Athens task force to unveil workforce development plan, though another already approved

Less than two weeks after the Athens-Clarke County Commission allocated $1.9 million in federal funds to a workforce development initiative spearheaded by the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, a workforce development task force created by the commission and chaired by Commissioners Carol Myers and Tiffany Taylor is getting ready to unveil its own proposal.

The Chamber-headed effort, Athens Achieves, is aimed at creating what Chamber President and CEO David Bradley calls “a valued and valuable workforce.” Two Athens-Clarke County commissioners, Patrick Davenport and John Culpepper, are part of the working committee for Athens Achieves.

The $1.9 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding steered to Athens Achieves is described by Bradley as “seed money,” with hopes that the effort can be sustained over the long term with private dollars and grant funding.

The $1.9 million will be used to establish an online jobs portal, bolstered by as many as three portal “navigators” to keep job applicants engaged in the search process. The funds will also be used to hire a chief workforce officer at the chamber, and to hire a grant coordinator to seek sustained funding for Athens Achieves.

Broadly, Athens Achieves is aimed at linking local business and industry, the education community, and the local government to provide a pipeline of skilled workers to current and future businesses and industries.

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The county received $57.6 million in ARPA dollars, part of a nationwide $1.9 trillion economic stimulus initiative approved by Congress in 2021 to bolster the country’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The local funding has been placed by the commission in “buckets” aimed at various initiatives, with $3.8 million earmarked for business development and workforce support.

The $1.9 million allocation to Athens Achieves was deadlocked at the June 6 commission meeting, forcing Mayor Kelly Girtz to cast two tie-breaking votes that sent the dollars to the program. An initial motion to fund Athens Achieves was trumped by a substitute motion from Commissioner Melissa Link to delay action until the commission sees the report from the Business Development and Workforce Support Task Force headed by Myers and Taylor.

Girtz broke ties on both motions to get the funding to Athens Achieves.

The Businesses Development and Workforce Support Task Force had been expecting access to the entire $3.8 million in ARPA funding, but the group got a late start, due to county government workload issues and bureaucracy, according to Myers.

Originally expected to begin work in August, the task force has been active only since March.

However, the task force is still working under a timeline that calls for a report being done by Lion Leadership, an Athens-based business consulting firm working with the group, to conclude by June 26.

After a review by the task force, the report will go to the mayor and commission at public meetings on July 9 and July 16, with a vote possibly coming as soon as Aug. 6. While the task force does not make any specific funding requests, any dollars that it might eventually seek, and be granted by the commission, must be committed by Dec. 31.

That’s a short timeline, given that the county government could have to work through lengthy processes such as soliciting requests for proposals for any contemplated programs, Myers said.

At its recent meeting, the task force worked through the seven goals it developed. Those goals include empowering the local workforce with education on worker rights, increasing work and apprenticeship opportunities in publicly funded projects, improving childcare, expanding access to capital for small businesses, increasing local employee-owned businesses, and developing a workforce suited for local in-demand employment sectors.

The only specific monetary request thus far in the task force proposal is a $1 million outlay for grants and loans for local small businesses. But, Myers said, that proposal currently is “just an idea,” not a formal request.

Once the task force signs off on the report, Myers said she and Taylor will strategize on how to effectively present it to the commission, given that some of her commission colleagues might be eyeing the ARPA money for other purposes.