City Council - Labor, Workforce, & Economic Development Committee Hearing on Dockets #1625, 1658-1660, 1691-1695, 1697, & 1832

Thanks for watching!

Yeah, Neil, good. Okay, for the record, my name is Benjamin Weber. I'm the District 6 City Councilor and the Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Labor, Workforce, and Economic Development. Today is October 27, 2025, and it is exactly 10.05 a.m. In accordance with Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, modifying certain requirements of the Open Meeting Law and relieving public bodies of certain requirements, including the requirement that public bodies conduct meetings in a public space that is open and physically accessible to the public. The City Council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom. This hearing is being recorded It is also being live streamed at boston.gov slash city dash council dash tv and broadcasts on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.labor at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up. We'll have two minutes to testify. If you wish to sign up, For public testimony, and if not done so already, please email our central staff liaison, Karishma Chuan. at Karishma, K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A dot C-H-O-U-H-A-N at Boston.gov for the Zoom link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on 11 grants totaling $8,981,000. at $31.76. Nine from the U.S. Department of Labor, one from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, and one from the Mass Hire Department of Career Services. I will now read summaries of all 11 grants by docket number into the record. If you are heating up popcorn, get it now. It's going to take a few minutes. Docket number 1625, a $1,045,187 grant awarded by The Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development to be administered by the Office of Youth Employment and Opportunity to fund the support of youth employment and development in accordance with the requirement outlined in YouthWorks Program Administration and Management Guide. Docket number 1658, a $222,000 $41 WIOA Youth Activities Administration Grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development to fund a program that focuses primarily on out-of-school youth between the ages of 14 to 24 who face barriers to education, training and employment. Next. Docket number 1659, a $173,229 WIOA Adult Activities Administration grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development to fund the creation of a seamless system of adult education workforce preparation and training services. Docket number 1660, an $89,593 Wagner-Peyser administration grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development. Docket number 1691, $1,998,370. WIOA Youth Program Grant awarded by the US Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development to fund a comprehensive youth employment program to serve eligible youth ages 14 to 24 who face barriers to education, training, and employment. Docket number 1692, a $1,559,065 WIOA Adult Activities Grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development to fund services to help job seekers access employment, education, skills training, apprenticeships, and support services. Docket number 1693. A $1,040,435 Wagner-Peyser program grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development to fund the individual re-employment needs of unemployed of unemployment insurance claimants, as well as prevent and detect improper benefit payments and application assistance for training and education resources and programs. Docket number 1694, a $966,006 WIOA dislocated workers grant. Awarded by the US Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development to fund a program to help dislocated workers get back to work as quickly as possible and overcome barriers to employment. docket number 1695 and an $884,111 one-stop career center grant awarded by MassHire Department of Career Services to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development. to fund comprehensive career services and resources to unemployed job seekers such as reviewing job postings, career counseling and job coaching, education, skills training, and job placement assistance. Docket Number 1697 A $107,334 WIOA Dislocation Workers Administration Grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development to fund individualized career services and training services for dislocated workers to rejoin the workforce as early as possible and overcome barriers to employment. Okay, last but not least, docket number 1832, an $895,657.87 RESA program. for field CY25 grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor to be administered by the Office of Workforce Development to fund individual re-employment needs of unemployment insurance claimants as well as prevent and detect Improper benefit payments and application assistance for training and education resources and programs. These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on September 10, 2025 for docket number 1625. September 17, 2025 for docket numbers 1658 to 1660. Docket numbers 1691 to 1695 and 1697 were referred on September 24th, 2025. and Doc number 1832 was referred to the committee on October 22nd, 2025. Today, even after that, I am still joined By my colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Flynn and Council President Louijeune, we have a letter of absence from Councilor Pepén. As the chair of this committee, we've had a bunch of hearings like this to go over grants that that are designed to help people get back on their feet or get on their feet with the training and, you know, when they don't have a job, I think, you know, now more than ever, this is incredibly important work. and I'm glad I could play just some small role in helping these grants get to where they need to be so we can help Boston residents. And I have to say, every time we meet, I'm impressed by the work that's being put in by people to tell folks in Boston who who need help. So we've also been joined by Councillor Brayden and Councillor Murphy. So that makes, we've got four councillors. This may be the Most attended one of these. I know Councilor Flynn's at all of them. You can check me on that. But today we are joined by, let's see, we just have one panel. Joseph Lay, Chief of Staff from the Worker Empowerment Cabinet Katie Gall, Director of Grants for the Worker Empowerment Cabinet Neil Sullivan, Executive Director of the Boston Private Industry Council Angela McCabe, Director of Worker Empowerment for the Boston Private Industry Council and I don't know, are we joined by Anna Schur from the Office of Workforce Development? We may also be joined by her, I'm not entirely sure. I'm just looking at the thing. I don't see, but maybe she's there. Well, yes. Yes, she is. Thank you. Maybe not expected to testify, but here to answer questions. If anyone has something that these amazing panelists Can't answer themselves. Great. So I'm going to hand it to my colleagues for questions. I think if you, you know, oh, actually, no, I'm going to hand it to my colleagues for Short opening statements, if they'd like, you know, really no more than two minutes. And so, Councillor Flynn, anything you want to say to kick us off?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be very brief. I'll be 30 seconds. I want to say thank you to the administration for being here. I want to say thank you to the panelists for being here. These are important hearings. I get a lot out of them by learning about the incredible work our partners play across the city helping residents in need. Looking forward to the discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Council President, Louijeune, anything?

