Less than two weeks after the Athens-Clarke County Commission allocated $1.9 million in federal funding to a workforce development plan led by the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, a Workforce Development Task Force created by the commission and chaired by Commissioners Carol Myers and Tiffany Taylor is preparing to release its own proposal.
The chamber-led initiative, Athens Achieves, aims to create what chamber president and CEO David Bradley calls a “valued, valuable workforce.” Athens-Clarke County Commissioners Patrick Davenport and John Culpepper serve on the Athens Achieves working committee.
Bradley calls the $1.9 million provided to Athens Achieves through the American Rescue Plan Act “seed money,” and he hopes private funding and grants will help sustain the effort over the long term.
The $1.9 million will be used to establish an online job portal and up to three portal “navigators” to keep job seekers engaged in the search process. The funding will also be used to hire a chief workforce officer for the chamber and a grants coordinator to help Athens Achieve’s continued funding efforts.
Generally, Athens Achieves aims to bring together local businesses and industries, the education community and local government to provide a pipeline of skilled workers for current and future businesses and industries.
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The county received $57.6 million in ARPA dollars as part of the nationwide $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package approved by Congress in 2021 to boost the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The county commission has divided the local funding into “buckets” for different efforts, with $3.8 million earmarked for business development and workforce assistance.
The allocation of $1.9 million to Athens Achieves stalled at the June 6 commission meeting, forcing Mayor Kelly Gertz to hold two equal runoff votes to redirect the money to the program. The original motion to provide funding to Athens Achieves was defeated by a substitute motion by Commissioner Melissa Link to postpone action until the commission has reviewed the report of the Business Development and Workforce Assistance Task Force, led by Myers and Taylor.
Gertz split the votes in favor and against on both motions to secure funding for Athens Achieves.
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Myers said the Enterprise Development and Workforce Assistance Task Force had anticipated having access to the full $3.8 million in ARPA funding, but workload issues and bureaucracy in county government have delayed its launch.
Work was originally scheduled to begin in August, but the task force only began working in March.
But the task force is still working under a deadline to complete a report by June 26, which will be prepared by Lion Leadership, an Athens-based business consulting firm working with the group.
After the task force's review, a report will be presented to the mayor and commission at public meetings on July 9 and 16, with a vote possible as early as Aug. 6. The task force will not make a specific funding request, but any funds the commission ultimately seeks and may approve must be committed by Dec. 31.
Myers said that's a tight timeline considering the county government will have to go through a lengthy process, including soliciting requests for proposals for the planned program.
At a recent meeting, the task force reviewed the seven goals it had developed, including empowering local workers through education on labor rights, increasing work and apprenticeship opportunities on publicly funded projects, improving child care, expanding access to capital for small businesses, increasing the number of local employee-owned businesses, and developing a workforce that is qualified for the region's high-demand employment sectors.
The only concrete financial request in the task force's proposal so far is to spend $1 million on grants and loans for local small businesses, but Myers said the proposal is “just an idea” at this point and not a formal request.
Myers said that once the task force approves the report, he and Taylor will strategize about how to effectively present the report to the committee, given that some of their colleagues on the committee may be seeking to use ARPA funds for other purposes.