Community College Gap Assistance

Problem

In 2015, a Nebraska Chamber of Commerce Survey of 1,200 employers found that 52% had experienced difficulty hiring qualified employees within the previous year, and one fourth said that limited availability of labor and skilled employees was limiting growth. A number of states, including Nebraska, face workforce shortages in technical job fields that require skills certificates. Despite these shortages, no state or federal aid existed for non-credit community college courses and skills certificates. This created problems both for the economy at large, and individuals. On the state level, it restricted economic growth. On the individual level, it shut employees out from a variety of well-paying careers.

Solution

The Community College Gap Assistance program addresses workforce needs through financial aid to lower-income students taking non-credit courses, helping them to build the 21st century skills they need to work in competitive industries. Skills certificates and degrees have a proven return for employees that seek them. We’re taking a proven way to create career opportunities, work certificates and degrees, and aid is focused on training for industries experiencing workforce shortages. Furthermore, after completing the program, those that have degrees can continue through the career ladder and have a greater ability to pursue an associate’s degree or field-specific training.

 Nebraska’s effort builds on Iowa’s success by expanding eligibility so low-income adults can apply. By expanding gap assistance program eligibility, more workers can gain access to in-demand jobs and Nebraska leverages our existing under-employed workforce.

The Bronx Community Foundation

Problem

According to the census, The Bronx is the most diverse county in America. However, we have one of the poorest congressional districts, and no Community Foundation to help us direct resources to local organizations and programs to support community members, students, and entrepreneurs.

Solution

We are creating The Bronx Foundation, which allows us to direct resources to local organizations and focus on helping entrepreneurs and Bronxites create jobs, primarily through technology, music, food, health and the arts. Our 3 Es focus of Economic Development, Education & Equity guide us to partner with other local organizations to help students connect with skills and jobs for now and the future, encourage music and the arts, create an Entrepreneurial Accelerator, and continue to amplify existing entrepreneurship programs and workshops. Bringing together the core efforts of these groups, along with a systemic team approach, will allow us to attract additional philanthropic, corporate and entrepreneurial support while directing resources, initiatives and practical solutions to local organizations. Moreover, our collaboration with our four school districts, our three hospitals and five surrounding colleges and universities gives us direct partner organizations to take local efforts to scale.

Workforce Development Working Group

Problem

In the past few years, Chattanooga has seen incredible economic growth, unemployment has been cut in half and wages have increased. Despite this growth, there are still neighborhoods in our city with double digit unemployment and low wages and incomes. There are many organizations doing great work to train, hire, and grow income for people in our city, but those efforts don’t always meet un/underemployed people where they are. In addition, many workforce partners are collaborating together but these collaborations were either in isolated groups or fell apart without a convener who could bring together all partners who were committed to action. The result was a duplication of effort, missed opportunities, and too many folks ready to work but with barriers left standing in their way.

Solution

The Workforce Development Working Group brings together employers, training providers, workforce funders, and employees to facilitate collaboration towards growing wages for un/underemployed adults, while ensuring businesses have the best talent from our neighborhoods. The group provides a formal space and procedure to foster collaborations of efforts that were already happening in isolation and launch new ideas. With meetings every other week and two Mayor’s Office staff facilitating, the group operates with few resources. Rather than focusing on systematic workforce development challenges, the group’s purpose is to solve tangible programs and come up with ideas that can be launched quickly and improve upon. The results are a series of life-changing successes for Chattanoogans who are in most need, by meeting them where they are and delivering services more quickly and nimbly. One organization had a career coach bus, but when they took it to a neighborhood no one was showing up to use it. Connecting them with other groups has meant better promotion and that the bus is not taking people to community centers like the City’s Youth and Family Development Centers, where people in the neighborhood were used to going for help.

Economic Development Zones

Problem

The current economic development incentives provided by the City of Birmingham are being utilized to revitalize downtown while making renting and home ownership less affordable for residents.

Solution

This ordinance would ensure equitable distribution of economic development incentives within the City’s authority, to revitalize neighborhoods throughout the city. It would promote a sliding scale that rewards economic development projects in areas with high rates of poverty, specific to each neighborhood/community’s income levels.

Collaborative Open Data

Problem

In the City of Syracuse, assets like catchbasins, sidewalk curb corners, and stop signs are not mapped in geographic information systems. Knowing where these assets are, we could easily analyze which catchbasins are not working properly based on flooding calls, or where sidewalk curb corners are not ADA compliant. The problem is with thousands of each asset and no dedicated staff to digitize this information, the project is too large, time consuming, and expensive, for just the city to take on. Residents also do not always know the purpose of maintaining city assets, and may not be engaged to their fullest potential.