Good morning, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much for hosting these hearings. I want to thank the administration. Joseph, you're always here and present and ready to answer all of our questions. So, for years, you know, cared deeply about... Closing a lot of economic gaps that exist in the city. We support job training and we support a lot of these grants and I'm happy to support every single time with these hearings and without. So thank you so much. Mr. Chair and to all of my colleagues and to everyone for the work that they do to help our residents get better jobs and job training.

Okay, Councillor Brayden. You're on mute.

Thank you Mr. Chair and thanks to all the folks from the administration that are here this morning. I just look forward to learning more about the grants and how they've been used and how we can build on that good foundation. Thank you.

Murphy.

Thank you. I'm in my car, so I am going to shut my camera off, but Just happy to be here. Thank you, Joseph and everyone, all the panelists and administration who are here for the work you do. Just happy to support to make sure we continue to Strengthen the work that you're already doing.

Okay, yeah, thank you very much. I think that's all for my colleagues. I think there's a presentation. I don't know, have the panelists worked out amongst themselves how they... They want to do this, if not, Joseph, you're up first, but there's a presentation from you or Anna or Katie, I guess, fire away, and then Neil and Angela will be... Your turn to make your presentation if you have one.

Great. Well, thank you, councillors, for Weber. Taking the time out of your busy schedules to make sure this happens. I know as Councilor Weber mentioned, there is a lot of money and a lot of dockets that we're going to go through at this time. Katie has put together a brief Slide deck just to kind of go over these and kind of walk you through how the money will be used over the course of the fiscal 26 year to support Boston residents in either getting on their feet, getting back on their feet, or You know, taking advantage of the many services that the Mass Hire Centers pick and OWD do support. So at this time, I'd like to hand it off to Katie to go through that slide deck and talk through the different docket numbers and dollar amounts that will be hopefully put to vote on Wednesday and accepted.

