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Board Meeting Minutes
October
3, 2007
Amsterdam Workforce Solutions Center
Meeting 4:30
Opening and
Attendance
Terri Montanye, Vice-Chairperson opened the meeting for Chairman,
Howard Samuels, who was going to be late. The meeting was called to
order at 4:35 p.m. Board Members present were: Beth Case, Roger
Cohn, Andrea Fettinger, Charles Finin, Elaine Mongin, Terri
Montanye, Bob Palmatier, Kristine Pennick, Barbara Rivenburgh, Frank
Ruggiero, Barbara Schaffer, Terry Suits, Dustin Swanger, John Tracy
and Angelika Verderber.
Howard Samuels arrived late.
Board Members excused were: Kerry Brunner, Gary Donadio, Bob Hoefs,
Terry Hughes, Leo McAllister, Tom Pasquarelli, Ramon Rodriguez and
Jody Zakrevsky.
Board Members absent were Paul Brady, Pat Baia and Art Graulich.
Also attending were: Mary
Hill, Program Director of the Private Industry Council, Gail Breen,
Regina Papa, Becky Canuteson, Connie Glover and Sandy Teetz, staff
to the Board.
Welcome
Terri
Montanye welcomed and thanked everyone for attending our October
meeting. There was not a quorum therefore the following Resolution
will be presented at the November meeting.
q
Resolution BY—2007-10
Approval of
Minutes from the September 5, 2007 Board Meeting
I.
Committee Updates
§
Accountability
A. Fiscal Update
Terry Suits said the
Accountability Committee met on September 25th and the
minutes have been posted to our website. Our Accountant, CPA Phil
Beckett attended the meeting. Phil had recently completed a single
audit and reported that everything is in order and we are up-to-date
on every audit. There were no questionable costs. We went over the
monthly financial report presented by Becky and we are on target
with our spending. The only thing we may have to look at in the
future is the youth dollar spending. If we continue spending at the
current rate, we may be under spent at the end of the year. We are
discussing with the youth additional services that we may be able to
provide for youth.
It appears that we will get up to
a 16% decrease in funding for 2008. We will be looking at next
year’s operating expenses very closely and may be recalling the ad
hoc infrastructure committee later this year or in January.
The Accountability Committee also
discussed the Employed Worker and Customized Training Policies and
is now waiting for other committees to review it before making a
recommendation. Terry stated that Dustin Swanger’s remarks from
the September Board Meeting was the impetus for the Committee’s
revisiting this. We had
chosen to make an increase a local requirement because, under the
old measures, anyone we worked with needed to have an increase in
wages after they were finished working with us. As of July 1, 2007,
that measure no longer exists - it has been changed to just an
average salary of all the people we work with. We could stop
requiring an increase in wages for the customized training and allow
short-term (even 1- day trainings for a large number of trainees)
and really increase our training numbers (one of the new performance
measures).
Frank Ruggiero reminded us that we
also need to discuss having off-premise storage for backup files.
Gail stated that she was looking into this as our auditor had
requested it. We also need a back-up plan to serve customers on a
short-term basis if something should happen at one of our Centers
that would result in their being inaccessible to customers. Examples
might be water damage or fire.
Because there was not a quorum,
the following resolution will also be presented to the board at the
November meeting.
q
Resolution
BY-2007-11 – Approval
of the Audit Report for year ending June 30, 2007
§
One-Stop Oversight Committee
Roger Cohn
reported that due to prior commitments of committee members, the One
Stop Oversight Committee did not meet in September. They will be
meeting on October 31.
§
Business Services Committee
Bob Palmatier
reported for the Business Services Committee. He stated that the
committee tried to meet twice during the month of September, but due
to an apparently very busy month for the committee members and prior
commitments, the committee was not able to meet in September. The
Business Services Committee will be October 18th at 8
a.m. at the Amsterdam Workforce Solutions Center.
§
Emerging Worker Council
Gina reported
that Ramon Rodriguez was absent due to a death in the family. Gina
stated that the Emerging Worker Committee did meet in September.
Gina stated that the committee looked at the goals various members
of the committee had identified. The committee came up with a
calendar of all the meetings that are scheduled for next year. The
calendar includes the date and place and also set an agenda for each
of those meetings. We are hoping to have a few guest speakers and
we plan to do some presentations to the high schools. We are
hoping that the calendar will give others a better idea as to what
topics the Emerging Worker Council will be focusing on throughout
the year. The minutes have been posted to our website along with
the calendar.
§
Board Orientation and Membership Committee
Barbara
Rivenburgh reported that the Board Orientation and Membership
Committee did not meet in September. The committee will meeting on
October 17, 2007. It hasn’t been determined where the meeting will
be held.
§
Executive Committee
The Executive Committee did not
meet.
II.
Executive Director’s Report
Becky:
Becky reiterated that we recently
had the single audit. If anyone would like to review a copy, please
contact Becky. Becky also stated that she has been monitoring the
programs to ensure that we are using the funds from the Incentive
Grant and the Supplemental Dislocated Worker funds in a timely
manner, as training should be charged to these funds before charging
to our regular formula funds.
Connie:
Connie reported that last week she
attended the 3rd Annual United States Business Leadership Network
Conference in Orlando. Their focus has been on getting businesses
throughout the nation to do mentoring type projects and looking
towards employing people with disabilities. They had a huge career
fair with colleges across the nation as well as a local high school
from Orlando. It was really phenomenal; there were huge companies
i.e.: Met Life, Nike. It was very interesting, and they are
working on opening more chapters throughout the nation.
