't have a budget for this program until last year. Exactly. So I think that's another reason that we do need to look at this a little bit more deeply, and I don't think it's a bad idea. I think that, you know, we just need to know this is a young program, and it's doing what we're wanting to see, I think. I mean, so anyway, that's just what I wanted to make sure that everybody realized the history of that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. On another note, I just, this bothers me really badly, and I had to bring this up. Glenda, from law, if this ordinance in 1991, the word handicapped individual might be okay, handicapped person, but do I need to make a motion to change that word to disabled person or individual? If you would like for us to amend the ordinance to change the verbiage of that, then yes. Okay. Well, I'll make a motion then that we change the verbiage in Resolution 167-91. from handicapped to disabled individual. So moved. It's a motion on the floor. It's going to fail. Well, only because of time, Council Member Henson. Only because of time. We definitely think that this is a... I can make that at work session. You could. I'll do that. Thank you. Council Member Henson's motion has been withdrawn. Thank you, committee members, for a committee. Our next meeting, I believe, is on Tuesday, April 7th. Is there a motion to adjourn? Second. Motion. Council Member Aker second. Council Member Scutchfield, we stand adjourned until April 7th. Thank you.