City Council - Human Services Committee Hearing on Docket #0289

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Good morning. Good morning, everyone. For the record, my name is Erin Murphy, At-Large City Councilor, and I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Human Services. Not to be confused with the former name of Strong Women, Families, and Communities, it's the same committee. Today is March 13, 2026, and the time is 10.04 a.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being livestreamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.hs.boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of the hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify.

If you're interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-in sheet at the door. And if you want to testify virtually, you can email our central staff liaison, Ron Cobb, at ron.cobb at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket 0289, order for a hearing regarding youth summer jobs, access and readiness for the upcoming summer. This matter was sponsored by myself, Councillor Worrell, and Councillor Flynn, and was referred to the committee on February 4th, 2026. Today, I am joined by my colleagues in order of arrival. We have been joined by Councillor Flynn. So we will start with opening statements. We'll just say my fifth year now on the council so I think this is our fifth year having this annual hearing and like you mentioned it's perfect timing because on Monday you will be

and many more. Thank you for that and I'll pass it off to Councilor Flynn.

Thank you Chair Murphy and thank you to the administration panel that is here and for the work that you've been doing for a long period of time. I also want to acknowledge Councilor Worrell and obviously Councilor Murphy on your lead on this issue, working with the administration but trying to help as many youth as possible. Summer Youth Employment is a proven tool for supporting social, emotional, economic well-being of young people. I think it strengthens families in communities across the city. I think it's critical we work to get I think it helps build confidence, develops job readiness, life skills, positive relationships with adults, obviously an income and they engage in structured supportive environments.

The City of Boston administers youth summer employment through the Department of Youth Engagement and Employment. working with other city departments, partnerships with community-based organizations to deliver job placement workforce development as well. So I'm looking forward to learning more about What your plan is for this summer? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Of course, thank you. We can get right into your presentation. I echo what Councillor Flynn said, that it's obviously proven that the more Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're getting every year. I feel like there is a lapse, a little glitch when it comes to like our BPS students and making sure that the kids who need these jobs the most, I would consider those Thank you. City's Children's Cabinet. So not to be confused with BPS, but it is under the Mayor's Cabinet.

But they decided again this year to not center, even though I felt that I invited her because much of the concern and discussion for me centers on how we better support our most vulnerable students and ensure that they have access to and support in applying for meaningful summer jobs. So they have assured me that you can answer those questions, but I don't in any way want to put a burden on what both of you and your roles do. There is a whole Committee here, Department in the City, and BPS, so we do want to make sure that everyone is hands-on. So I will formally introduce you, even though both of you probably don't need any introduction. But we have been joined today by Alison Verneray, the Executive Director of Office of Youth Employment and Opportunity. and Joseph Lee, Chief of Staff to the Worker Empowerment and Officer Workforce Development. So you can go, thank you.

Wonderful. Joseph, should I dive in or do you want to say anything?

No, I just want to say thank you and thank you for bringing this convening together and having us have the opportunity not only to talk about what we have in store for summer jobs of 26, but also Murphy, Councilor Flynn, your continued support. Every year that I've been at the youth fair or out and about, you both have been very present in promoting but also Thank you for taking in youth to your offices and teaching them, I guess, how the sausage is made. And giving that opportunity to see them behind the curtain of what happens at City Hall, especially on the Council side. So I want to thank you both for always taking on youth and Walking the Walk, not just sitting there advocating for us to have additional support, but really putting that into action yourselves and taking on youth into your offices.

Wonderful. Yeah, thank you so much, seconding that. So thankful for the opportunity to present, make sure that the work gets uplifted and that we get feedback on it and amplify it to make sure we make jobs accessible to all young people. and the best possible jobs. As stated, my name is Alison Verner. I am the Executive Director for the Office of Youth Employment and Opportunity. I'm going to focus most of my presentation today on the operations for the upcoming summer as was requested. As both councillors stated, we all are very aware of the wonderful impact of summer jobs, so I'm not going to spend much time on that. Usually positive for young people and so I'll really focus on how do we make sure we maximize that impact, maximize that accessibility. and then also look forward to the conversation for us to get better because as stated this is perfect timing which is getting started for the year.

Just to start really quickly, our mission at the Office of Youth Employment and Opportunity is to employ, develop and engage Boston's youth. We really do that mainly through youth jobs, summer and school year. Summer is our biggest program by far because young people are out of school. We really work to give them opportunities in the moment, but also make sure that they are equipped for long-term empowerment, for long-term success into adulthood. hopefully ending up in high paying jobs to sustain their families or whatever they would like to do in the future in the city of Boston. That came off. Sorry. Did I do something? There you go.

Maybe you have to click again. Yeah.

There you go. So it all starts with applying. And as most people hopefully are aware by now, all applications for youth jobs happen through our Future Boss portal. Just a quick reminder that Future Boss really is the youth jobs hub we launched two years ago to centralize all opportunities but also all resources for young people. So young people can go to boston.gov slash future boss and they'll find all of the paid jobs, internship opportunities that are available to them, but also all of the guides for supporting them with onboarding, Tips for Good Internships, etc., etc. We've got a lot of different great resources there that we're hoping to make as accessible as possible. When it comes to job opportunities at a really high level, I left some impact report from last summer with all of you.

I'm not going to dig into last summer because I really want to focus on what we're going to do this summer, but we provided 10,500 jobs and we are working to do the same this summer. A lot of the job opportunities that we provide are coming from Success Link, which is the city-funded jobs program. We just released our job allocations for SuccessLink a couple weeks ago so that programs can get prepared. We are officially going to have 145 nonprofits as employer partners as well as 83 city departments where young people can go. Learn and develop themselves and of course in addition to that we'll have private sector jobs as supported by the Private Industry Council and a lot of our other partners. All of the job opportunities that we provide include a minimum of 15 hours of career development because we want young people to work but also to have specific focus.

That can be guest speakers, that can be workshops, that can be college visits. It's really a variety depending on the programs. And then we've worked really hard in our partner selection to make sure we have jobs available in all neighborhoods and industries. and we try to match you know more jobs and neighborhoods with more young people and in growing industries as much as we can although we know there's still so work to be done there and there will always be. and many more. This is the flyer visual for young people. Applications are going to launch this Monday, March 16. I'm excited to be here today You can all hopefully help us direct young people from your networks through your newsletters, all of that to the job application. And as I mentioned, that will be accompanied by a lot of resources that young people can leverage.

One of the things we've done just on the application side and the work catalog, and you can't see it really well here, but we really have been over the past two years gathering feedback from young people to make it more navigable, easier to understand for young people. So we're focused on filters of Is this available for young people that are my age? Is this available in my neighborhood? Is this available to me if I am in summer school and I need some flexibility in my work hours? So that's what we're launching with as of Monday and are excited about it. To make sure that young people can apply and have jobs accessible to them, we are conducting quite a few outreach and engagement efforts all across the city. I'll highlight a few of them. The main one is of course our main jobs and resource fair. This year it's going to be on April 18th at the Reggie Lewis. We're really excited about it.

High level, we're expecting about 3,000 or more young job seekers. They're going to be supported by over 200 employer partners. We'll have a job application hub, activities, food trucks, I've linked the youth registration. Once again, send young people our way. We want as many of them as possible. And we've got flyers in all languages. I printed some in English to bring today, but they're available in all the city languages. A few things that we're doing for the fair this year that I wanted to highlight because obviously it's such a high impact day. Because of the growing demand that we've seen in the past few years, we are extending the fair to be longer this year. So it's gonna be the longest fair ever. And what we're doing is we're breaking it up into two entry waves to make sure we can accommodate more young people safely. and also make sure that they can have really productive conversations with employers because if it's just too many people you can't find a job, right?