Gina:
Gina reported that New York State
Department of Labor has come up with a new system of rewarding us
for meeting our performance measures. In the past, we had 17
measures and we had to meet each one of them in order to receive
incentive dollars; which is some of what we are now trying to
spend. That made it difficult, because if you miss one out of 17,
you get nothing. Now, they have changed it, there are not quite as
many performance measures, they are different than they use to be
and they are looked at independently. Therefore, you could do well
in one measure and get incentive money for that even if you didn’t
do so well in another measure. There have been a lot of changes and
each measure rewards a different amount of money based on how much
money we got in the first place. Gina stated she feels we are in
good shape as far as being able to meet several of the measures.
There is one that is not looking very good for us, but we may try to
re-negotiate the goal. The incentive money is not as much as it use
to be, but it always helps.
Gina stated that this policy is an
incentive and a sanction policy. The sanction policy is that if
we are to fail a measure two years
in a row they can take out up to 3% for a funding stream, 1% within it
for each activity. For example, if it were Dislocated Worker –
there are three measures in that and if we fail one of those
measures within it – we lose 1% each. We did have one measure that
we failed last year and that was the Dislocated Worker average
earnings. When they sent out the draft of this new policy, they
stated they were going to lower the limit, which was good for us
because many of the jobs around here just don’t pay enough for us to
meet this measure. This was in the draft and when the final policy
came out; suddenly that number has gone sky high again. If that
number stays high, we probably will miss that measure again this
year. However, we have had some preliminary discussions with the
State about renegotiating that number, therefore we are hopeful.
Sandy:
Sandy reported that she will be
meeting with Kelly from Empire Web Pages Inc. tomorrow. Hopefully
the site will be up and running by tomorrow or by the beginning of
next week. Sandy said that we would be ordering fleece zip-up
sweaters with our FMS logo, and showed the board the samples we have
received. If any of the board members were interested in getting a
fleece sweater, to please email or call Sandy with their size.
Howard Samuels
entered the meeting at this point, however, we still did not have a
quorum.
Mary Hill:
Mary Hill reported that the PIC
staff has been very busy working with customers to utilize the
additional training funds available through the supplemental
dislocated worker dollars and the training funds in the incentive
grant. Staff is very busy with classroom training and OJT’s. Mary
also stated that she will be interviewing this week for two
positions that are open at this time. We have created a new WAT
position (which was included in this year’s contract). Our Resource
Room Coordinator was going to take that position. However, she as
since accepted a position with DOL working out of the Utica
office. Therefore, we have two positions open at this time. Mary
stated that she has received some excellent resumes for the WAT
position and is hoping to fill both positions by the end of the
month.
Gail: Gail
reported that we did receive the new technology grant that we put
applied for. Originally, NYSDOL gave us a very broad list of the
types of technology that were eligible for purchase, therefore we
put in for $118,000 worth of technology: i.e.: 35 new computers; 30
wireless laptops, wireless internet connections, 2007 Microsoft
software, a couple of printers, fax machines, and two wide screen
TV’s as replacements in Amsterdam and Cobleskill where the TV’s in
the Resource Rooms are now 7 years old. NYSDOL then changed what we
could request. They decided that we could only request computers,
laptops and fax machines, therefore, reducing our request from
$118,000 to $78,000. We will still be able to get all the
computers we requested, a fax machine and a printer. We will have
all new computers in all of our resource rooms and the youth
resource rooms. The computers in the youth resources room were
purchased in 2002 -2003. We’ve been working with Reid Smalley from
FMCC to provide some computer training on-site. This would not
have been an option with our current older computers. We haven’t
received the official “notice of obligational authority” as yet, but
we’ve been told we should have it by next week. The funds will
need to be spent by November 30. Becky has our list put together,
and we are ready to order. We will also be able to order new
Microsoft 2007 software through the Incentive Grant.
Gail sent all board members an
email on Tuesday regarding the Regional Economical Transformational
Strategies Proposal which we applied for. We applied for both Tier
I and Tier II for a total of $550,000. The proposal is a regional
partnership of four WIB’s: Fulton, Montgomery, Schoharie; Saratoga,
Warren, Washington; Capital Region; and Columbia-Greene. FMS is the
applicant because we are the only one with a 501c3 in the group.
They preferred to have the grant recipient be a WIB and a 501 c 3 as
there are fewer levels to move funding through. The money is not to
build up our centers or our staff; however, we will hope to receive
some dollars to supplement Becky’s salary as she will be doing some
fiscal work. We will have requested dollars to supplement WIB
Director’s salaries and their travel. Primarily, the $550,000 is
going to develop a technology platform for K-12, BOCES and
Community Colleges so that we can move people into the fields of
advanced manufacturing, bio-technology, energy, nano-technology and
construction. All of our partners from education, industry,
economic development, and other organizations submitted a letter of
interest and a Memorandum of Agreement stating the level of funds
that they would leverage (in-kind dollars) as well as how much
funding they were requesting from the grant. In addition to
assisting some organizations with funding, we put money in the grant
to provide actual training for people. One of the innovative things
in this grant is that we will be developing regional training
policies to cover the training funds in this grant. Currently, each
LWIA has different training policies. It won’t matter which of the
11 counties you are from or which of the 11 counties the training
provider is in or the company is in, we can work with them all.
NYSDOL will handle all initial
press releases regarding this grant. However, at some point we will
be putting out a news release. We will have to get it cleared by
NYSDOL Gail feels that it is very exciting and if it goes well
this year, there is funding for two additional years. If our first
year is successful, we are talking about a total of up to 1.5
million dollars to help the region in high tech training
initiatives.
Terri Montanye asked if we were
getting a little more money because we are lead with the 501c3.
Gail said we would a little more because Becky was going to do the
fiscal end of it; but not much more.