Good morning. Thank you, Joseph. Thank you, Chair. So can everybody see my screen, my presentation? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, so some of this will be a recap or sound familiar from past hearings that we've done. And this is our next year of formula funding that we received from the State Department of Career Services to Fund a really wide variety of job training and placement activities and we'll go through what those are. Neil and Angela are here to answer any questions and Anna as well as Anna is responsible for implementation of a lot of particular the youth focused The first that we want to touch on is docket 1625, Youth Works Funding for Youth for YEO. The funding for YouthWorks comes from the state, from the Commonwealth Corporation. Each year Commonwealth Corporation puts out a RFP and Each of the state's 16 workforce regions are eligible to apply. Boston puts in an application every year led by our office. And we start that process by doing by identifying the organizations that we will go in together on the application with. So we open up a competitive request for partners where we look for people who will work with us on putting together the grant application. This year, Boston received a total of $4.1 million to fund services at a couple of different organizations, including The Pick, YEO, YOU Boston, ABCD, Fresh Films. Digital Ready, and I think there's one more that I'm forgetting right now, but I'll come back to it. The funding is commingled with City of Boston funds, as well as private philanthropic dollars and funding sources that the other agencies manage. to provide employment opportunities both during the summer and year-round. So these are not separate employment opportunities from the SuccessLink ones or the ones that are funded by the City of Boston. These funds augment and complement those city dollars. So YEO selects nonprofit and city agency partners to offer a wide range of internships. Childcare, Camp, Civic Engagement. One thing in particular about YouthWorks funding is that they are meant to be used for low-income youth and youth with barriers to employment. Happy to answer any questions about YouthWorks or just keep going. And then just to talk about the funding for the Department of Career Services. So as we've talked about in past hearings, our office serves as the fiscal agent for the Boston Workforce Board. The Boston Workforce Board, the Mass Hire Boston Workforce Board is led by the PIC and our office works very closely with the PIC on implementing the grants and contracts that are made to all of the nonprofit organizations that are selected to receive workforce money. The money is essentially overseen by the US Department of Labor, which promulgates regulations about the kinds of services that career centers must provide. So all over the country, the workforce boards in every state operate these career centers, which and many more. Career Center to show that you're continuing to do job search. If you are unemployed or underemployed and you're looking to change, you can go to the career centers and receive individualized services. on things like resume building and referrals to skills training. So across Massachusetts, the Department of Career Services oversees the career centers, monitoring their performance, We work closely with the state to make sure that those are implemented in Boston. And they allocate the funds across the state on a formula basis. And we award our career center charter based on a competitive procurement process, which is led by staff of the Mass Hire Workforce Board of the PIC. We have two career centers in Boston, Mass Hire Boston Downtown, which is led by JVS, and Mass Hire Boston ABCD. which is relatively new and many of you attended the ribbon cutting and opening on there at their location right across from the O'Brien School earlier this year. So we braid these funds together and form one single budget for the career centers. The exception is the youth funds, and we'll talk about that a little bit separately, but all of the other funds that we're talking about today are commingled and form One large contract with each of the career centers or grant I should say with each of the career centers then the career centers provide services and they're responsible for recruiting individuals Building partnerships with community organizations, understanding what kinds of services need to be provided, and then determining whether the individuals who are coming in are eligible for services, and if so, what category of funding is applicable. So some of the community partnerships that we want to highlight. We have access points, including Charlestown Adult Education, which is based in the BHA Charlestown development. St. Francis House, which serves homeless and housing insecure adults in downtown Boston. We have onsite liaisons who work specifically with different populations. So we have, for example, an adult education liaison who works with our adult ed and ESOL programs. Both of the career centers also have a youth and young adult liaison who works specifically with that 18 through 24 age range. and we look for services that include things like bridging programs to help residents access community college, access different kinds of job training and more in-depth services. So if you're coming in and you're saying, I want to get my commercial driver's license that the career centers ideally will be connecting you with training opportunities to do that. So this is just kind of a recap of Councilor Weber. I already went through these, but these are the grants that we have to discuss today, and I'm just going to go kind of one by one. These are our two career centers with their addresses, just as a reminder. Wagner-Peyser Act funding is funding allocated again by the State Department of Career Services on a formula basis. It supports General Career Center Operations, things like career counseling, resume preparation of workshops, information on labor market demand, career fairs and hiring events. And then importantly, you know, Career centers are tasked with not just serving job seekers, but also with serving employers. So we do collect statistics on how many employers are served. We are looking for our career centers to develop real partnerships with employers to make sure that they have hiring opportunities at the ready. In FY25, the two career centers served a total of almost 16,000 job seekers, including 14,406 unemployed, and you can see the other figures that are here. It's important to note that we have priority of services for veterans at both of our career centers, so they are able to come in and work with veterans liaisons to receive direct and personalized services. The next is $884,000 in one-stop Career Center funding. Although we do receive this funding from the Department of Labor, the state supplements the Career Center operation funding with this line item from the state budget. So this is a state line item and that's the number right there to support the operation of Mass Hire Career Centers. They're allocated again on a formula basis and they support general career center operations. WIOA, Adult, and Admin. You'll see that each of the grants here have admin and program grants spelled out differently. So that's in order to allow us to administer the grants appropriately internally and maintain the appropriate fiscal controls. So the WIOA Adult Activities Funding supports services at the career centers for qualified adults. including individual training accounts and career center operations. The individual training accounts are a mechanism by which individuals who are qualified, who are eligible based on either their income or their employment status, are able to receive funding for to pay tuition for job training. So I mentioned CDL earlier. It could be something like medical assistant or CNA, essentially short-term training opportunities that lead directly into employment with increased wages for individual job seekers. We also the next is we owe a dislocated worker for both of these the admin dollars support staff time to manage the administrative requirements of the grant. The WIOA dislocated worker funds are intended to support individuals who have been laid off or lost their job and need to reenter the workforce quickly. So the kinds of services that are provided here are job counseling, job coaching, job search, essentially directed at particularly UI recipients, ensuring that they're getting back to work as quickly as possible. RESEA are mandatory support for individuals who are receiving unemployment insurance. So if you are getting unemployment insurance, you'll see that you're required to register for services. and to maintain a job search and show that you're continuing to search for a job. And so the goal here is to reduce the amount of time that individuals are receiving UI and help them return to work faster. The next two dockets, 1691 and 1659, are our WIOA youth program and admin dollars. So these funds don't go to the career centers. We manage them separately. In Boston, we use them to support young adults 18 through 24 who are out of school and have significant barriers to employment. And we use them to fund long-term holistic job training opportunities that include wraparound services and work-based learning opportunities. Through a competitive procurement process, we have identified the following organizations that receive funding, ABCD for their Level Up program, Catholic Charities. We made a grant to them this year for the Notre Dame Education Center, although I will note that this is a relatively small grant to allow them to close out some of the activities that they started in previous years. More Than Words, Mujeres Unidas Avanzando in Dorchester, the Excel Pathways Program, which supports youth who are recent HiSET recipients, and then another program at Excel which supports youth through Training to become either an HVAC technician or an EMT, and both of those are relatively long-term and intensive training opportunities. And then YouthBuild Boston. We also use WIOA Youth Program dollars to support centralized services. We have a part-time coordinator on our staff for the Boston Youth Services Network, which is a monthly convening of youth serving providers who come together to talk about training opportunities, professional development, funding opportunities, and we also fund a licensed therapist who's available to work with youth on a referral basis. This is something that we started during the pandemic when we were finding that a lot of youth were leaving programs, training opportunities for reasons having to do with mental and behavioral health. And so we wanted to have a way to sort of on demand as quickly as possible to be able to offer services to keep youth enrolled and engaged in training opportunities. And we also fund a full-time staff person to manage youth eligibility documentation because there is a lot of paperwork involved with this grant. So this year we'll serve about 85 youth with these dollars. And I think that is the last one of the dockets that we have for today. So I'll stop sharing and then we can talk about any questions that we have.