So young people right now when they go register they either sign up for the morning wave or the afternoon wave which means that we're going to have more focus on those young people during that time. Both waves are going to have all resources, all employers and the same set of services offered. But it just allows us to focus on subgroups of people and serve more of them. We're also implementing a new layout that we tested partially at the Mayfair last year that was much safer and just more conducive to getting young people meeting more employers and moving through the flow. A couple additional things we're implementing as part of this flow are we're going to have maps to hand out to young people so they can find employers they're interested in and where they're going more easily. We're getting those maps translated and all of that, really trying to maximize the access.

And then we also know it can be an overwhelming event for some young people, so we're adding a sensory safe space for them to go into, have more calm and a little break if they need that. And then we are implementing additional safety measures just because of it being such a big event. RCC, which is the host site at the Reggie Lewis, has implemented noninvasive metal detectors at the entry for all of their events, so we're going to benefit from that. It's really not going to slow down anything. You don't have to take off your jacket. You don't have to do anything. But you can get through. We can make sure that there are no weapons in the space, that everybody is getting a little extra screening and can feel safe. Those are the main updates for the fair. We've got a few others, but what I did want to emphasize, and this is a little small,

We welcome all the help in terms of having anybody show up for Boston's Youngest Workers, so we've got opportunities for Resource partners who might not be employers, but for example, the Public Health Commission is coming to support young people with mental health, things like that. We're going to have a distributor of earplugs if things get too loud. Different things like that. We take in volunteers. We, of course, are going to have all employer partners. So if anybody who is not in our network that you know of has a job for a young person, have them come. and then most importantly the last one which I can reshare after is our promotional kit for young people. We're trying to partner with as many people as we can to make sure all young people know about this event and feel welcome to it. So that's what we're doing for the big fair. Additional to the big fair, we have a fully...

BPS Pop-up Fairs A lot of them are going to be before the main job fair so that students get to apply and get a hand in things early. We are also continuing to target neighborhoods with an under representation of youth for those schools. And this year we're really excited. We're really talking to the schools intentionally about what are the pathways that your students are engaged in in terms of their BPS schoolwork. and how can we bring in relevant employers as well as making sure we have the right resources for the communities in the different schools and we'll have translation services available at all those events. I won't go through the details, but you can see the schools that we have

and so on. and Adult, either the counselor or their teacher, who can help guide them and be that extra voice to really encourage them to interact with employers and hopefully secure a job quickly. Those are the main fair events we're having. And then we have a lot of other engagement tactics that we deploy around this time of year and really for the next two months. Actually, today my team is canvassing all the BPS schools and many charter and private schools, dropping off flyers, talking to all the front desk people that we know have such a huge impact on young people. To make sure everybody is aware and has the materials.

We have bus shelter ads going live on March 20th all across the city, specifically in areas that we've historically underserved. Newsletters, text campaigns, social media. We've established partnerships for communications with different city teams like the Youth Engagement and Advancements, the Immigrant Advancement Office, the Disabilities Commission, and many others to make sure we're really reaching all sub pockets of youth and all populations that might not be as connected to our office directly. And then the last thing I want to highlight, because I know a few of you have asked me in the past and this is perfect timing, we are attending fairs and doing presentations per request. So I've put up a few examples of places my team has been in the past week and in this upcoming week that you can see. But really, anybody who wants us to come and present and table, it's just emailing futureboss at boston.gov and we get it on the calendar.

Like I said, if you've got opportunities, I know we had talked about going to a couple of the housing centers and different things. We're very happy to take those extra opportunities that For young people we might not have gotten in front of so far. Those are the main engagement tactics we have. Like I said, we're very open to supporting things as they come up, but those are the things we've put in place. With all of that, the idea is hopefully we've engaged young people, they know about jobs, those are accessible to them. We know after that the work is far from done because we actually need young people to onboard. and to have a good summer experience. So a few things that we are doing on the onboarding and beyond front, I called it. One, just a reminder that we have obviously a lot of online resources I've talked about, but we know hands-on support is really

Our office at the Tobin Community Center expands from May 1st to July 17th. We have a special space called the Youth Welcome Center where last summer we welcomed over 5,000 families and we provide onboarding services, but also we're able to issue work permits. City IDs. We're able to retrieve Boston birth certificates as of last year, and we do live application support. So young people can come and so on, directly to our office in addition to all the fairs and events that I mentioned with extended support for all of them during that time period. We also have An initiative that we started last year called Mobile Onboarding Events where we're really working to meet you for where they're at. We know it's not in the cards for every family to show up in Roxbury.

and many more. We're continuing to work to expand. We go and what we do is just live onboarding events. So we'll be in East Boston, Young people can come. It was so successful last year. A young person would show up and say, wait, I don't have my social security card. But because they lived down the street, they could just go get it and come back, right? The other thing is we are having those events in the evenings or Saturdays because we know that's when parents, guardians, and families are most able to support young people. and because it's a complicated process, that's what we want. And we're really pairing BCYF staff with my team staff so that we have both the expertise of the specific community but also the work expertise that we need to bring in.

So looking to continue to expand those but so far we're hitting those four community centers through the month of May which is really when we want young people to onboard so they have plenty of time to be ready before jobs start at the end of June. A few other things. Those were more expansions of initiatives, but I did want to highlight a few additional things we've been putting in place. A lot of it based on feedback we've received and new things we're trying to support more young people. One is we are releasing next week a family adult guide to support young people with onboarding because we know that, yes, it's in the hands of young people, but we know parents, guardians, Adult supports have a big role and we want them to feel equipped to support the young people that are in their lives. We are expanding our partnership with the STRIVE programs at BPS.

In two ways, one, we're expanding the number of jobs that are specifically for those programs for students with disabilities, but we are also putting in place an expanded onboarding support for those programs. Some of those students aren't able to necessarily come in person or attend any of our events and so we've got two staff members specifically assigned to support those programs in a particular relationship. and operations to make sure those youth can get onboarded smoothly. We just established a new partnership with the Youth Violence Strike Force from BPD to have them refer youth to us directly. who might not have any adult support that they might have encountered as they're working in the different neighborhoods. Those are youth who are not necessarily justice involved but maybe Surrounded by different difficult situations and so we want more hands on support for those young people as well.

We are expanding our partnership with Youth Options Unlimited which supports court-involved young people. We are implementing a couple of things around streamlining the onboarding for city jobs specifically that I'm really excited about. The first one is we're going to have rollovers, which means that young people who worked in the school year If a site wants to rehire them for the summer, they're not going to have to complete onboarding again. We're going to be able to just get them through. which we haven't been able to do from school year to summer in the past. So that's our estimate is usually that's about 500 young people that this time might not have to do any onboarding at all which would be great. Bless you. And the other thing is with I-9 verifications, which is the main reason young people have to come in person to sign paperwork, we have been able to streamline so that if a young person worked for the city at a specific site last summer,

They do need to redo the onboarding or submitting the paperwork, but they don't need to redo the in-person signature because that signature is still valid. We've been having a lot of conversations with the states and federal guidelines on I-9 and got the okay from HR on that, so we feel really good about it. And then the last one, which is in its infancy, but it's something I've personally been passionate about for the past couple years, and that we are starting to put things in place for this summer. is we have a BPS data sharing pilot we're gonna launch. So we're working with the BPS data office where some of my staff is directly going to be able to access Some physicals, proof of school enrollment and proof of Boston residency through the BPS systems so that if a young person shows up and they're a BPS student, they don't have to bring those papers to us. My team can go and look.

We're going to do that at small scale this summer because it's one of those things that seems obvious and we want to get to, but technically speaking is a bit more complicated. But I'm really excited that we're actually starting it because I think That's how we're going to end up doing that at scale. And yeah, those are a few of the initiatives that we have. I think this was my last slide. Like I said, we know there's always gaps in student populations we reach and we're hoping to and so on. is around making sure that we are filling our summer jobs. We've continued to see increased demand for our summer jobs. Last summer, our fill rate for jobs was over 98%. So we do feel the jobs that we have and we feel very good about all the onboarding, streamlining that we've done in the past couple years.