Gail said she attended the Tech
Valley Benchmarking Conference in Albany. Tech Valley originally
started out with 11 counties, but has grown well beyond that -
perhaps 18 counties. It is basically a Chamber initiative that
stretches from Plattsburgh to Columbia-Greene out to FMS and Oneida
County. They developed, through the Center for Economic Growth,
which is a not-for-profit economic development organization in
Albany, and Union College in Schenectady a benchmarking process.
Our Tech Valley was benchmarked against Madison, Wisconsin and
Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina because when they did a search of all
the areas of the country, they were most similar to us in life style
and demographics. Guests from both cities made presentations and
talked about their experiences in bringing high technology firms to
their areas. Their point was that if you’re going to benchmark, you
should benchmark against those who had similar situations. Gail
felt it was very interesting and said she learned a lot.
Gail also attended the Empire
State Development Mohawk Valley Blue Print meeting in Utica last
week. She, and a number of representatives of other local economic
development and chamber organizations have been trying to make the
point that we are really more closely aligned with the Capital
Region rather than with Oneida, Herkimer, and Madison Counties. The
strongest data is the commutation patterns that show very little
travel west for employment. Most of the commuters that leave our
counties daily, commute either within the three county FMS area, or
commute east to the Capital Region. As a result, we have also been
invited to attend the Capital District Blue Print meeting on October
4th.
III.
Old
Business
There was no old
business.
IV.
New
Business
o
Member Sharing
·
Dusty Swanger stated
that FMCC has decided to expand their Workforce & Continuing
Education Office and is taking applications for a newly created
position, Workforce
Development Specialist. This position in the non-credit Office of
Continuing Education and is a full-time, non-teaching faculty
position.
·
Elaine Mongin
reported that there will be an Open House at BOCES 6 pm – 8 pm on
Wednesday, October 17, 2007.
·
Gail thanked Beth
Stevens for agreeing to send one of St. Mary’s staff to speak at our
last Business Connection. Our next Business Connection is
scheduled for the end of October and Kerry Brunner, Board Member,
representing Wal-Mart will be the speaker.
V.
Adjournment
Terri Montanye made a motion to
adjourn Howard Samuels seconded the motion. The meeting adjourned
at 5:20 pm.
--------------End of October 2007 Board Meeting
Minutes--------------
Board Meeting Minutes
September 5, 2007
Amsterdam Workforce Solutions Center
Amsterdam NY 12010
Meeting 4:30
Howard Samuels,
Chairman, welcomed everyone and called the Board Meeting to order at
4:40 p.m. Board Members present were: Pat Baia, Paul Brady, Kerry
Brunner, Roger Cohn, Gary Donadio, Andrea Fettinger, Charles Finin,
Art Graulich, Terry Hughes, Elaine Mongin, Terri Montanye, Robert
Palmatier, Tom Pasquarelli, Barbara Rivenburgh, Ramon Rodriguez,
Frank Ruggiero, Howard Samuels, Terry Suits, Dustin Swanger, John
Tracy, Angelika Verderber and Jody Zakrevsky.
Board Members excused
were: Beth Case, Robert Hoefs, Leo McAllister and Kristine
Pennick.
Board Members absent were Barbara
Schaffer.
Also present were Jennifer Swart,
Youth Services Coordinator, Private Industry Council; Bob Gaessar,
Program Representative from New York State Department of Labor; and
Gail Breen, Becky Canuteson, Regina Papa, Connie Glover and Sandy
Teetz, staff to the Board.
·
Resolution BY—2007-06
Approval of Minutes from
the July 11, 2007 Board Meeting
Dusty Swanger made
a motion to accept Resolution BY-2007-06 Approval of the minutes
from the July 11, 2007 Board Meeting; Andrea Fettinger seconded the
motion.
Discussion: There was
no discussion
Vote: All were in
favor
Motion Carried
Presentation
Jennifer Swart, Youth Services
Coordinator from the Summer Youth Employment Program gave a wrap-up
report on the Summer Youth Program. Jennifer reported that youth
in all three counties, Montgomery, Fulton and Schoharie, started on
July 9 with a one week Employee Success Program (ESP). ESP is a
job readiness and soft skills training program that our youth are
required to attend before they are allowed to start on their
worksites. The program teaches them skills such as the importance
of time and attendance (including proper steps to take if they will
be late or unable to go to work), how to deal with difficult
customers and difficult employees, communication, and customer
satisfaction. A total of 165 youth from Fulton, Montgomery and
Schoharie Counties were served through this TANF program.
Sixty-two youth were employed in
Montgomery County. Of these, 8 youth were offered jobs after the
summer was over.Six not-for-profit and 14 for-profit organizations
provided worksites in Montgomery County.
Worksites that hired youth after the
summer program ended were Goodwill, Fonda DPW, Goodfellas, Amsterdam
Recorder, River Ridge Adult Home, and Handy Ups and Downs. Other
worksites included Amsterdam Police Department, Canajoharie High
School, Centro Civico, City Of Amsterdam DPW, RCIL and Happy Daze.
Forty-eight youth were employed in
Fulton County. Twelve youth worked at not-for-profit
organizations and 6 worked at for-profit organizations in Fulton
County.
Worksites included: Handy ups and
Downs, Johnstown Animal Clinic, All Breeds Grooming, Fremont Church,
Fashion Bug, Gloversville High School, and Nathan Littauer Extended
Care.
Fifty-five youth were employed in
Schoharie County. One youth was hired permanently by Minekill
State Park. Because there was such a big response by youth to the
summer program, instead of turning kids away, 14-15 year olds worked
20 hours a week and those age 16 and over worked 25 hours a week.
There were twelve not-for-profit organizations and 10 for-profit
organizations that participated in Schoharie County.