Solution

Using crowdsourcing techniques, residents could help with data collection, while saving the city time and money and contributing to open government. Crowdsourcing is already used in a variety of ways, from products like Wikipedia to programs like Open Street Map. With constrained budgets and staff time, cities can take advantage of crowdsourcing to collect data on municipally-owned assets, which not only gives cities access to critical data, but also helps residents better understand and feel more connected to government. The city could make all of the data publicly available for further analysis and expanded partnership opportunities with the public. To make this happen in Syracuse, we are using the open data portal we created and have partnered with Syracuse University on some infrastructure data-collection tasks, while also pursuing funding from local foundations and national funders like the National Science Foundation.

Meaningful Infrastructure

Problem

Small industrial towns have seen manufacturing jobs leave and have lacked the ability to attract millennial workers to their communities who will pay into the tax system.

Solution

Our plan addresses the issues keeping millennials away from suburban communities, and provides the infrastructure necessary to provide jobs, without burdening taxpayers. Downingtown is turning a debilitated mill site into an Amtrak and regional rail station connected to NYC, Philadelphia, and DC which will be maintained in large part with private dollars that includes walking trail networks & public bridges. By revising zoning laws, we are able to have the train station built along with trails and bridges without tax incentives or investing any municipal money.

BankLocal

Problem

Over 90% of companies in Rhode Island are small businesses, employing much of the private sector workforce. Entrepreneurs need access to affordable capital to launch and expand businesses, and the consolidation of the national banking industry has made it increasingly difficult for small-scale businesses to find lenders who are responsive to their needs. At the same time, the remaining local community banks and credit unions that are most likely to offer flexible financing arrangements to small businesses are often capital constrained. Challenges obtaining access to capital have historically been particularly acute for women and minority owned businesses, with a recent national NMSDC survey finding that half of minority owned businesses have been unable to obtain financing to grow their operations over the past four years.

Solution

BankLocal moves state cash deposits to local community banks and credit unions as an incentive for small business lending, using some of the $500 million to $1 billion in state cash on hand at any point during the year. Participating lending institutions are eligible to receive a cash deposit equal to the amount of each small business loan the institution makes, up to $250,000. Loans must be made to businesses within the state of Rhode Island, to companies with 100 employees or less. Loans to women or minority owned businesses, or to businesses founded by first-time entrepreneurs, are eligible for a 2-to-1 match. Deposits are “sticky”, with the state pledging to keep the deposits at the lending institutions for the duration of the matched loans.

Tax Incentive Reform

Problem

Tools like tax incentive financing and investment incentives, which were made to address blight and help poor urban areas, were often being used in already successful real estate areas. As a result, members of the minority community and public institutions felt defensive against economic development, and these programs were building up areas that were not in need of extra support.

Solution

Disagreement over how tax incentives were being used had been a problem for decades without any successful compromise. I introduced a reform to tax incentive financing policy that reduced incentive amounts in developed areas to steer investment to poorer communities. My plan was the result of collaboration with poorer communities and community advocates, but also the business community that had previously resisted any reform.

Paystub Transparency

Problem

Since 2008, wage theft has increased dramatically. Working families can barely survive on the low wages they receive, let alone when employers shirk responsibility of paying what is owed. States then lose out too, on taxes to be collected, and honest employers are put at a disadvantage. This problem is easy to mask because of minimal requirements for paystubs: many paystubs have only the name of the employee and the total amount paid – failing to indicate what hours and what rate of pay, or whether taxes were withheld. Many low-wage workers don’t even know which contractor is paying them, so they don’t know who to sue or complain to.

Solution

Setting a new standard to ensure necessary information is being provided to workers is imperative to reduce wage theft and economic inequality. No federal and minimal state requirements currently exist regarding required information on paystubs. To protect workers in a contract economy and to level the playing field for employers, we need to set regulations to require companies to provide standardized paystubs.

Veterans Training Crosswalk

Problem

Time and again, servicemembers reentering the civilian workforce find that their military credentials do not entirely align with civilian requirements for a similar job. This can lead to a well-qualified servicemember being unemployed while he or she works to get his or her state-mandated credentials together. At the end of 2016, there were 8,000 unemployed veterans living in Massachusetts, representing 4.6% of the workforce. We can do more for those 8,000 veterans, many of whom may be unemployed due to their military occupational specialty not translating to the civilian workforce.

Solution

My legislation would aid military servicemembers in finding civilian employment by making information on civilian credentialing opportunities available to servicemembers and veterans, helping them make the best decisions on which occupational specialties to pursue during service for their desired profession post-service. This bill also aims to correct burdensome licensing requirements that keep some servicemembers from jobs they’re qualified for — helping to correct licensing misalignment through greater transparency of these credentials and requirements. In addition, the bill requires exchange of information about often nuanced requirements to address considerable misunderstanding by both military and civilian employers about what the other requires for equivalent jobs, while also establishing an online resource to make information easily accessible.

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