There's always a few young people who fall through the crack and we also know we want to make sure young people who haven't had access to the jobs do get access. And so there's plenty, plenty of work for all of us to do. But we do feel good about the fact that resources that are given to us are in fact being expanded, are in fact going to young people.

and that's all I have. Awesome. Thank you. I do just want to say we've been joined by Councilor Coletta Zapata and Councilor Weber, but I want to thank you both Allison and Joseph. Like I said at the beginning, this is our fifth We are having this hearing before we kick off youth summer jobs and so much of what you are touching on are things that came out of these hearings and concerns that we were like sharing back I'm so happy to hear a few years back when I was saying a lot of the kids that we hear from, it's a birth certificate. It's something we know the family at some point has given to a city department. How do we share that information in a safe way, obviously? Just happy to hear that, you know, the changes are being made and we're adjusting all of the things we're doing, not just, you know, sitting on that. So thank you for that. But I will go last. I will pass it off to Councilor Flynn. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, thank you to Allison and Joseph for the work that you're doing. So, let me just ask to either Allison or Joseph, how many Summer jobs did we have last year in terms of people that Boston hired?

The total across the city of Boston?

Yes.

10,511.

Okay, 10,511. And we had enough funding for all of those jobs?

So we don't fund all of those jobs. Amongst those are the SuccessLink jobs that we fund. and all the other jobs are actually privately funded either through the Private Industry Council that does a lot of work with the private companies, different retail companies, different avenues, mostly through the Private Industry Council.

Does the funding come to Boston for those jobs?

The private sector jobs? No. It stays in the hands, like the companies will directly pay the young people or some of the money will flow through the private industry council or some entities and they get it back to the young people through wages.

in Boston. Boston hires them though, we hire them.

Not the city?

I mean, we select them.

We don't select, the employers do their own selection, but we help with all of the engagement and making sure the young people are exposed to their jobs. And the Private Industry Council has career specialists in all of the high schools. So they help make sure the young people are given the opportunity to access those jobs.

And that's part of the $10,500?

Exactly.

Okay. And how much does Boston itself contribute to the summer jobs program?

Yeah, if you look, I'm happy to ramble out the numbers, but I also gave out the impact reports, and I'm just pulling it up on my screen to give you the right page number where we have the little table. So if you just open it, the page that says impact highlights, which is the first one, You're going to see that table. And so, YEO through Success Link, and that's all the city-funded jobs, we funded 5,964 jobs last year.

Okay. Okay. And Joseph, it's good to see you and want to acknowledge your work, Joseph, and your professionalism and hard work and advocacy for many years. I want to ask Allison and Joseph, I support the summer jobs program. With budget cuts, are you concerned about any potential impact it has on the summer jobs program?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think the way we think about the budget and because of the timing of the summer jobs program, We've actually already made the allocations for the summer, and we work really closely with budget to be able to kind of move forward. So for the coming fiscal year, honestly, any cuts would impact the school year program, not the summer program as much. We also know the summer program has to be the top priority because young people are not in school. So yes, we want to serve as many young people as we can throughout the year. In terms of the summer itself, that's what we try to preserve first and foremost, and it's the school year that has most chances of getting impacted if we get cuts.

Also, Councilor, just to add, we also do work very closely with the Boston PIC and other private partners because we obviously want to grow that sector as well. So there is a plan in place to work with. We're joined by members of the PIC here, Jimmy Wyman and Kim. who really do help us navigate those grounds. They have the career navigators in school to talk to them, but also, so that's another way that if there are, but as Alison mentioned, The cuts really would impact the school year program more so. This summer, we work with OBM as early as we can so that way we can make allocations as early as possible because as we know, Our youth are chomping at the bit to get into these roles, so the quicker that we can open our application process, this year will be next Monday on the 16th, the better. But we are also looking to expand and add more private partners so that way

you know it does allow for some of those youth that are ready for a internship more so we'll call it to go that pathway and then allow for someone maybe 14, 15 who is just breaking in to the job force to get those BCYF Council, Camp Council jobs that are a little bit more teaching the basic skills they need along the way.

Thank you, Joseph. And I'm glad you acknowledged the Boston Private Industry Council. that are present here, thank you for the work you're doing. I had a wonderful opportunity to work directly with Neil Sullivan for so many years, but also Michael O'Neill, but with the entire Pick team, they do outstanding work. Maybe my final question is, if there were cuts to the program, or any city funding based on the city budget. Is there the likelihood that the private sector would kind of contribute more to meet the city's reduction or Have you considered that scenario? Or I'm just trying to figure out, is the private industry, have they contributed as much as they possibly can

or is there an opportunity to contribute more? I don't know the answer, but just wanted to see what your thoughts might be.

Yeah, I don't think that's a black or white answer, right? I think the private industry council team, our teams have been working really closely to try to engage as many employers as we can in the private sector. Is there always more that can be done? Yes. Obviously, we have less control over the private sector and what they decide to invest. So I actually have a meeting this afternoon with Michael O'Neill, our chief trend and a few people from BPS and different entities to try to make sure we're continuing to maximize those opportunities and capturing more and more through that. It's not a perfect trade-off, but we're definitely very much focused on it, and we want to grow those opportunities.

Well, thank you, Allison. Thank you, Joseph. I want to be respectful to my colleagues. I've talked and asked questions and want to give a Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Flynn. Councilor Coletta Zapata.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you all so much for being here. I apologize that I was late. Love seeing East Boston. and Charlestown be well represented in here. And I appreciate the intentionality in trying to go to some of these places because they are We are a bridge and a tunnel, sometimes too far for some folks, but really appreciate it. And I love visiting community-based organizations where we've partnered with Folks like the Pierce Park Sailing Center and gotten a chance to hear from kids directly. My office has leaned in and hired five brilliant individuals through the Success Link and really excited to hear about being able to carry over Santi who is now in our office from this year to summer so that's news to him or will be but really excited about that. I know some have said with the budget cuts that we may want to look at cutting youth jobs. And that's not something that I necessarily agree with. We know that busy kids are safe kids.

And busy and safe kids lead to a safe city. So I think that this is integral to what we're doing at the City of Boston and would hope that there are Limited to no cuts for you all because we just know how important it is. and the demand is there. So just anecdotally, Parrish Street, I think we're getting 38 positions. I know she wanted 48. So obviously gonna advocate for her because she has just ingrained herself into that age group, which is so hard from 13 all the way up to 24. She has asked for more leaders, leadership positions. and things that it would make a difference. So she sees a lot of young adults return home from college during the summer and that they could benefit from those opportunities. So just wanted to call that out. I wanted to discuss partnerships within the City of Boston and city departments.

We have been talking about trying to revive as a way to address staffing shortages within front facing public facing positions within the city itself. So Public Works, for example. It is impossible almost to try to find folks that want to pick up trash for $17 an hour because they can make more money scooping ice cream at J.P. Licks, for example. We figured it would be more sustainable and more realistic to hire young adults through this program to help Public Works with their own staffing shortages to carry out the basic city services that our city deserves and our residents deserve. What do some of the partnerships look like within those city departments? So I'm thinking public works in particular, if there's anything that you can talk about as it relates to that. and your comments or maybe thoughts about trying to revive a program like that within the city of Boston. It used to be called the Red Shirts Program. and I don't know what it's going to be called.

I hope we get a pilot program up and running. But I do feel like it is a useful endeavor seeing that we are going through uncertain fiscal times and public works is finding it really challenging trying to hire folks but we have kids that are willing to do this job and it creates that pipeline from high school directly into a good paying city job. We can talk about incentives. Maybe they can get their CDL license, all of that. But can you just talk through if there's been any conversations in particular with Public Works about trying to build up a program like this? And do those jobs exist within those departments already?

Did you want to touch on that?