Worksites included: Action
for Personal Choice, Bassett Hospital, Jefferson High School, Red
Maple Rescue Farm and Lark Street Child Care.
The Final Ceremony was held from 9
a.m. to 3 p.m. on August 15 at Fulton-Montgomery Community College.
The youth could choose from a variety of workshops in the morning.
Some of the workshops were: Montgomery County Sheriffs Department
DWI Awareness Program, the Heart Saver Program by Eastern Medical
Support (all youth that participated became certified in CPR for two
years) personal safety, web page design, painting, and budgeting
skills. Staff from FMCC was also on hand to speak to youth on
requirements for college entrance. A local artist painted names on
T-shirts, and each one of the youth left with a T-shirt with their
name painted on it. After a great lunch of pizza and salad, the
“518 Positive Reinforcement” group from Troy performed for the
youth. “518” is made up of a group of youth that teach positive
reinforcement through dance, music, and singing. Songs performed
were about staying in school, bullying, having respect for one
another, and being kind to each other. The youth in “518” range
from age 13 and up.
The program officially ended on
August 17: however, some of the youth’s employment was extended to
August 31 to take advantage of all funding available. Overall, it
was a very successful summer program. All Board Members thanked
Jennifer and gave her a round of applause.
II.
Committee Updates
Accountability
Terry Suits reported that the
minutes from the August meeting have been posted to our website.
The Committee has reviewed the budget, and Becky reported that we
are in complete compliance. Two of the highlights from the
Accountability Meeting are the Technology Grant and the Regional
Economic Transformation Grant that FMS is applying for. Gail will
talk more about these later in the meeting.
·
Resolution
BY-2007-07 – Definition of Self-Sufficiency for WIA Adult
and Dislocated Workers -
Revision
Terry Suits made a motion to accept
Resolution BY-2007-07 of Self-Sufficiency for WIA Adult and
Dislocated Workers – Revision; Ramon Rodriguez seconded the motion
Discussion:
There was no discussion
Vote: All were in
favor
Motion Carried
·
Resolution
BY-2007-08
– Employed Worker Training -
Revision
Terry Suits made a motion to accept Resolution BY-2007-08 Employed
Worker Training –
Revision Roger Cohn seconded the motion.
Discussion:
Gina stated that she did some research by looking back at previous
contracts, as well as speaking with a couple members of the Business
Services Team. Gina stated that from what she gathered, raising the
proposed post-training wage increase beyond $1.00 an hour would be a
lot. Some of the employers are reluctant to give the $1.00 but when
they see that we require $1.00 they will do that. Rarely will they
give a raise that is more than $1.00. Gina also said that the
Business Services Representatives were a little bit concerned about
the 5% increase because throwing in percentages can be a bit
confusing when explaining the program. When Gina looked at
previous contracts, she found that the majority of them gave a $1.00
an hour increase. She stated that we did have 10 or so that did
pay over $1.00 an hour. She reviewed what the individual was doing
prior to the raise and what they would be doing with the upgraded
position. It appeared that people who were working at entry level
positions and were being upgraded to a supervisory or lead position
tended to receive about a $1.00 an hour raise. It wasn’t until
someone jumped into a management position that the employee was paid
over $1.00 an hour raise. Percentage wise, we did not see very many
of those types of situations compared to the other. Gina stated
that overall; the average came out to be between $1.20 to $1.31 an
hour raise for all the contacts we’ve written in the past. Gina
felt that the $1.00 is sufficient. By raising the self-sufficiency
standard to $25.00 an hour we open it up to a lot more businesses,
but Gina felt that asking businesses to give more than $1.00 an hour
raise might actually rule out some potential contracts.
Howard stated that if you are paying
someone $20.00 an hour and you are training them for a promotion, a
$1.00 raise is not enough. He felt that was equal to a cost of
living raise, if anything.
Dusty Swanger asked if he understood
the resolution to be as follows: if someone is going through a
training program, businesses will not be eligible for our assistance
unless they provide those employees with a raise. Howard said that
the employers do the training themselves, and we are subsidizing
training for people to move ahead. Dusty then gave a scenario that
if he were going to hire five people for a struggling business and
pay them $10.00 an hour and ask for assistance – that after the
training he has to pay these employees $1.00 an hour raise? Howard
stated that this is not about new employees, this program is for
people who have already been working for the employer for at least
six months and the employer would like to provide training to
increase their skills. We then can help with wage assistance while
the business is training them. Therefore, if we are going to pay
for the training, we want this person to be moving up to make more
money. Howard stated that this is the concept of this. Chuck Finin
stated that, as an employer, he has personal experience with the
program. He finds it is a great benefit for the employer because it
does help off-set costs when you have an employee with potential.
He stated that the additional raise of $1.00 per hour or 5% is worth
what you get at the end of the program. Ramon agreed with both
Chuck and Howard. Gail said that we say an increase of $1.00 per
hour or 5% over the previous wage, which ever is higher, because it
doesn’t become meaningful as 5% until you get the $20.00 an hour
therefore that is why we keep the $1.00 per hour. Ramon asked if
Gail would have the option to make an exception. Gail stated, yes
she could always authorize an exception.
Angelika stated that from her point
of view, if she is moving someone ahead, she better be paying them
an increase of at least $1.00 an hour. She stated that we are truly
talking about promotion which would be well-worth the money. Terri
Montanye stated that most supervisory positions promotions are a
minimum of $2.00 per hour. Gail stated that raising the $18.00 to
$25.00 so that employers who have someone who makes more than $18.00
per hour can still be served by us. One of the reasons that we may
not have more exceptions to sign may be that once employers learn
what the policies are they may feel that are not qualified and it
may not occur to them that could be exceptions. One (the $1/hr
increase) is a floor and one (an increased self-sufficiency rate to
$25) is a ceiling. The key is how you utilize both those of these to
make it fair to the employer as well as the employee.