Okay, thank you. Neil, Angela, do you have anything you want to present or say?

Two points worth making. Katie did an amazing job explaining this, by the way. Welcome to the world of bundling and braiding. These revenue streams come from various directions. They're like levers. They go up and down. And together, the OWD staff and PIC staff pulled them together to fund the career centers and decide on how much money goes to fund career center services versus how much goes out in training vouchers and then the The workforce board also decides how much money goes to each of the two career centers based on volume and performance. So you might ask, with all this bundling and braiding, who was minding the store before the city council started to process all these? Under federal law, state supervision, The bundling and braiding of these resources get runs through the workforce board, which is the 30 plus member private industry council mayorally appointed. The mayor under federal law is the lead elected official. She appoints the large board, 30 plus, but everything gets vetted along the way through two committees. One, the Workforce Development Committee, and the other for the youth grants, the Youth Council. So there's several points along the way where the community can know and make their interests known on the distribution of funds and the competitive processes. As Katie mentioned, the youth grants, You know, like the old days, go directly to community-based organizations, nonprofit training providers for specific purposes. And that runs through the Youth Council and then gets voted by the Workforce Board. Similarly, requirements in the funding of the career centers and the recent push around helping young adults navigate the career centers. That gets vetted through the Workforce Development Committee and then gets approved by the full board. So not only is the city council overseeing this, but in great detail, there are two citizen committees leading into a workforce board to oversee all these decisions. The youth grants, youth works are separate because the PIC, as everyone knows, I'm Pretty sure is a major player in the subsidized summer job space as well as the private sector space. So because we're a implementer, that's handled strictly by the city. Angela, is there anything you want to throw in? Angela, by the way, is... Someone we all lean on. She's been in this work for over two decades, ran a career center at JVS for over a decade, and has been our Workforce Board Workforce Development Director for another decade as well. Everybody calls Angela, not just in Boston, but in the state to figure out how do we navigate these regulations and what is actually required of us in minute detail. So you can't stump her when it comes to workforce development questions.

Okay, well, Angela, you want to dispute that? Just kidding.

Absolutely not. He's my boss.

Yeah. Okay. Okay, well, thank you very much. I'm just going to throw it to my colleagues. Councilor Flynn, let's go with six minutes. If you want to do a second round, we can.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the administration team for testifying the important work you are doing. Katie, that was an excellent presentation. I want to acknowledge your team, Joe also. Joe's testified many times and does an exceptional job as well. So I want to say thank you to Joe, to the Private Industry Council, and Neil, and Angela, and everyone else that's here. the important work you are doing. And Angela, and Neil mentioned, I know Angela worked at JBS, For a long period of time and proud to have them in my district. And I don't think I've ever, I've been in there many times. I don't think you can get a more diverse group of People participating in the training programs than you see at the JVS office there in downtown Boston, the federal district. So I want to say thank you to JVS also. So let me ask Neil a question. Neil, thank you for what you are doing. And there's a lot of programs that you're working on. As you know, Neil, I represent the largest number of residents living in public housing. of any district councilor. But Neil, just tell me a little bit about what the private industry council and what the city is doing in terms of trying to reach... Public housing residents that may have been shut out of these programs or they don't know about the programs. What are we doing to support those residents?