Yeah, so what the red shirts, that obviously predates anything that Allison and I have It definitely predates my time here at the city, which has only been five years, so definitely have heard about the program through different councillors in the past and obviously Community members who said, hey, I was a red shirt, I was a brown shirt growing up and I'm glad to see that youth jobs are still alive and well. But to be honest, Council, we haven't really, I personally haven't had deep conversations. I know that there was a request to talk about that at a future Council hearing, but as of right now, I mean, if the demand is there and the funding is there, I don't see Why there wouldn't be a pathway forward, but at this moment I have not been in any kind of deeper conversations around that, but open to discussing it and talking with DPW or

Whomever in the streets team and interim chief Grove, kind of how we can partner together. But at this moment, we have not really had deeper conversations other than what DPW has requested in their YEO success link allocation. And we know that those that do get placed there do enjoy it, or else we wouldn't be constantly going back and saying, hey, here's your allocation. but don't have any more in-depth knowledge around kind of the red shirts of the revival of what that program would look like.

Thank you. And do you know, and sorry, I know you're going to answer just really quick. Do you know how much DBW is allocating for their own success link?

That's a question that I think Allison can answer better. Okay.

So most of those, I'm just relooking at my list, because as you know, we have a lot of partners in a lot of programs. Most of our partnership, when it comes more to support of like, City Beautification and Care. We actually do through the parks and recs departments where we have a lot of programs that are helping at the golf courses, and different spaces like that which is probably the most comparable. I'm trying to see, I can get back to you again, but we don't have a super formal partnership for those types of roles at this point, right? and I mean a few high-level thoughts one absolutely in terms of like if there's funding for those opportunities we're able to support them I'm always worried about and so on.

Now there's probably a preference that those would be older youth or younger young adults which my office does serve primarily the 14 to 18. 19 to 24 is a very small piece of the population we support for our office. and there's other programs that are more geared towards young adults. So I think there's questions there too of like where it might fit best and maybe a broader conversation. to think about that. And you pointed towards that, right? It's like, if we do a program like this, We've really put a lot of effort into making sure those programs are all really developmental in terms of your working, but you're also getting career readiness, certifications, Things like that. And so how do we spend the time to build something like that? Those are some high level thoughts. I also haven't been involved in deeper conversations about this, but we always welcome them and are happy to think about next steps of how have the most impact with the Youth Jobs Program.

For sure. And my last comment is just going to be that I do know that there's been success with the golf courses and all of that. East Boston in particular, we need assistance with maintenance. For Parks. And we need assistance with trash pickup and litter pickup. And we know that we want to build their skills at the end of the day. So that's why it's like, you can do this. And the incentive is getting your CDL license or whatever it is, or you have access to more jobs. but I really do think it's a worthwhile, like I said, conversation. We are gonna have an upcoming hearing, so I would love for you both to be there to discuss the ins and outs and the intricacies of trying to make this program Weber.

Thank you, Chair. Nice to see everyone. I guess I just wanted to give Councilor Culpepper credit. We had a working session yesterday. We talked about youth jobs a little bit. and something he brought up was there is like a public safety aspect to the youth jobs and maybe you address this, I apologize for... Missing your presentation, that there is a public safety benefit to having youth constructively occupied and doing things and working during the summer. So do you have any numbers or do you have anything you want to say about that aspect of the program?

Yes, I have actually prefaced my presentation by saying I'm not going to spend a lot of time on impact because we're all aligned and I'm going to focus on the operations, but let me find a couple of things. High level, the data is very, very clear and we've had our program studied for many, many years that involvement in the summer jobs program significantly reduces involvement in the criminal justice system, which, you know, when we talk about safety is one of the big indicators. We know that it has huge positive impact on graduation rates from high school. and post-secondary involvement. And Joseph has the actual stats pulled up that he can read.

So we've seen upwards of 35% reduction in violent crimes with youth participating. We've seen a 6.4% increase in high school graduations. And the big thing is 30% boost in wages, because they're already starting with great job experience. We're seeing this year that this is the highest senior graduating class for BPS. And we would like to think we had an impact, because not only are they gaining wage discounts, but they're also learning the soft skills, what it means to show up on time, How to communicate with peers, how to communicate with adults. So it's the soft skills, not just the hard skills that they're learning that our Youth JAWS program really does provide for them.

Okay, thanks. And then in terms of... So last summer, the demand outstripped the funds, right? So it was about... 4,000 kids who wanted jobs who didn't get them. What was the number?

Yeah, so we overall were able to provide 10,500 jobs, not all city-funded, but including the city-funded ones. and we had applications from a little over 12,000 youth. So the difference is between 1,500 and 2,000 youth who had applied and didn't get a job.

Okay. What is the number for the school year jobs?

We're still in the data processing for this current school year, but at a high level school year is between 1,800 and 2,000 jobs. We also get a lot of applications. I'd have to look at the latest counts, but it was upwards above 3,000 applicants that we had gotten for the school year total.

Okay, and then, so are you losing state funds? Are we losing state funds for SuccessLink? Did you explain that?

Yeah, we didn't talk through all of the funding pieces as much, but yes, we are expecting to lose a little bit of funds, so part of SuccessLink is funded through Comcor and the We don't actually have our official allocation from the state and many more. We usually receive about a million and right now our hope is to receive $800,000 based on on the proposal we were asked to submit. But that is not confirmed. That process at the state level is still in progress.

Okay, just two more quick questions. So something we get, my office gets a lot of calls on, or did last year and I think the year before is, Organizations that have tried to, you know, want to participate in the program who maybe had a spot and maybe had jobs and then losing. Can you just explain what's happening around that? These are, you know,

The employers.

The employers, yeah, who we've maybe, who've had summer jobs positions in the past and then lose them. You know, why does that happen? And, you know, like, how do we, do you, Are we just trying to eliminate those kinds of positions? What is happening to those organizations? Because a lot of them do great work, and we want to support them and have

I think probably most of the calls you got about the school year program which is the one we had to make cuts to last year So high level, every year, all people who want to be an employer partner apply to receive a grant from us through the SuccessLink grants. That process happens in January. and then we have an internal review committee that reviews all program proposals and based on that makes allocation proposals and decisions to all of those employer partners of Whether they are going to be a successful partner in receiving funds and how much funds they're going to receive. We just made allocations for this upcoming summer. And so we just allocated $18.5 million worth of youth jobs to 145 nonprofits and 83 city agencies. for a total of 6,115 jobs.

And that's on par to last summer. Only four organizations were denied funding and I'm happy to talk through why. Three of them was just because of their application and they had never been SuccessLink partners before. and then one was because they're focused on the young adult population only, not on the youth population. So that wasn't a right fit for our grant program. When it came to last school year, we had to make reduction just based on the funding we had. So what we do is we look and because each application gets scored, we try to Start at the top and make sure we're funding as many programs that we can, make sure we have all neighborhoods covered, as many industries as possible, as many programs who have support for specific sub-youth populations who might have specific needs.

and so it's a little bit of bringing all those factors together to try to have all the funding go in as many communities as possible.

Okay, yeah, thanks and just a comment I guess. Mildred Haley, I think you're coming next week. I look forward to being there with the youth and helping people apply. Thank you very much for doing that. Okay, thanks.

Thank you. I know that before, like offline, before the council, this hearing started, we did talk, I asked you about the percentage of jobs that are filled and are concerned in this budget season, so I hope Colleagues aren't coming here to politicize conversations that we do have in working sessions, so it's good to know of the $23.3 million that the city invests in city jobs that we are filling, like 98% of them. So there is no money left on the table, which is you know questions that we know every city department has been asked to make some cuts where are you going to make those cuts how do you plan on you know defending the job you know the work the funding everything that you need so happy that um You know the money that we are spending so I know that this body is going to continue to advocate for it to keep that funding and you did mention the

The money spent it looks like 10.5 million in external funding which is great that if we can increase that that's always great to get and the concern I've always had and a lot of the changes like I said I'm happy to see it's the most vulnerable kids that I always worry about of course my kids got their summer jobs and many of their friends but you know we had the resources and we knew when to You know sign up and that's great and every kid deserves a summer job if they want one but it's those kids aren't really vulnerable who we do have to worry about violence and you know all of the other negative impacts that Thank you. Thank you. The impact from the summer jobs are continuing to make a positive impact across the city. And Joseph, I know Council Flynn and I, we've been at these youth job fairs together with you.