Jody said we’ve talked about this
before and that the employer needs to offer some type of benefit and
we need to factor in exactly what type of benefits. Gail stated
that the committee was reluctant to put in a specific example of
benefits because they didn’t want to exclude anything. We are
looking for benefits such as sick time, vacation time and health
insurance. Chuck Finin stated that when his company applied they
needed to outline what the fringe benefits were. Jody stated that
you need to do that with Empire State Development. Gail asked if
Empire State Development has a list of acceptable fringe benefits.
Jody said he could look into it. Barbara Rivenburgh felt that it
really wasn’t the board’s position to tell an employer what to do
regarding fringe benefits that they offer.
Dusty Swanger asked if any employer
ever filled out the paper work for this program but didn’t really
offer acceptable fringe benefits. Gail and Gina felt that there
was always some type of acceptable benefit offered.
Howard asked what committees should
look further into this. Gail stated it would be Business Services
and Accountability Committees. Howard felt we should bring this to
a vote tonight, and look further into it at a later date.
It was agreed that we should vote on
the resolution at this time.
Vote: All were in
favor
Motion Carried
·
Resolution BY-2007-09
– Customized Training for
Employed Workers, Revision
Frank Ruggiero
made a motion to accept Resolution BY-2007-09 – Customized Training
for Employed
Workers –
Revision; Chuck Finin seconded the motion
Discussion:
Dusty Swanger gave a scenario that he is employer and a new
technology comes into his industry. If he then asked for customized
training and he receives it and put 20 people through this new
technology training – now he has to give every one of them a
raise? Howard stated, yes, if you want us to pay for the
customized training. Dusty stated he is very opposed to this. He
said that he has had a lot of experience with running training
programs for employers and he does not see any economic benefit to
requiring a raise. Terry Hughes clarified that, if he reads this
correctly, an employee that was making only $7.50 an hour at the
start of the training, could still engage in this because it says
the starting wage after the training must be at least
$10.00/hr. Gail and Howard said this was correct.
One Board member left at this point
Vote:
- Yes – 20
Opposed – 1
Motion Carried
One Stop Oversight Committee
Roger Cohn reported that the
committee met in August and that the minutes have been posted to our
website. Roger stated that Gina brought the committee up-to-date on
the year-end numbers for front door traffic, numbers of customers
served (including OJT and classroom training), youth enrolled, and
the number of businesses served. Roger asked Gina if this chart
appears on the website. Gina stated that at this moment it is not
on the website but once our website is up-dated it will be on our
site.
Business Services Committee
Bob Hoefs was out of town and not
able to attend the meeting. Bob Palmatier reported that the
committee did not meet in August but will be meeting on September
20, 2007. Gail stated that we have gotten back to hosting
Business Connection Workshops. Businesses are invited to
participate in workshops that give tips to job seekers on what Human
Resource people look for in potential employees and how they should
be presenting themselves in interviews. When we promote the
Business Connection, we state that applications for employment are
not taken by the company at that time. Over the summer there were
two Business Connections Workshops. Target was the guest employer at
one and St. Mary’s Hospital of Amsterdam was the guest employer at
the second. The turn out has been great and everyone felt it was a
very helpful experience. Wal-Mart Distribution will be the guest
employer for the first fall Business Connection.
Emerging Worker Council
Ramon stated that the minutes have
been posted to the FMS website and that the next meeting will be
September 20th. The Emerging Worker Council meets on the
third Thursday of every month. Ramon said that they had planned
on setting some goals at the last meeting, however, there wasn’t
enough information brought to the meeting. Ramon stated that the
Emerging Worker Council could use a little more participation from
the Board. He asked that if anyone is interested to please attend
and join the committee.
Board Orientation and Membership
Committee
Barbara Rivenburgh reported that the
minutes from the last meeting have been posted on the website.
Barbara presented the newest Board brochure that the staff developed
to encourage new members. There was an error on the brochure which
inadvertently left off two board members. The brochure will be
corrected and given back to the Board Orientation/Membership
committee for distribution. The next meeting will be September 26
at the Amsterdam Workforce Solutions Center at 3:30. Board
members from Fulton and Montgomery County particularly are invited
to attend the meeting to brain storm and identify some names of
possible prospective Board members. Barbara stated that she has
four names at this time for possible new board members. Barbara
also said that our next Board meeting which will be October 3rd,
will be a dinner meeting with the place yet to be determined.
Executive Committee
The executive committee did not meet.
III.
Executive Director’s Report
Connie:
Connie reported that she has been
working for several months on developing the Transition Team in
Schoharie County and was pleased to announce the first meeting is
scheduled for this month. Connie said they are looking at trying
to model this after one that is already established in Hamilton,
Fulton & Montgomery Counties. They will be looking at all the
school districts in the county. Right now they just have the
service agencies on board, but the TEAM is planning on developing an
intensive list of school districts throughout the county. The
Transition Team meets monthly and talks about transition issues.
Primarily the focus is students with disabilities, but their focus
has also been working with guidance counselors which hit the entire
population. The biggest impact recently was a transitional grant
that was awarded to Fulton County. They are looking at ways to
make the transition into the workplace smoother and how to take
advantage of some of the programs and identify some of the service
gaps.
Becky:
Becky reported that the auditors
were here to do the annual audit. A draft report has been
submitted, and Gail and Becky are reviewing it. It will then be
sent to the Accountability Committee. Everything went well with no
findings in the report this year. Becky also has been working on
getting prices for some new technology for the technology grant.