Let me put two things in play. One is the BHA administrator, Kenzie Bach and Bill McGonigal before her are on the Workforce Board. and we work closely with BHA central staff. So that would be one integration. The other integration, as Katie mentioned in her excellent presentation, we have what we call access points. In other words, you have a full service career center downtown and in Roxbury, but there's an access point in the Charlestown Bunker Hill Housing Development run by Charlestown Adult Education. We experimented with that about 10 years ago and said, boy, when we started this, the government in the 90s wanted a one-stop center, right? We actually proposed no wrong door that you could get in the Career Center system wherever you lived. And frankly, now you can do it virtually. Okay, both career centers have significant virtual service programs going on, not just the on-site career centers. The selection of ABCD as the Roxbury-based career center went through a very difficult process. But one thing ABCD brings to the table is APACs, Area Planning Advisory Councils, in most of our priority neighborhoods. So this was an opportunity to take the access concept and move it out into the neighborhoods with ABCD on Malcolm X Boulevard, Ted Malcolm X Boulevard, serving as a hub. And we want to see how that I think the next step, and Kenzie talks about it occasionally, Administrator Bach, that are there other ways that we can involve specific housing developments the way we have invested in Charlestown with resources. Public housing, you know, is going to be a top priority for us. You know it.

No, thank you, Neil, and thank you for your commitment. and I know the private industry council in the city treats our public housing residents with respect and ensuring that They also have equal access to these programs. So I want to acknowledge the city and the private industry council for that important work. And maybe my final question, and maybe it's to anyone, That wants to answer it. One of my priorities is always ensuring that persons with disabilities have access to job training In the follow-up as well, with that job training, how are we doing with the placement into a job that matches their skills? provides a happy and healthy life for that person with disabilities. Can anyone follow up on that type of question or comment on exactly what we're doing and what is the success and want to say thank you to everyone for supporting persons with disabilities as well.

I'll take a stab at it. So each career center is fully accessible. We have all the equipment that is needed. We have the staff involved. As you know, ABCD and JBS both serve A huge program for people with disabilities. We have a unique partnership that under WIOA we are required to work with all of our federally funded and WIOA Partners. And that includes Title I, which we're dealing with today, Title II, which is Adult Basic Ed, Title III, which is Wagner-Pizer Core Service, and Title IV is Rehab. So we have a group of, I believe, 15 or 16 partners, which includes Mass Rehab, Escalation for the Blind, elder workers, veterans, We have all of these partners who meet quarterly with the career centers to make sure that all the services are streamlined, that they are working together, that there is not duplication of services, that these people are considered shared customers. Therefore, MRC will send people over to the career centres for training vouchers, which will give them a short-term skills training. The opposite also happens. We send Career Center customers back to MRC who will then provide services which go way past the short term. They can pay for a bachelor's degree. They can pay for a master's degree. So the career centers and the rehab providers work very closely together. I can't speak to the exact placement rate for people with disabilities, but I can tell you all WIOA customers must meet a 75% Graduation rate and a 70% placement rate.

Thank you, Angela.

Council, let me throw in, just because I'm a bit of a policy wonk, one of the coolest things we were able to take advantage of with the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 which required this sort of collaboration with federally funded state agencies for the disabled, for family assistance, the whole gamut. is you heard Angela say shared customer. You know how sometimes you hold on to your client because you want full credit and the agency helping you doesn't get any credit. We figured out under the federal law in 2014 that we could give credit to each, full credit to each. So if MassAbility Present someone to the Career Center and they have a positive outcome, it counts on their performance as well as on the Career Center. And that was a huge policy breakthrough because it It means collaboration doesn't come at your expense.

Thank you, Neil, and thank you, Angela. Thank you to everybody for the important work you're doing. Mr. Chair, I think I might be out of time. Is that accurate to say? It is. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, if you have follow-up questions, we'll do a second round. But Councilor Breadon, six minutes.

Thank you. I'd love to learn more about how the grants are used for ESOL. I know that also in Brighton we have the Adult Education Coalition that does Hysatt and they do Adult Ed and whatever so how does I'm sure you work with the Jackson men Community Centre and their adult education programme. And do you work with any other organisations in Alston, Brighton?

Oh, yeah. Well, maybe, Angela, I don't know if you want to start and I'll kick in, but as far as Alston Brighton in particular, I'd have to find that out so I can make a note to follow up on that, Councilor.

Yeah. Very good. And the other ad piece, I think, ESOL is a critical piece of the puzzle for folks that are new arrivals. Not even new arrivals. People have been here a while, but if they increase their proficiency in English, they can get a better job. apply for different trainings and things because they're able to handle it better. And then in terms of youth works, The number of organizations, how many organizations are we working with in terms of youth works? That's wide-ranging across the whole city, isn't it?

