LEADERSHIP TEAM MEETING NOTES – February 9, 2012

In Attendance: Lewis Boren, Ben Lopez, Sue Bailey, Gerry Fluharty, Terry Gearhart, Roy Highsmith, Linda Angel, Susan Kamas, Vivian Naramore, Jerry Haisler, Debbie Gommert, Vickie Gideon, and Kimberly Patterson.

Last Meeting Review: No Reports.

Workforce Update:

TAB Conference: Susan reported on a panel of all the contenders for Kay Bailey Hutchins’ senate seat. They were interesting but pretty vague. However, former Dallas Mayor, Tom Leppert had had the most pecific answers –and they seemed to make sense. Steve Murdock did a presentation on state demographics. It was stated that if it were not for Hispanics, there would be zero population growth for the US and Texas. Another workshop highlighted that 99% of the population are on pain medications! People are holding “pharm” parties and we seem to have a prescription drug epidemic in the US. The LT had a discussion on speaking Spanish and English in schools and other places. Another session included editorial writers from the Dallas Morning News, Austin American Statesman and Texas Tribune. Their consensus was that Romney will be the GOP nominee. Other notes: predicted that in November unemployment will be 8.5% or higher. Also, if all dropouts from school returned we could not afford to educate them (facilities and teachers).

Best Companies: The Best Companies luncheon was well attended. We are the same rank that we held last year. More of our board members wanted to go this year.

Susan announced that Roy Rumsey, former board member and a staunch supporter of all things workforce passed away this week after several months in a nursing care center. The LT shared memories of him.

Staff positions are open at TAWB.

SEE participation by staff: Almost 20% of our staff did not get the notices the first time around. This taken care of except for one (Fluharty!).

TWC Case Manager Training: It appears that, by the title of the training, it may be more suitable for supervisors than for “case managers”. The training is scheduled the same day as the next LT meeting so the March LT meeting is rescheduled for March 6. Debbie will ensure that our people get slots for the training.

CTCOG Biometric Testing and Annual Physical for Premium Reduction, Page 9: We have the rest of the year to get the physical. If the biometric testing is missed the staff person must get a statement from their Dr. that all areas of the biometric testing have been covered. There was confusion in the LT about what the COG wants or means. An e-mail was sent to set up the screening and it now appears that it is split out to include the annual physical. Also, what the self-attest form says is less than what Jim Reed told Jerry on the phone. In addition, we need clarification on the smoking issue; does taking a class on smoking cessation qualify as stopping smoking? ACTION: Jerry will discuss with Jim Reed and clarify the inconsistencies.

Greg Newton Game Plan, Page 10: The sign up list is out. Decided the 15th PM is for LT and Tom and Wendy. Laurie Biscoe, Scott Echner, and Adam Leonard from TWC will attend the whole session. We feel that is very beneficial.

Workforce Innovation Grant, Page 10A: USDOL has funded 20-30 Education Innovation and National Community Service Innovation grants that can be applied for by local boards. We like the $3-6M group which is under promising ideas. This involves a rigorous evaluation process and the winners will be replicated nationally once completed. The process must be able to continue after the grant goes away (sustainable).

Our proposal would focus around people doing either group job search with a small staff and/or individual job search with a small staff. Priority would be to keep up services to military spouses under BRAC. This would also include our target populations. There would be workshops in dedicated rooms with workforce staff specific to the populations. Vulnerable populations would attend regular workshops and an invitation made to the general population as well.

The components could include: 1. Spouses and Vets with targeted workshops such as cloud-based job search. That way they security is not an issue and it is relatively low cost. 2. Employer-based to target 2-3 high profile businesses. We could determine what the employees “look like” through job profiling. We would then assess people for certification in the required skills for the job. 3. UI claimants and others.

We might want to go back to Gerry’s Strategic Career Development (SCD) process which is already developed. Tracking could be through program systems. This would not, however, replace case management. Jerry stated that we must reconcile, or deal with the fact from our experiences with J4MF and TALENT that many don’t want these activities but rather want one-on-one help and skills training only. The problem is that we have focused for a long time on training and we need to get away from this to some degree. If we market it to learn what their skills are and how to use them in the labor market, we will get takers. But we shouldn’t go into this without taking into consideration what we have learned. Training can’t be taken out of the equation. Credentialing is a big sell. Lewis stated that if we can show that the military family is assisted through our effort this will make DOD happy, a plus for us too. Right now our workshops are piecemeal and not structured. Skills assessment must follow the workshops as this is the credential.

The LT discussed using the employer’s own assessment to screen for employees. It also discussed the meaning of a credential and the fact that a grant can help us re-position staff.

Youth Part of the Grant: Out of School youth are the focus. There may be some focus as well on drop-outs. As for serving this population the potential is there to do career assessment on 17-18 year olds. CTC could do this as a whole family process. CTC could provide basic skills upgrade for the out of school youth. Linda is following up at the end of the month with CTC. She indicated that we can’t lose sight of our performance requirements while thinking about all this.

BRAC-Talent Changes, Page 11: Jerry announced that funding has been extended and we can now enroll up to about 40 additional persons. ACTION: Administrators need to let staff know.

Monitoring, Page 12: There will be a group meeting this afternoon to discuss the write-ups and responses to them. Horace has sent out the report and the schedule for future visits.

Security of Customer Files, Page 13: The LT discussed the use and security of our recycling bins. Belton uses a service that comes to the site and shreds documents on the spot. In Killeen the city provides the bin and recycling but does not shred on site. In Temple, the bin can be locked pending pick up. Do we buy more shredders? Lock the rooms containing the bins? Do we get the shredding service for all? The decision was to keep doing as we have been until we have a clearer picture of what TWC might require.

TWC Cooperative Agreement, Pages14-19: The trend is to security of customer info and confidentiality.

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services MOU, Pages 28-31: Attached for information

Performance, Pages 32-52: Ben reported that in December, 3235 data entries were done for unsubsidized employment. The error rate is 10.6%. The TWC error rate, 169 reviewed with error rate of 41%. Most were on math or transferences of data. There were also a few errors on the paperwork such as signatures, etc. TWC looks at one error in a packet to be the entire file in error. Staff has been asked to be more careful and Ben expects improvement in January’s report.

The LT discussed the performance charts. We are OK on workforce performance. Things are not too bad in the others but we are still early in the year. We are missing a few but are reasonably on target. Incentive report is to come out next month. WIA looks good for incentive. Youth placement in employment is fine. We have a low number of basic skills deficient youth but we are about the same as others in our quartile. We can still do well.

Next Leadership Team Meeting: 8:30 AM, March 6, KWFC.

Meeting Evaluation:

What was good?

Good discussions

Innovations grant would be great

Thanks to all who brought food.

Food and Info

Enjoyed Susan’s report

Good discussion on the Innovation Grant. Very indicative of our team’s high level of trust with each other to approve and work at next steps for Linda.

Good meeting flow; good food

Good meeting

Really great exchange/dialogue on innovative grant discussion Good team work!!!

What could we improve?

1