And that unfortunate one we had to reschedule, but I really liked the changes that you mentioned. And I know we briefly talked about it a couple weeks ago when we bumped into each other that you have been working on these. One question about having two waves, which I think is great, but have the tables committed to being there all day so the second wave won't have less tables? Yeah.

Yeah, we're working on that very, very strongly with our employer partners, and we're making sure that they have at least two staff members so people can kind of split the day and have presence. and we're upping the lunch portions for everybody so that people are fueled for the afternoon.

We're also adding an hour break in between the two sessions so that way Our partners do have a time to rest and recharge. Because they're busy.

And they have a line at most tables. And I have seen just because of the crowd. There are great tables. I see jobs that maybe have no one in front of them and then a big line at another and I often feel like it's kind of a flow thing. So I think if we spread it out, people will have more opportunity to really look at each table. Yeah. And does the PIC and other non-city SuccessLink jobs also have tables there, right? And it's great. It seems as though the kids don't know the difference and the parents will...

That's the point, right? For young people, it doesn't make a difference who is working. For the PIC specifically, who are Yes, are here. I couldn't see them. We actually tested last year at the May one them having a station with a lot of their career specialists to help the young people not just for their jobs but like in general for all their jobs and that worked really really well they were super busy so we're doing that again this year okay awesome um

And you touched on, because I know there's obviously a big B2 police presence there, but other city department tables, because it is a great opportunity, because most of, not most, but a lot of these kids I see come with family. and parents. What other city departments will have just information tables, not job sign-up tables?

So we've got almost 40 resource partners, we call them, that are signed up right now. We could send you a full list, but off the top of my head, the Public Health Commission is a big one. The Register for stuff around birth certificate and things like that. We've got the Immigrant Advancement Program. Which one did you say? We've got all of the Bank on Boston, so we've got the banking partners so they can open bank accounts and support families with that. That's a few. We've got a few more. A few more than that.

Monique was here for a different kind of budget type hearing and it was that morning I had gone to a visit at Benka and there was a student who came up after and gave me his name and number to connect to him. because she had mentioned a kind of an increased opportunity to make sure any of our undocumented students across the city. So if you could just touch on how we're working directly or if there are People at the Job fairs and these pop-up fairs also, even if Monique's office. for herself on there, how do they know how to handle that?

Yeah, so my office works really closely with the Immigrant Advancement Office, Monique's office, so SuccessLink funds Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The size approximate, although I think we're still finalizing, is about 500 slots through the Immigrant Advancement Office. Her office runs that program and they partner with some of the same CBOs that we are and some additional ones. and they have specific mechanisms in place to be able to support the young people there. People will be present at the job fair and we refer youth directly to our office, just because they have the mechanisms in place that we don't for that. And BPS partners know that too? Yes, we very much emphasize that. We're actually having them come with us to a lot of the pop-up fairs that I mentioned earlier so that it's very clear.

And I actually have a... Thank you.

You also touched on Students with Disabilities. I know I had a specific hearing last year on that, this hearing that many families or teachers who try to connect their students, it was a teacher over at Charlestown High who does a wonderful job, who had said she was trying to help her students. If you can just touch on how we're doing better in that field, and if we have found partners, because a big part of it is also that either city departments, which I feel all of our city departments should have the bandwidth and the ability to take on students with disabilities, maybe not the private, even if they have good intentions, Have we kind of reached out or tried to brainstorm other partnerships that would easily be able to facilitate students like that so we can expand that number of jobs we offer?

Yes. It's one area we know there's always going to be more to do, for sure. But a few things. One is, of course, as we all know, all jobs are accessible to students of all backgrounds with all disabilities. And we make that very clear to our employers that they need to be able to support that. We engage in a lot of one-on-one conversations with partners who are not maybe specifically set up for this, but I was just talking to a partner who said, hey, we have the students who wants to interview. They need an ASL interpreter. Can you help guide us? We help make those connection and make sure the support gets in place because that's a right those young students have. We have expanded our partnership I mentioned before with the STRIVE programs which supports students with disabilities. We're also obviously budget pending, but we know that's a big priority for us going to partner with some new programs in the school year with the Boston Day and Evening Academy. and a couple of the BPS programs that support those students.

And then the last thing we did which was actually really informative is that as part of our employer partner application process this year, we expanded on the question for what accommodation and support partners can provide. So one, we reviewed them on that more closely. And two, we kind of forced them to think about it. And we saw some really thoughtful answers. And I personally now have a lot more data that if a student comes to me, I can think about, okay, I have this inventory of partners. I know this one has particular expertise. and many more.

Thank you. We have been joined by Councilor Culpepper. It is your turn to ask questions and share some good thoughts. So thank you for being here.

Thank you, Chair Murphy. And thank you for holding this hearing. Some of youth employment programs are one of the most important investments that we can make in young people, providing opportunities to build job skills, earn income, and engage in structured environments that support The long-term success. As we look ahead to this summer, it's important that we examine current funding, that we make sure we have sufficient funding to meet the strong demand for summer jobs. that we know make a big difference in youth violence during the summer. And I could keep talking about this, but I want to just jump into some questions. Madam Chair, how much time do I have?

You know, I'm not putting a timer on. This is an important conversation. Thank you. I might have just set myself up to be here. I do have a lot of other events today, but this is important.

Chair Murphy, did you hear that? She's not putting any time limit on me. You hit?

Chair Weber? Just a question for the chair. There's not a second panel? No. Okay, thanks. Yeah, this is a dream come true. Thank you.

But it's only your time, so take it.

So I heard you talk about matching with private sector. Mm-hmm. For the technical schools like Madison Park, we know some of the challenges that they have been having with co-op jobs during the year. Have you thought about, during this matching process, Looking at the young folks that are at Madison Park, matching them with private jobs during the summer that they could continue on with during the school year.

Yeah, do you want to talk about the stuff that's happening?

So this is something that the Office of Workforce Development does, which is under the same cabinet as YEO, the Work Empowerment Cabinet. We actually do do a, and last year was the first pilot year, Where we actually took Madison Park students, paid them, you know, we worked with Madison Park and their administration to understand what the cost was to do this, and we placed, I believe, 10 students here at the city. during summer, you know, full working internships. So separate from the SuccessLink program. We are looking to continue that. We actually got some emails that there are Interesting streetlight worker bringing on kids from Madison Park for streetlight workers and some other areas so we are having those active conversations on where we are bringing in Madison Park kind of doing I guess a pre-pre-apprenticeship we can call it where they are working directly with our city partners and our city departments to say here's you know 40 hours worth of

in the summer, 35-40, depending on schedules, obviously, and giving them that opportunity to earn, but learn and work hand-to-hand with maybe a master electrician, or if they're out working with the Parks Department, doing something that's very, very specific It was Parks, I believe, ISD was another one, and DPW were the main three.

Right. But I really was specifically focusing on the private sector. Have you looked at the private sector in terms of available? So we know they do co-ops, right? And we know they're having challenges placing the Madison Park students in co-op jobs during the year. My question is, have you looked at the possibility of work with the private sector to place students from Madison Park in the summer jobs that may continue during the school year? Now look, they don't have to, but I think Just putting them in the summer jobs, and I'm not talking about city agencies or city departments. Putting them in summer jobs in the private sector that may have the possibility of the students continuing. That would end up being their co-op job.