It is wide-ranging across the whole city. The entire package of grants was approved back in April when we first got it from the state. This is just the part that... is going from our office to YEO. And because it was an internal transfer, we also had to do the grant approval process from our office to YEO. So across the city, it's the set of organizations that I mentioned before. We do look for organizations which are able to serve as an intermediary. So then most of our partners are then also finding additional partners. And Neil referenced that the PIC plays a huge role in this. That's the model that The pick has a bringing in additional private sector partners that could let him speak to that and how they use YouthWorks. But in general, we look for organizations that are able to carry out the kinds of programming that the state is asking for, which is really services to specifically benefit youth who are low income or who have other kinds of barriers. For example, youth who are in the foster system or youth who are justice involved. and creating summer job opportunities for that particular subset of young people. So we do look for organizations that have not only the capacity and experience with employing youth because It's a very complicated business, but also have the sort of wraparound services that they're likely to encounter and need when they're serving youth, sort of a high need population of young people. We did have seven subrecipients this year for YouthWorks, including YEO. And all together, it's really hundreds of job sites if we look across those seven organizations.

And all of this, Councilor, should be seen in the context of Future Boss or the Mayor's Youth Employment Program. To give you a sense, this is $4 million currently. And by the way, It's going to experience the loss of federal pandemic response money. So, you know, we talk about the cliff kind of Trump has trumped our conversation of the pandemic response funding cliff, but youth works is down, will be down significantly in the year ahead. We're appealing to the legislature for supplemental to try to bolster it statewide. But you may be looking at seven or so organizations then funding dozens of others. With the federal money, YouthWorks, which you're processing today, but the city investment, $23 million as compared to the $4 million. So I think it's well over $200 million. Different organizations. When we roll it all up, it's 243 if Alison Verneray told me correctly. So it's everywhere through hundreds, of organizations by the time you've bundled all that summer jobs and school year youth employment money. However, we're going to experience cuts from the federal government as well as the state government. So stay tuned and stay alert.

Yeah, sadly, that's a difficult situation we're all facing from many different departments. In terms of outcomes, what sort of data points do we have on how beneficial these programs are? I don't have any doubt that they are beneficial, but how are we measuring them?

Several people on the call can answer, but we're in a collaboration with Northeastern University, we being the city and the PIC, and the PIC's researcher, Joe McLaughlin, as well as OWD staff and YEO staff. Boy, do we have a lot of acronyms in workforce development. Work with Alicia Sasser Modestino, a professor and she and Joe McLaughlin have written papers on the beneficial impact ranging from public safety to education. to Workforce Development Outcomes, and Alicia and OWD have worked hard as well as YEO on Another paper demonstrating the incredibly beneficial effect of a large scale subsidized program, which YouthWorks is just a part of. So we study this stuff and we publish nationally. and trying to get the entire country to focus on youth employment. You'll hear me talk about youth employment as the foundation of our public safety strategy along with community policing. and School to Career as well. It's a threefer. Thank you.

Councillor Breadon, on the adult side, we track graduation, entered employment rates, entered employment after six months and after 12 months. We track the median wage for each of those quarters. and we provide one year of follow-up to anybody who's interested in case they can't maintain the job and need to go back and get additional supports. and all of this information is public and available to the customer.

Very good.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sure my time's up.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

Thank you, thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Brayden. Councilor Murphy, you're up. Six minutes.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation and answering the previous question. I guess the only question I would kind of lean in on is to get ahead of How is this supporting the initiatives and the expansion and I think the wonderful success we've had with our youth summer jobs and making sure we're kind of grabbing and finding those students, those children who may otherwise not have access to the supports to even apply and making sure that the ones that we worry most about falling through the cracks are getting in front of you know and supporting with even just applying the application so does any of this grant money support that and How can we on the Council or me personally be more proactive and supportive in that field?

I'm sorry, I can speak to how the funding is currently used for that. So YouthWorks funding is very specifically for youth wages and then the supportive services that youth need during the course of the summer. However, we do also use a portion of it to serve. Some of our subrecipient agencies are using YouthWorks funding to pay for full-time year-round staff. and we find that to be a really really critical part of having a successful program because we want to support organizations that are building year-round relationships with youth because if you're only meeting a youth or a family you know In March or April and asking them all of this personal information and trying to get them to commit to their summer, we find that they're much less likely to commit to that opportunity or even be aware of that opportunity. So really funding organizations that are building deep relationships in schools and in communities to be able to have opportunities that are responsive to what youth need and that they know that young person particularly for say our 14, 15, 16 year olds who are maybe having their very first opportunity is really key. So the seven organizations that we have are really kind of They have that year-round ethos, and we see them providing lots of other services that allow them to get to know our youth and families. So for example, ABCDE, working with the Level Up program. They have so many other opportunities that families are aware of that it's just natural that people know that they can go to ABCD. So I think that's sort of the way that we use YouthWorks funding here. We do have a requirement that 60% of the YouthWorks dollars that are spent go to youth wages and that only 40% are able to go to anything other than youth wages. So candidly, the infrastructure needed to deliver services to our most vulnerable youth and families is something that we're always looking for more opportunities to fund.