Gina:
Gina said that she has had a good
summer and worked with the summer youth program. Gina had the
opportunity to visit some of the youth program worksites. She
visited the Rescue Farm, Fashion Bug, Cobleskill Regional Hospital
and the Johnstown Animal Hospital. Gina felt that this year the
hosts she spoke to really seemed to understand their role and that
they were mentoring these kids through a great experience. Gina
stated that she has been at her computer running numbers for end of
the year reports. Hopefully, within the next month or so, we will
have it complied into an annual report to share with the board and
others who are invested in what we do.
Sandy:
Sandy is hoping to get our new
website up and running. We have to meet with Kelly as soon as
possible regarding some specific issues.
Gail:
Gail reported that the state has made two different grants available
for Regional Economic Transformation Strategies. The state has
requested that local LWIAs work together as a region to attract,
retain and train talent. There is a concern that there is a brain
drain out of the area. They are concerned that they want high tech
to move in, but if there is no workforce for the high tech
industries, it doesn’t really make any sense for those industries to
locate here. They also say that while there are 33 workforce
investment areas, there are obviously not 33 different economies.
This is why they are suggesting that we look at regional efforts
with other LWIAs that have some similarities. We looked at our
usual partners – Capital Region, Saratoga Washington Warren,
Columbia Greene and ourselves, because many of our residents commute
throughout the region to go to work as opposed to working just in
the county of their residence. Additionally, our BOCES’ and
community colleges are also working together on collaborative
efforts. We applied for both Tier I and Tier II grants. Tier I is
a planning grant for $50,000. Tier II is an implementation grant and
requires a highly developed partnership. Although the 4 WIB
Directors are very confident about the Tier I grant, we may not yet
have achieved the level of partnership needed to quality for the
Tier II grant. The Tier I planning grant would allow us to continue
to develop the partnerships needed for Tier II.
Gail said the federal government is
talking about a rescission again. The rescission bill has only
passed the House, and the Senate does not appear to be in favor of
it. However, there are simply not enough dollars available to fund
all domestic programs as well as our foreign obligations. This will
have to be resolved in committee before it goes to the executive
branch. If the rescissions becomes law, all WIBs will be subject to
having funded reduced during the year. The rescission is based on
previous years’ funds, but if an area has spent all those funds, the
money can be taken out of the current year’s funding. This did
happen to us a few years ago, and it can happen again. On the other
hand, next year we are definitely getting a 16% decrease in our
funding. Becky will be running numbers after we know more about a
possible rescission. At that point we would ask for volunteers to
come together on an ad hoc infrastructure committee like we had
before to discuss options.
Gail said the state has WIA dollars
which must be spent by October 31, 2007 or they will be recaptured
by the federal government. They have put out two grant
opportunities – one for marketing and one for technology. Gail,
Becky and Denise Stafford have been working on the technology grant
and have submitted a request for $118,000 worth of new technology.
With the incentive grant, we have purchased 30 new computers. With
this technology grant, we could, if we get it, replace all the
computers that were not replaced previously. We put in for new
laptops and a new big screen TV for the customers in the Resource
Room. There is a marketing concern called “Imagine That” who will
be contracting with the state to provide marketing materials for
us. We indicated that we are interested in a host of things,
from TV ads to newspaper ads to Billboards and radio ads. We have
an ad going into a Spanish newspaper next month.
IV.
Old
Business
There was no old business.
V.
New
Business
There was no new business.
o
Member Sharing
Everyone wished Terri
Montanye a Happy Birthday.
VI. Adjournment
Frank
Ruggiero made a motion to adjourn, John Tracy seconded the motion -
All were in favor, the meeting was adjourned at 5:50 PM. The next
meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 3, 2007 at a place to be
determined.
---------
End of September 2007 Board Meeting Minutes -----------------
Annual Board Meeting Minutes
July 11, 2007
Raindancer Restaurant
Amsterdam NY 12010
Meeting 4:30 - Dinner 6:00
Howard
Samuels, Chairman, welcomed everyone and called the Board Meeting to
order at 4:40 p.m. Board Members present were Pat Baia, Beth Case,
Gary Donadio, Andrea Fettinger, Chuck Finin, Art Graulich, Bob
Hoefs, Terry Hughes, Leo McAllister, Elaine Mongin, Terri Montanye,
Bob Palmatier, Kristine Pennick, Tom Pasquarelli, Barbara
Rivenburgh, Ramon Rodriguez, Frank Ruggiero, Howard Samuels, Terry
Suits and Jody Zakrevsky.
Board
Members excused were: Paul Brady, Roger Cohn, Barbara Schafffer,
Dustin Swanger, John Tracy and Angelika Verderber
Board
Members absent were: Kerry Brunner
Also present were Sean Jordan, guest
from Schoharie County Planning and Development; Mary Hill, Program
Director for the Private Industry Council and Gail Breen, Becky
Canuteson, Regina Papa and Sandy Teetz, staff to the Board. Connie
Glover was excused.
II.
Report of Officers:
III.
Report of Committees:
o
Accountability
Terry Suits reported that the minutes
from the June Accountability meeting have been posted to our
website. Terry then brought to the floor the resolutions that the
Accountability Committee have recommended. Terry stated the
Accountability Committee met several times regarding the budget and
other financial matters and that all Board Members had received
e-mail invitations to those meetings.
·
Resolution BY-2007-01
Approval of FMS WDB Budget for BY 07-08
Terry Suits made a motion
to accept Resolution BY-2007-01 Approval of FMS WDB Budget; Bob
Hoefs seconded the motion.
Discussion: There was no
discussion
Vote: All were in favor
Motion Carried
·
Resolution
BY-2007-02
Individual Training Account Policy
Terry Suits made a motion
to accept Resolution BY-2007-02 Individual Training Account Policy;
Andrea Fettinger seconded the motion.