We can definitely get you better answers, Councilor, on that, but I don't know. We are joined by Jimmy from the PIC. who really does work with the private sector, so I'm not sure if we want to ask Jimmy if he has any thoughts on that.

Jimmy, do you have any thoughts on that? Come on up, Jimmy.

Come on up to the mic, Jimmy.

I might have more questions for you.

Come on up. We do have private sector work, specifically.

I know we've lost, like... So I know in in the past we've had there are specific and many private sector employers that have asked specifically for Madison students. In the private sector in which our lead partner who's in charge of it has transitioned out, and so we're working to get those back. But I do know like some of the hospitals we work with, there was actually once a Madison student last year, senior, graduated last year, worked at a hospital, they hired her at the end full time upon graduation. And so like there are I think there's there's an opportunity to grow. We've been working with Mr. Norris specifically during this year to support with co-ops.

I know Whittier Street has taken on a couple of students started in the summer, continued during the school year. So there is some within the private sector. We're trying to grow that as well.

Yeah, because I think that's important. I've had the conversation with Northeastern. I've asked them the same question. Because we know Northeastern is an expert with regard to co-op program. In fact, that's what made Northeastern the international school that it is, folks. They came from all over the world. Second year. They're in a co-op job. Many of them stayed in those jobs. That became their profession. So I wanted to just talk about it. Maybe you might want to look closer at that and be more intentional about it. because it can be a good start for those young folks at Madison Park. It may end up being a career for them.

Just to, I'm sorry, for the record, if you could just state your name. Oh, sorry. No, I didn't tell you to. Sorry.

Thank you. Jimmy Wyman with the Boston Private Industry Council.

Thank you.

Jimmy, what's your last name? Wyman. Wyman. Okay.

That's good.

Without the H. Private industry, okay.

Overall, through all the schools, we are trying to be more intentional about linking, for example, any youth who are in a BPS pathway to an employment opportunity in the summer that's connected to their area of focus. and we're working with OPEC to try to have some of those experiences sequence where maybe, you know, as a sophomore they're going to work in a CBO or at the city But then after their junior year, Jimmy and his team might help place them. If they were in the health care, they'll work in a community health program. One summer the next program they would work in one of the hospitals and kind of grow that way. We haven't formalized those paths yet, but that's definitely something we're working closely with the PIC and BPS on.

Talk a little bit about Reggie Lewis Center.

Yep.

And I see you're doing the event there, the 18th.

Correct.

And we all remember the day when Helter Skelter broke out at Reggie Lewis and I know you probably talked about what you're doing different this year but can you just talk a little bit about because here's my concern we know that Many of the young kids may be connected with a gang that may be from Heath Street or Orchard Park or H Block or Lucerne Street. We know they all come to the Reggie Lewis Center. How have you thought about making sure when those different young folks from the different parts of the city come together, we don't have the kind of day that we had Last year.

Yeah. Let me touch on a few new things we did and then specifically to your question. So one, One of the issue is really just the volume of young people, right? And like volume of anybody, you put that many people in a room, it's a lot to take in. What we're implementing this year is a two-wave system where we're pretty much going to have two fairs in the same day. So young people and families are signing up for either the morning or the afternoon, which allows us to kind of spread out the volume of young people and people that are going to be present. Each morning and afternoon are going to have the same resources, the same offerings in terms of employers. and many more. Implementing some additional purely safety measures, RCC now has a policy for all their events, not specific to this, where we're going to have non-invasive metal detectors at the entrances.

So that we can ensure no weapons are being brought into the space while not impacting the people come in. The big part, I think, addressing the point you've made of young people coming from all neighborhoods and how do they feel safe together is that we're working closely with many teams across the city, whether they are city agencies, BPS, or nonprofits. who have relationships with those young people and we're making sure that there's enough trusted young adults to support all the different groups and help make sure that they're here The student engagement team at BPS is bringing an entire staff with them and so they are Going to be with the young people and making sure that they have a good productive time.

And we've got a few CBOs also that are bringing group of adults who engage with those youth day to day. We'll have people from the Youth Violence Strike Force present as well who work with those young people all the time. We really feel like that's the best way to go about it is to have young people surrounded by people that they trust and that they're going to focus on finding a job when they come.

So I see you have the morning session, the future of the Bright Fair from 10 to 1. Correct. And then the Making Money Moves Fair from 2 to 5. Correct. How are you... informing the young folks on which one they should attend.

So they can attend whichever based on their schedule. We just have a maximum capacity for both. And so when young people go and register for the fair, which they always do, always have done, They pick and we tell, like, are you going to come in the morning? Are you going to come in the afternoon? And then we'll also have on-site sign-ups. As long as capacity allows, we'll, you know, if a young person shows up, We'll sign them up, make sure they're registered, and get them in for that wave.

Both sections are identical, so our partners will be there from 10 to 5, same community resources, so it's just splitting it up instead of having 4,000 kids all at once where it's loud, noisy, and More likely for those blind spots to happen. We're saying, hey, we're going to max it at, and I'm going to obviously just throw out a number, 2,000 for this first session, 2,000 for the second session. If we end up with 1,800 and Jimmy and his son walk in and say, hey, kind of forgot to sign up, we will then, if capacity allows, allow us to sign up there on the site. If not, we say, hey, can you come back 2 o'clock where we do have a little bit more capacity to let them in but we want to have that flow so that way they are getting individualized attention each table but also taking safety right so as Allison mentioned we are working with the

BPD, we're working with Transit PD at the stations, RCC's own security team, having adults in the room that they also know, right, because then they're less likely to You know, less likely to feel nervous or feel the need to defend themselves if they're working with Corey over at BPS, working with

or Izzy Marrera, right? Because he was there last.

Yeah, Izzy's going to be a big part. Izzy has always been a big part of this.

He's the new school police.

Working with our brother's keeper in black male advancement, working with Isaac Yablo in the offensive violent prevention team. so that way we just constantly have this flow of adults walking around that they can trust but also not making it feel overwhelming with that presence so that way the kids can still naturally be themselves and have that great Personality that is going to land them that position or opportunity to still come out so that way they don't feel stifled. But we want to make sure, first and foremost, safety is integral to this being a successful event.

And so for the morning session, it's 2000.

That was just a number I. What's the capacity, maximum?

The maximum capacity is 3,000 people at one time, so total we can go up to 6,000.

Up to 6,000.

I'll be honest, that's the safety capacity. A good number for everybody to have a good time is probably closer to 2,000 at a time. And within those three hours, you'll have the ones who show up at 10 and the ones who show up at noon. A young person doesn't stay three hours. They don't need three hours at the fair. So it is a flow of people constant. At one time in the Reggie Lewis, having 2,000 people is a good full, but not too full kind of setup.

And so the total number of summer jobs that you have funding for, So far is how many?

For this upcoming summer?

Yes.

For this upcoming summer, we just allocated 6,115 jobs through Success Link.

Okay.

And then the rest of the jobs are going to come from the private sector, our partnership with the Private Industry Council, and all the other employers.

And how many jobs are you anticipating coming from the private sector and from PIC?

So in total, you've got that little table. Wonderful. So this is what we did last summer, and that's what we're expecting to get to is about 10,500 jobs this summer.

Okay. Just a couple more questions. So we have these summer jobs. How many of these young folks do you anticipate will go into full-time jobs during the winter?

So full-time jobs, except if they are graduating. And most of our young people are 15, 16, so they're going back to high school. and so they might want to get a part-time job which would be about 10 hours a week maximum but otherwise they're in school and they have their extracurriculars and all of those things as well.

And for the graduates, what do we do with them? In other words, remember I talked earlier about trying to make the connection or developing the program where those young folks, let's say Madison Park, went into... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. One of the things we did with the Trotter Park Peace Program when we were working with the H Block kids, we had that summer program.