As Katie said, Councilor, YouthWorks is able to invest in the programmatic aspect of the seven organizations. YEO, Youth Employment Office, has built up a significant staff capacity at its office in Mission Hill in the Tobin's complex. that's an important access point and they go out to various schools and then of course the PIC has that city funded that staff and then the PIC has career specialists two to four days a week in every Boston BPS High School, and that's where we harvest the folks who are ready for the private sector internships. You not only have the investment in the organizational capacity of the grantees organizations, you have the YEO staff, which is increasingly sophisticated, and then you have the longtime presence of the PIC and the BPS high schools.

I'll just end with a personal success story. I was helping a student who was definitely someone who didn't realize there was an opportunity to get a youth summer job. He was going into his sophomore year in high school, not really feeling connected, not sure what the next few years would be. got over at the Artistry Community, where then he has been working throughout the years, his senior year now, and has done the year-round employment now for three years applying to Emerson so it was just a wonderful opportunity and just shows that when we've gone out to these outside agencies even though city departments are great opportunities for you summer jobs but Seeing the value of the diversity that these nonprofits and these outside organizations offer just different opportunities for kids have been wonderful. So I know that's just one of hundreds of stories. Count me in for always advocating and supporting that work, so thank you.

Murphy. Is that it? Yeah.

I'm good.

Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. I had a couple questions. More current events. I don't know if anyone, in terms of the federal workers who aren't being paid and I've heard they have trouble collecting unemployment. I don't know. Is there anything you're seeing or that we have? For in mind for, you know, local residents who are federal workers and how, you know, we can help them, you know, as they're The federal government's using the shutdown as an excuse to lay off lots of people.

Statewide, the Department of Career Services have put up a website to help federal workers navigate the local system. The career centers have been trained on helping them get access on employment, Although the scary part is unemployment only pays up to 50% off your salary and many of those workers are struggling with a full-time salary. So it's quite a shock whenever they actually start to Do we have any idea how

People in the area, you know, are being...

In Boston, we have not seen a lot come through at this point, but we are expecting it.

Okay. And I guess we had Jewish Vocational Services at the last hearing and they were talking about, or maybe when I met with them, how they would Look for employers, you know, kind of line up the employers on the other end and say, oh, well, there's tons of people who need lab tech. So that's, you know, we're going to I guess I don't know if you touched on this in your presentation. Is there anything that you're doing on that end to try to identify the areas where You know, would be fruitful for people to gain, you know, rather than, you know, sort of have a goal and end goal for them. And what are we doing on that sort of issue?

Well, one is that we're working with the state to try to get people into positions there. Secondly, the career centers deal with this with every job seeker that comes in. is that we try to line up the employers that are needed based on the skills and the interests of the job seeker and federal employees are no different from that. There just obviously is a much bigger push to bring in a higher skilled job than we would have before. A lot of the job seekers at the Career Center are at a lower skill level. So it's pushed their employer services people to go a little further and to reach the state streets of the world and other better paying jobs, higher skilled jobs.

And everything we do, Councilor, is based in up-to-date labor market information. We are very much on top. Our guy Joe McLaughlin is always fully informed on labor market trends and then that Transitions to Katie and the OWD staff as well as Angela and the career centers to try to get ready. I mean the storm off the coast right now is a cooling economy and what will that mean and You know, as we move into Medicaid work requirements and food stamp. Tough, tough topic today. Work requirements, which we oppose, but nevertheless, they're going to turn to somebody to implement those work requirements. So. you know perhaps my hopefully modestly rising in employment is something that you gotta we've gotta look at from an infrastructure point of view uh but we also ask to look at you know how The federal government is going to direct career centers because, as this hearing is all about, in large part it is federal money through the Department of Labor. And that's a whole other conversation that we won't get into, you know, the funding of the Department of Labor, which has been modestly okay so far, but certainly on the House side is under great threat.

Well, Neil, in terms of like, I mean, my sense is the labs maybe haven't provided the amount of work or they haven't opened to the extent we were. Kind of expecting like what other areas can we for youth, for people, like should we be thinking about for the future?

I wish I had Joe on the call right now. because he'd give you a very precise answer. Angela just came off and perhaps Katie or Anna has something to say as well.

You know it's it's still a medical is the big one in Boston and medical technology is the one that's growing. The use of AI in technology We are still seeing construction-related jobs as a high in Boston. The lab stuff has not taken off to the extent that we wanted, but there are still a lot of entry-level jobs there that are helping people bridge those into that better career. It takes a long time to train for these, so it definitely is a career pathway approach.