Discussion: Terry
stated that it is the recommendation of the Accountability Committee
to increase the amount for individual training from $3,000 to
$5,000. Terry said that we were having a hard time finding
customers who were eligible and interested in our classroom training
programs, because the $3,000 did not cover the necessary training
costs. The committee reviewed it and discussed this with staff and
it was decided that we should raise the training funds to $5,000.
Leo asked if we were decreasing the number of people being trained
with the increase in funds. Terry said “no”, that in fact we have
almost doubled the number of slots for people for training for this
program year. He also stated that this is in part because we have
allocated some of our incentive funds for training. Gail stated
that we have $93,000 extra from incentive funds and because we
reached the benchmark for our Dislocated Worker dollars, we are
getting $101,000 in additional Dislocated Worker money. Because of
that, we have added a significant amount of money to the budget for
training. Gail said that our training policy funds were $5,000 at
one time, but when our funding decreased we reduced it to $3,000.
We were approving a lot of waivers for additional money for
training, because people were just not able to attend the programs
otherwise. Therefore, it made sense to raise the funding back to
$5,000.
Vote: All were in
favor
Motion Carried
·
Resolution
BY-2007-03
Approval of the RFP for Cleaning Services for the Gloversville
Center
Terry Suits made a motion to
accept Resolution BY-2007-03 Approval of the RFP for Cleaning
Services for the Gloversville Center; Chuck Finin seconded the
motion.
Discussion: Terry
reported that we put out an RFP for cleaning services for the
Gloversville Center, and we received two proposals. We are
recommending that we accept the proposal from Employment Resources
for $210.00 per week. Employment Resources has been cleaning the
Gloversville Center. We are very pleased with quality of their work
and recommend that they continue. Howard asked if for some reason
we needed to get out of the contract if that would be possible.
Gail stated that the contract we signed has a clause that stated we
have a certain number of days to end the contract for extenuating
circumstances. This applies to both parties.
Vote: All were in
favor
Motion Carried
Due to the fact
that a certain number of Board Members had other commitments, the
agenda was rearranged to have the resolutions that needed to be
voted on moved to the beginning of the meeting.
IV.
Election of Officers and
Executive Committee
o
Resolution BY 2007-04
Election of Board Officers and Executive Committee
The Nominating Committee
of Barbara Rivenburgh, Terri Montanye and Angelika Verderber
recommended the slate of officers as posted below. Each officer
would be voted on separately. Howard stated there could be
nominations from the floor.
Officers of the Board:
·
Howard Samuels, Chairman
·
Terri Montanye, Vice Chairman
·
Barbara Rivenburgh, Secretary
The Executive Committee Members at
Large:
·
Angelika Verderber, Schoharie
County
·
Terry Suits, Montgomery County
·
Andrea Fettinger, Fulton County
·
Roger Cohn, Past Chairman
On behalf of the nominating
committee, Terry Suits made the motion to accept Howard Samuels as
Chairman of the Board; Bob Hoefs seconded the motion.
Discussion: There was no discussion. There were no nominations
from the floor.
Vote: Yes – 19
Abstained - 1
Motion Carried
On behalf of the
nominating committee, Howard Samuels made the motion to accept Terri
Montanye as Vice Chairman of the Board; Barbara Rivenburgh seconded
the motion.
Discussion: There was no discussion. There were no
nominations from the floor.
Vote: Yes – 19
Abstained – 1
Motion Carried
On behalf of the nominating
committee, Terri Montanye made the motion to accept Barbara
Rivenburgh as Secretary of the Board; Terry Suits seconded the
motion.
Discussion: There was no discussion. There were no
nominations from the floor.
Vote: Yes – 19
Abstained - 1
Motion Carried
On behalf of the nominating
committee, Frank Ruggiero made the motion to accept the Executive
Committee Members at Large; Leo McAllister seconded the motion.
There were no nominations from the floor.
Executive Committee Members at Large:
·
Angelika Verderber, Schoharie
County
·
Terry Suits, Montgomery County
·
Andrea Fettinger, Fulton County
·
Roger Cohn, Past Chairman
Discussion: There was no discussion.
Vote: All were in favor
Motion Carried
o
Resolution BY 2007-05
Approval of Minutes of April 4, 2007 Board Meeting
Leo McAllister made a
motion to accept Resolution BY-2007-03 Approval of the April 4, 2007
Board Meeting Minutes; Frank Ruggiero seconded the motion.
Discussion: There was no
discussion.
Vote: All were in favor
Motion Carried
● Report of other Committees
o
Business Services Committee
Bob Hoefs reported that the Business
Services Committee June meeting minutes have been posted to our
website. Bob reported that we held a Business Connection Workshop
in June, which was very successful. Kristen Pasquarelli, from
Target, presented an overview of what employers are looking for in
employees to 15 job seekers. We are planning other Business
Connection Workshops in the future.
Gail asked everyone to check out the
Chamber newsletter this month (all three county Chamber
newsletters). She said that there will be a front page article
soliciting applications for membership to our Board. There is also
an “ad” for businesses who would like to be a part of our Business
Connection. The Business Connection is a limited offer, as we can
only do one company each month. Right now they are in Amsterdam but
we hope to expand to include Gloversville and Cobleskill as well.
If anyone is interested in presenting they can contact Christie
Crawford or Nancy Reccio. Bob Hoefs said that we have an excellent
working relationship with JSEC from all three counties and that has
helped us to bring ideas like the Business Connection to the table.
o
Emerging Worker Council
Ramon Rodriguez reported that the
Emerging Worker Council met in June. The minutes have been posted to
our website. Ramon said that the Emerging Worker Council will not
meeting in July. The next meeting will be August 16, 2007 at the
Amsterdam Center at 3:00 pm. We will be discussing the
different programs that the various agencies within the council have
to offer and bringing in ideas and setting goals for the upcoming
year.
o
Executive Committee
The Executive Committee did not meet.
o
One Stop Oversight Committee
Roger was absent from the meeting.