We only got a grant for $10,000 from Boston Foundation, but it was enough to give those kids $100 a week, $125. It kept them off the street. We fed them during the week. And then we had a job fair during the summer. And so some of those young folks that were working in the peace program during the summer were hired for full-time jobs at the end of the summer. What it did, it kept them off the street for the rest of the year, and it really saved lives. For these summer jobs, I hope that there are no cuts there because, and we talked a little bit about it yesterday at a working session on budget, because if I believe that if you cut summer jobs, you're going to have to add more police officers. Because the kids are going to go someplace, right? And many times, you know, I Don't Mind becomes

The devil's workshops and the kids end up doing things that if they had a job, they wouldn't be doing. And so I'm one for, you know, even if we had more jobs, whatever it takes. to keep them occupied during the summer. I did have one more question with regard to the state. How are we partnering with the state for the summer jobs?

Yeah, so the state, we partner with them mostly through the YouthWorks program with Commonwealth Corp where my office receives and many more. That funding is expected to get cut for the upcoming year, so we're navigating that. But that's the way we partner. So we receive funding from them and then we pass on that funding to programs to support youth with specific risk factors. As per the program requirements.

But that cut is not part of the 23.3 million So that's city funding.

Yeah, that's my city funding. And then additionally, we've got state funding that has fed into the job. That money does pay for some of the 10,500 jobs, though.

She made it clear earlier, sorry, that that concern won't hit us until after the summer, that we've already had this money for this summer, correct?

So for the summer, for this summer, that's what we prioritize. So I mean, I guess I don't know what budget cuts might look like. So I can't, you know, everything is dependent on budget approval, obviously. At this point, we have allocated our summer jobs at a level steady to what we had last summer because we know that's the first priority. City, and budget cuts as they hit will primarily impact the school year program first because to your point we know in the summer kids are out of school and that's The state cut that you anticipate is not part It's going to hit it, but what we do is we mix city funding with state funding to make sure our numbers are maintained for the summer.

I don't know yet exactly how much I'm going to get from the state. I don't know that until a little later. I need programs to get ready now to welcome the youth.

The state funding is also year-round funding. Correct. So the allocation starts July 1 through the fiscal year of June 30, so if it gets cut, What I hear you saying, Allison, is we'll focus on the summer and that impact will be felt during the school year.

So, Jimmy, let me stick with you for a minute. So, if it's year-round, right, do we know what the cut is? for the year-round funding is? No.

No.

From the state, from the state.

We don't know yet. They're in discussion. We're estimating based on early... So YouthWorks and this is where, you know.

And Commonwealth Corps.

Yeah, so that's the same. Commonwealth Corps administers the YouthWorks grant.

Okay, okay.

Last year, 4-2, was what we, Boston got to ask their portion because They look at the entire state. How much was that? 4.2. 4.1, 4.2. Million? Yes, million. And then we're probably looking at, right now, early projections around a 46%. Obviously, nothing's finalized at the state level yet. Governor's still going through her budget.

So maybe about $2 million.

Yeah, about $2.4. Okay, okay. That will come.

Okay.

That's part of the, so the 22 is, that's full city. That's the city's investment into e-jobs. The 23. 23, sorry, yes, correct. Is the full city investment.

Okay.

Part of that.

Not including the state.

Not including the state. That is. Okay, that's, okay. Yeah, and then the 10 million that you see leveraged. That's where we're leveraging the state dollars. Exactly. So it's, you know, we braid the funds together to make the program run year round. But for the summer, you know, the majority of that $23 million is dedicated to summer. Any refunds that we have because some youth don't always work every hour, some youth end up getting that job at another job that they feel fits better for them. Maybe summer camps, slots open and they don't complete, we get those and then we reuse that for the school year. So that's why it's kind of that moving, it's always kind of a moving target in a way. But that's kind of how we've set it up is we make sure that Summer job is fully invested because we see about a 98% fill rate from all the jobs that we provide, of the 10,500, or 6,000, sorry.

that we provide plus whatever private industry brings in to make the $10,000. Kids, as we all know, go through that cycle of potentially completing the summer some don't because of other obligations and then we allocate what we can in the school year based on that and that's kind of how we we kind of always have worked with the city team the council and our private partners to kind of make the magic happen.

Okay, one final question, may I?

One last question, sure.

Okay, so the $23.3 million makes up how much of the 10,511. Almost 6,000.

It's the YEO success link, that first line in the table.

Right. Almost 6,000, right? Correct. And we know that there's going to be a cut to the 10.5 million. And so does that bring us down to about 8,000 jobs? No. With the cuts, what does it bring?

So the hope is, so that $23 million pays for the 6,000 jobs and for some school year jobs as well.

Right, right, right.

So we don't want to cut summer. So if I get... and many more.

If my budget ends up getting cut, it's the school year program that will get reduced so we can maintain the summer program. and many more. My question is if 2 million of that is being cut and it brings it down to 8.5 million, how many Jobs, will that be minus the $10,511?

It's not that clear-cut, Councillor, because, as Jerry said, part of that money is not just dedicated to summer or just dedicated to school year. There's different factors that Commonwealth Corps puts out, not just to Boston, but across the Commonwealth, sort of saying, Here are, and I'm not a grant manager, I'm not a program director, I don't know the minutiae details, but they have very specific kind of requirements on how we can use, where we can use. and such like that. So as of right now, our summer program as we see it, as Alison mentioned, we are on par for the 6,000 I got that.

What about the $10,000?

So let me just say this. The makeup then comes from the work that Jimmy and his team does, our work with other private and other private partners that we work with to make up that difference.

Right, so will you let us know what happens in terms of the 10,511 so we can figure out maybe there's something we can do. I'm not sure.

So what they're saying though is they're going to make sure every dollar that they do get is going to fully fund every summer So our advocacy needs to be on making sure that the year-round jobs, if they do cut them, because one of the things we've done the last few years is really advocate knowing we can fully fund the summer jobs. year-round jobs are increasingly being something a lot of our kids want. So we're going to have to advocate that any shortage will, where can we make up the difference to keep kids working year-round if they want to?

With all due respect, Madam Chair, I really wanted to Thank you. Thank you. What that cut will be to let us know.

But are you saying it's not going to cut the summer jobs?

Well, there's the $10.5 million that they're going to lose some of the state money. for the 10.5 million, right?

Yeah, if you could make it clear, because I'm hearing something opposite than what he's saying.

So we're going to be directing more of our... City funds and our resources to the summer to try to compensate that cut so that the summer stays at 10,500. Now obviously if the state comes tomorrow and say there's no funding at all, There's always risk, right? So once we have the final numbers, we can more clearly tell you.

Let us know how we're falling short of the 10,511. So if there has to be some advocacy from the council, we can see if we can push so that that 10,511 job number that you have stays at 10,511. 511. Absolutely. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

No, thank you for those questions and it's important that we Make sure, especially if cuts unexpectedly are larger or come sooner, because the jobs that we've been talking about. And that's why also, even when this meeting is adjourned, it's going to stay in committee, and we'll definitely have you back to make sure, because I know Like I said, everyone on this council wants to make sure our youth are connected to Great Job. Council Weber, do you have another?

Just to follow up on that, in this scenario where we're losing the money, Are we looking at impacts to the summer jobs of this 2026 or 2027? 2027, because you talked about how the money is already allocated for this summer. Yeah. Just if you could, if a decrease in state funding, if that's going to impact summer jobs this summer, 2026.

So a lot of this is going to depend on the amount of the decreases, right? If funding completely gets cut. Based on what we believe so far and the cuts we're anticipating from the state, we'll still be able to maintain the numbers for this summer. Summer 2026. That's assuming the private sector stays at the same level, which we can't guarantee because they're also experiencing layoffs, all of those things. But what we're working towards is putting all the funds into summer first and then we will see if it might just be then that nothing is left for the school year is the big the big issue and then of course long term depending on the trend of budgets right.

