Explanation
BACKGROUND: This legislation authorizes and directs the director of the Department of Development to enter into a not-for-profit service contract in the amount of $50,000.00 with the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio (WDBCO). This $50,000.00 expenditure is allocated to support the city’s partnership with WDBCO and Franklin County to pilot a year-long workforce development program specifically designed for the Milo-Grogan neighborhood. The goal of this year-long pilot program is to work with the community of Milo-Grogan to facilitate a job readiness and retention program for the unemployed and underemployed.
Milo-Grogan is a neighborhood of the City of Columbus, Ohio. Milo-Grogan is defined by the rail corridors to the north, east, and west, and Interstate 670 to the south. The neighborhood was settled as the separate communities of Milo and Grogan in the late 1870s. Large-scale Industrial Development fueled the neighborhood’s growth until the 1980s, when the last factories closed. In recent years, revitalizing this neighborhood has been a major focus of the City of Columbus, and the neighborhood has begun to experience something of a resurgence. Several businesses have decided to locate in the neighborhood, including Rouge Fitness, which is constructing a 600,000 square foot corporate headquarters, manufacturing and distribution center, and several other businesses are expanding within the neighborhood. In addition, the City of Columbus, along with its partners, has just completed an infrastructure overhaul of the 5th Avenue corridor, west of I-71 to Grant Avenue that included approximately $7.7 million in roadwork improvements, new sidewalks, street resurfacing, and the redesign of 5th and Cleveland Avenue intersection. With this investment, Rogue, Rumpke, COTA and others are reinvesting in the neighborhood creating employment opportunities for local residents.
However, despite the increase in the number of employment opportunities available in Milo-Grogan, many residents of the neighborhood have trouble accessing services that can help them become qualified for these employment opportunities. The WDBCO desires, in partnership with the City of Columbus and Franklin County to assist the unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged workers living in this neighborhood in accessing these employment opportunities.
Thus, the purpose of this legislation is to allow the WDBCO to select a local non-profit social services agency, or a group of local non-profit social service agencies collaborating together for the purposes of this project, to pilot a year-long workforce development program that is designed, developed, and implemented, which will be charged with the following:
1. To provide Milo-Grogan residents who are looking for work, underemployed, or looking to increase their job skills to find a better job, with services to help these individuals secure full-time employment.
2. To provide the businesses located within the Milo-Grogan neighborhood with (1) a pool of qualified potential job applicants from within the neighborhood and (2) retention services throughout the first year of employment. It is not a requirement that every program participant be placed into employment at businesses located within Milo-Grogan, but it is the intent of this pilot project that program participants be able to secure employment at employers located within the neighborhood as transportation issues have historically been a barrier to employment success and can be minimized by locating a job close to your place of residence.
3. Demonstrate, through the pilot, that the workforce development program model implemented in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood can, in the future, (1) be applied to other neighborhoods throughout the city and (2) can be scalable to serve a greater number of residents at a similar or lower per person cost.
This legislation is requested to be considered as an emergency action in order to allow the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio to immediately select a social services agency that will pilot a year-long workforce development program for the Milo-Grogan neighborhood.
FISCAL IMPACT:
This legislation authorizes the director of the Department of Development to enter into a not-for-profit service contract with the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio and expend $50,000.00, which was budgeted in Fund 2237, Neighborhood Economic Development Fund.
Title
To authorize the director of the Department of Development to enter into a not-for-profit service contract with the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio to assist the unemployed, underemployed and discouraged workers living in Milo-Grogan with accessing employment opportunities; to appropriate $50,000.00 in Fund 2237, Neighborhood Economic Development Fund; to authorize the expenditure of $50,000.00 from Fund 2237, Neighborhood Economic Development Fund; and to declare an emergency.
Body
WHEREAS, the city, acting through the Economic Development Division, desires to enter into a not-for-profit service contract with the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio to pilot a year-long workforce development program in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood; and
WHEREAS, the total contract with the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio for the year-long pilot program will be fifty-thousand dollars ($50,000.00); and
WHEREAS, an emergency exists in the usual daily operation of the Department of Development in that it is immediately necessary to authorize the Director to enter into a not-for-service contract with the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio to immediately establish, develop and implement a year-long workforce pilot program in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood, thereby preserving the public health, peace, property, safety, and welfare;
NOW, THEREFORE:
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS:
SECTION 1. That from the unappropriated monies and from all monies estimated to come into said fund from any and all sources and unappropriated for any other purpose during the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017, the sum of $50,000 is appropriated in Fund 2237, Neighborhood Economic Development Fund in Object Class 03 Contractual Services per the accounting codes in the attachment to this ordinance.
SECTION 2. That the Director of the Department of Development is hereby authorized to enter into a not-for-profit service contract with the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio for the purposes of piloting a year-long workforce development initiative in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood.
SECTION 3. That for the purpose stated in Section 2, the expenditure of $50,000 or so much thereof as may be needed, is hereby authorized in Fund 2237, Neighborhood Economic Development Fund in Object Class 03 Contractual Services per the accounting codes in the attachment to this ordinance.
SECTION 4. That this contract is awarded in accordance with the relevant provisions of City Code Chapter 329 relating to not-for-profit service contracts.
SECTION 5. That the funds necessary to carry out the purpose of this ordinance are hereby deemed appropriated, and the City Auditor shall establish such accounting codes as necessary.
SECTION 6. That for the reasons stated in the preamble hereto, which is hereby made a part hereof, this ordinance is hereby declared to be an emergency measure and shall take effect and be in force from and after its approval by the Mayor, or ten days after passage if the Mayor neither approves nor vetoes the same.