Katie? Katie, do you have something?

Yeah, I'm so sorry. I had to step away for a second because we have a medical emergency happening in our office. Can you repeat the question?

No, please deal with it.

No, no, there's enough people dealing with it.

How do we track trends in the labor market? to the extent that JVS talks about through the Career Center that they can see the trends in real time we balanced it but we also were firmly grounded in labor market trends and we track the impact of Cuts in federal funding, which are huge in this region because eds and meds are the dominant education and healthcare are the dominant parts of our economy.

We do have a research team in our office that works a lot with, you know, for example, with MassBio and Life Sciences. We're currently working on an analysis of the healthcare labor market needs because Healthcare is obviously like a huge and diverse field with many different subsections. So really understanding what trends look like for hiring in healthcare and do we have the right set of training partnerships in place? But so much of what happens at the career centers is about the partnership with a willing employer and an employer who sees the value of building out training programs and is willing to work with a JVS or an ABCD to make those a reality. So, you know, several of our large hospital employers are really like strong and important partners on this and partly due to You know, the work Angela leads at the PIC with our Healthcare Careers Consortium. In Life Sciences, despite downturns in hiring, we are working on building out a sectoral partnership there so that employers who need people, who need lab technicians. And we see that a lot of that happens through a couple of staffing agencies actually have access to really qualified candidates. So there's always some up and down, you know, depending on the trends in the national economy, but I think the fundamental of building a partnership with an employer who has job openings and who is committed to living wages and good job quality is the kind of way that we look to navigate that.

Right, it gets very specific, Councilor. For example, right now, Katie mentioned the Healthcare Careers Consortium, which we organize, which is workforce development directors from the major hospitals, community organizations, and the community colleges. Right now there's a need for surgical technicians. Those are the people who set up the equipment in the operating room and stand ready to support the surgical team during an operation. Five years ago, it was radiologic technologists because MRIs and CAT scans were getting much, much more demand. So it's not just healthcare, it's what specific living wage, Career Mobility jobs are opening up and can we respond quickly and move in those spaces with training for our priority customers?

Okay, and just last quick question on and Food Stamps. Is there any intersection here? You know, if people are going to be losing their, you know, food, access to food, how we can... Did the workers, you know, I don't know, is there anything we can do on this end to mitigate the impacts of that? It sounds like no, but just asking, because a lot of people try to figure out what to do.

We are part of a citywide basic needs access working group that has been looking at this issue because with the additional, and I'm assuming, Councilor, we're talking about the Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You know, the requirement that they are working or in training or volunteering a certain number of hours per week. So we've started to break down what that rulemaking has looked like. So we're at a point right now of sort of analyzing and trying to figure out like what are the specific interventions we could do to assist these folks who are coming in. There are some other pieces of bad news, the ending of the senior community employment Senior Service Employment Program, which had been operated by Operation Able, which provided part-time work for adults 55 and over. you know that program is being sunsetted and that's going to be a challenge because that would have previously provided an opportunity for older workers and so we're going to see additional people who are who don't have that as an outlet or an option. So yes, there is a lot of bad news on this front right now, but we have a lot of strong partnerships to sort of look and see like what kinds of support can we offer.

If food stamps get frozen by the federal government as part of the shutdown on Saturday? Yeah. Saturday. We're basically as a community relying on food pantries and other emergency food services. That's the only thing we can do in the short run. And I'm sure the mayor will have a plan as the governor will as well.

Okay, thank you very much. Councilor Breadon, do you have any follow-up questions?

No, I didn't, thank you.

Okay, Councilor Murphy? None needed. Councilor Murphy, if you want to chime in, feel free. I don't see Councilor Flynn.

No, I'm good. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for all the work you guys are doing.

Okay, thank you. Okay, I don't know. Karishma, any public testimony?

Nope.

Okay. Let's see here. Sorry. There's a script somewhere, but I really want to thank everyone for you know for what you know their work on this and let's see I don't know if I do I have to Krishna do I have to read out the docket numbers when I close the

Yes.

Sorry, like you, I've got like 8,000 windows open. So there you go. So I, you know, Thank you. Any of the panelists have anything they want to just add on at the end? No. We're not grading you. Thank you. You've done enough. Okay, so I just want to thank my colleagues and our panelists for participating in today's hearing. I'd also really like to thank Ethan and Karishma from Central Staff for their assistance. As the chair, I intend to bring all these dockets up for a vote during Wednesday's meeting. With that said, this hearing on docket number 1625, 1658 to 1660. 1691 to 1695 1697 and 1832 is so let's take this as the gavel boom and uh thank you very much thank you everyone thank you mr chair Sure.