Okay, sorry, and then just, so when we're looking at the budgets, so the FY, we're in FY26, the money allocated in the FY26 budget...

Paid for last summer.

Paid for last summer. Okay, for last summer.

And this current school year. So for this coming summer, it's fiscal year 27. That's why everything I'm saying does have an element of risk because the budgets aren't approved. Because of the timing of summer jobs, we have a lot of discussions with budget to be able to still allocate for summer. Knowing that even if we get cut up to a certain percent, summer is still covered and the cuts get put into the school year program. which we don't make decisions on until September once we've seen what money is there.

Okay, and so when we're talking about the FY27 budget, We're talking about this summer of 2026. Correct. Okay, correct.

Okay, thank you. No, thank you for that clarification. We have been joined by Councilor Louijeune. Councilor Yujuan, it's your turn. Yeah, the last one, yeah.

Being here this morning, apologies for the delay. Standing with 32BJ. I apologize. I want to thank all of you for your incredible work that you do on behalf of our young kids here in the city of Boston. This council has worked tirelessly to Always, either through the regular budget process, ARPA dollars, or our ability to do amendments, work to increase funding for these jobs, because it's something that we hear about often. I just want to give an understanding. It's so from 14 to 18-year-olds. What do 19-year-olds do?

So the 19 to 24-year-old roles, which are about a little under 20% of the jobs that we're talking about, their main function is to support the younger youth.

Do they also apply via SuccessLink? They also apply, yep.

and so yeah so they're here to support so let's say some young people age 14 to 18 are camp counselors it's good for them to have one 20 year old to oversee you know five of them above that is an actual full-time staff person usually so it's kind of help us create the hierarchy and then also it provides some continuity of opportunities for some young people turning 19 who might still need the support of being in our programs.

And they can do that basically apply until they're 24? Until they're 24, correct. Okay, but does everyone who's in that bandwidth get a job if they apply via SuccessLink?

Probably not because it's a smaller portion of our jobs and our focus really is on the 14 to 18, given 19 to 24 can also get All other jobs, right, that are not youth jobs specific.

Okay, and what percentage of people who apply in that 19 to 24 age range are actually able to get I'd love to know that percentage.

To get a job. I don't have it off the top of my head.

I can set up an office and we can get the details. And for those who are 14 to 18, what percentage of those who apply via SuccessLink are able to get a placement?

So we look at it, not just SuccessLink, we look at it the entire ecosystem, because maybe a young person doesn't end up working for me, but they end up working in the private sector, and so that's still... That can also happen via SuccessLink though, right? to work in the private sector. We don't do private sector jobs. We do community-based organizations and city agencies.

So state's replacements then don't happen via SuccessLink, for example.

State's replacements go through the PIC, which, I mean, we're all working together.

It's posted on the Future Boss website.

It does all get posted and they can all apply in terms of more of the funding and the back technicalities. It doesn't flow through our office in the States. and sorry, I forgot the question. It's okay.

Did that answer what you asked? I've been having a lot of questions from young people I just met from yesterday and so I just want to make sure that I have the up-to-date information. And I apologize if you've answered some of these questions already. So has the window right now closed for employers who want to sign up for SuccessLink?

Yes, all employers have been selected and youth job application opens on Monday. Okay.

If you have private sector employers, we will take them. Send them your way. We'll take them as long as we can.

Anytime. Any day. But yeah, Success Link, ones that we're going to fund, that's closed. That selection has happened. We're going to have 145 CBO partners and 83 city agencies taking in young people this summer.

So Monday it opens. When does it close for our young people?

The application opens Monday. I mean, it closes early July, really. But what we really recommend is for young people to apply to at least three jobs as soon as possible. because jobs do fill up and we want opportunities that are a good match for them so we really don't recommend waiting until until July.

And what are the fairs that we have? I know that is there at least one fair happening at the Reggie Lewis?

Yep, April 18th is going to be the big fair. I think the flyer was put right in front of you, hopefully.

Yeah, I think I may have reshared it on Instagram already, but I don't have it in my head.

Perfect. Yeah, and then we've got BPS pop-up fairs happening directly in schools, and then we've got a lot of other kind of tabling engagement events that we're going to be present at. Great. And I can be sure those slides where I've outlined the specific ones. The one thing I flagged earlier is if there's places you'd like us to come and present or bring in employer partners and things like that, to flag that to us now is a good time because we want to make sure we're hitting all the communities, all the youth populations, everybody.

Thank you. Then I have one last question that's not really on topic, but it is just a result of questions that I've been getting. I guess I'm going to have two more questions. One is as it relates to are immigrant students, are immigrant young people. What are we seeing? How are we devising ways of helping those who have may be precarious because of this federal government legal status. And then I got the same question. I was at BINCA. A number of us were at BINCA recently. And I got the question around that question and then the question around how are we helping those who now have more family responsibilities and have to maybe provide more for their families. How are we helping more with year-round jobs?

Yeah, I mean, overall, it's a really tough situation. We know some young people might not even feel comfortable applying to jobs, coming to interviews, all of that.

Because they're still required to be able to fill out an I-9, and an I-9 requires certain...

Yes, so that's for jobs. That's for most of the jobs. We do, through our partnership with the Immigrant Advancement Office, we have jobs that are that don't require any of that paperwork and they're not jobs they are leadership opportunities because they can't be called jobs legally but the young people do get paid and so this summer we're going to have about 500 of those which you know is never going to be enough Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, thank you for all that you do. Thank you. Congratulations. I know Neil Sullivan has been a staple here, and we appreciate the work that PIC is doing and that you're doing. and for the Office of Worker Empowerment. Really appreciate all you do for our young kids. I don't have any further questions. Thank you.

Thank you. One last round if we need them or closing statements. Reverend Culpepper.

I just had one question and look, Thank you for all that you do because I think it's so necessary that we stay focused on trying to keep these young folks employed. I did have one question with regard to college students. Are we doing anything? Targeted for employment with regard to college students, those students that will be coming home from college for the summer.

So those are the 19 to 24-year-old, we call them leaders jobs. That is a much smaller percentage of our jobs because my office, Real Mission is around the 14 to 18 years old population. But we do have some of those jobs. And then, of course, through our cabinet more broadly, We support worker empowerment and workforce development, so there's different training programs and opportunities we look to connect those young adults to.

How do those college students apply for those jobs?

For the jobs that are through my office, it's the same way that young people do. So Future Boss, maybe you weren't there at that time, but It's all the same. There's a specific thing where we say this is a job for a 19 to 24 year old versus this is a job for 14 to 18.

Thank you for everything that you do and look to us at for whatever support we can give you to help you make sure that everything runs smoothly this summer. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Steele. I just want to plug again. There are resource partners that you know in your communities that can be a part of the April 18th Please have them sign up. If there are private employers that you know, I know, Councilor, you mentioned JP Licks, but if there are in your neighborhood that want a chance at a table, this is a great way for them to reach 2,000. Thank you very much. Thank you. We've worked very closely with the Office of OEOI and their department to also have them invite their small businesses to come in and table, especially if they do have those opportunities for 14 to 24-year-olds. This could be opportunities for those 19 to 24. If you do have those private employers that you do know that are looking, that may want older youth or older young adults.

The employers or the young people?

The employers.

So there's a sign-up link in the slide deck that we shared out that you can share with your private employers that they can sign up to be at our, yes. There's a link within that so they can sign up to be an employer partner. or a resource partner depending on what they provide on that.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you to all my colleagues who came to participate. and thank you for all you're doing. Thank you, Pip. We should have had you up here at the beginning, but thank you for all you do to continue to. Keep that balance of jobs we're offering our youth and you're at the beginning of a busy few months and just know that myself and this body is here to support you and looking forward to promoting but also showing up and advocating at all your upcoming events. That being said, Docket 0289 is adjourned.