Gail reported that the One Stop Oversight Committee did meet and the
minutes were posted to our website. Gail said that the committee
discussed the progress of functional alignment and also looked at
the number of people we have been serving throughout the three
centers this year.
o
Board Orientation and
Membership Committee
Barbara Rivenburgh reported that she
and her committee met in June. Barbara said that she felt we had a
very successful Board Retreat in June. Barbara stated that we are
continuing to recruit, and the article in the Chamber letters should
prove to be helpful.
V.
Report of Executive Director
Becky: Becky said that she
spent much time working on the budget this past month. Becky said
one of the highlights for the year was the incentive money we
received as a result of exceeding all of our performance measures.
This enabled us to purchase new computers for all three Resource
Rooms. Howard stated that Becky was able to collect desk rent from
additional partners and lower the phone bill by switching to a
different long distance carrier.
Sandy: Sandy stated that she
has been working very closely with Empire Webpage Inc., who has been
revamping our website. We are hoping that the new site will be up
and running within the month. It has a new look and will be
extremely user friendly. As stated above, our incentive money has
given us opportunity to purchase some needed items, one of which
were greatly needed new tables and chairs for our conference room.
Sandy said she was in the process of ordering new pens for all three
centers. Gail asked that if anyone who didn’t get a polo shirt,
but wants one, to please contact Sandy.
Gina: Gina gave an end of the
program year report. She stated that across our three centers this
past year we had 21,354 visits to the centers, with 6,440 individual
customers being served. Of the customers served, 109 people were
enrolled in training. Gina stated that it has been a busy year, a
lot of traffic and a lot of people served. Gina will have more
data on last year over the next few weeks.
Gail: Gail reported that Connie
Glover, our DPN was on vacation. Gail reported that we have
received DPN funding again for next year. It is a federal initiative
with some supplement from the state. For those of you who do not
know what Connie does, she, as the Disability Program Navigator,
does not provide direct services to our job seekers. We do have
some great agencies, like RCIL and VESID and a number of other
agencies who provide those services. Connie brings those
organizations together; she acts a resource for them. Connie also
goes out and speaks to businesses about some of the benefits of
hiring people with disabilities. She is being invited to the
Business Services Consortium and perhaps the Business Services
Committee to talk about labor laws. A lot of people do not
understand what questions are legal or illegal to ask on job
applications.
Gail said that as mentioned earlier we
will be able to enroll more people in training this year because we
have the additional incentive and supplemental dollars.
Gail brought the Board up to date on
our Functional Alignment and Integrated Services. She said that a
year ago there was a whole new initiative across the state to bring
the NYS DOL, Division of Employment Services together with the WIA
folks to have teams of people serving customers based on their job
function rather than their funding stream. In the past, a customer
might come into a center and one staff person would perform one
service and if that customer needed additional services, he or she
would be referred to another staff person. With functional
alignment and our functional teams, this has been worked out where
our teams can provide pretty much all the services a customer
needs. We had our annual monitoring visit from NYS Department of
Labor a month ago, and they were thrilled with our functional
alignment and integrated services. Bob Hoefs stated that he
attends many statewide meetings; and at every one he attends, there
is some mention of how great Fulton, Montgomery & Schoharie
Workforce Solutions Centers are and what great services we
provide. He is always asked how we do it, and Bob stated that what
it boils down to is the staff that is willing to take the extra
effort to provide the services that our customers need.
Howard recognized Mary Hill, Program
Director of the Private Industry Council, and said that her staff
have been doing an excellent job. He asked Mary if she wanted to
say a few words. Mary stated that it has been a very long year,
but a very rewarding year. She said that functional alignment took
a lot of effort and a lot changes for the staff but they pulled
together and come through it with flying colors. Mary also said
that the Summer Youth Program is underway and that there were a
total of approximately 140 youth involved in the program this year
from the three counties. This week the youth are attending their
ESP (Employee Success Program) Training. They will be going to
their worksites starting Monday. Mary said that we look forward to
another great year. Howard stated that the presentations that the
PIC staff has provided for the board in the past have been very
informative and asked Mary to convey to her staff how pleased the
board is with their performances. The entire board gave Mary a
round of applause.
VI.
Transaction of other business
Howard asked Jody Zakrevsky to
introduce Sean Jordan and invited Sean to tell us a little about
what he does. Sean said that he has been with Schoharie County
Economic Development for one month. He stated that in that short
time he is amazed how much the County does. Sean said that he has
mainly been working on what is called the Foreign Trade Zone. Sean
said that on the second day of his job they were approached by a
representative of the Regional Foreign Trade Zone about possibly
getting Schoharie County and the surrounding counties designated, in
the future, as a Foreign Trade Zone. At that point, not many people
knew much about Foreign Trade Zones, and for the past month it has
been Sean’s job to research everything he can about Foreign Trade
Zones. It is still to be determined whether Schoharie is going to
join.
Gail asked what exactly a Foreign Trade
Zone is. Sean said that it is a designated area (zone), and if a
business is located in that zone and imports a product from another
country from which it would normally have to pay a duty tariff on
that product, it does not have to pay that duty tariff until it
leaves the property and “enters” the United States. Since the
business in the Foreign Trade Zone, it is technically not in the
United States so you pay on the way out. In addition, if they
were to export it back to where they got it – it never “enters” the
United States and they are not require | 
