• W/SW IAF Victories 2021
  • HOME
    • HOME
    • Who We Are
    • How We Started
    • How We Organize
    • What We Do
  • Videos
  • Initiatives
    • Initiatives
    • Labor Market Intermediaries
    • Living Wages
    • Immigration
    • Disaster Recovery
    • Infrastructure
    • Healthcare
    • Family Finance
    • Alliance Schools
    • West/Southwest IAF Victories 2022
  • News
  • Readings
    • Readings
    • Ernesto Cortes, Jr.
    • West/Southwest
    • East Coast
    • Saul Alinsky & IAF Tradition
  • Train
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Subscribe
    • Affiliates
  • Careers
  • Support
  • COVID-19 Action
    • COVID-19 Action
    • COVID-19 Petition
    • Petición COVID-19
    • COVID-19 Seminars


  • W/SW IAF Victories 2021
  • HOME
    • HOME
    • Who We Are
    • How We Started
    • How We Organize
    • What We Do
  • Videos
  • Initiatives
    • Initiatives
    • Labor Market Intermediaries
    • Living Wages
    • Immigration
    • Disaster Recovery
    • Infrastructure
    • Healthcare
    • Family Finance
    • Alliance Schools
    • West/Southwest IAF Victories 2022
  • News
  • Readings
    • Readings
    • Ernesto Cortes, Jr.
    • West/Southwest
    • East Coast
    • Saul Alinsky & IAF Tradition
  • Train
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Subscribe
    • Affiliates
  • Careers
  • Support
  • COVID-19 Action
    • COVID-19 Action
    • COVID-19 Petition
    • Petición COVID-19
    • COVID-19 Seminars

Pages tagged "economic development"


Houston Chronicle: Project QUEST Moves Low-Skilled Workers into Middle Class

Posted on News by West/Southwest IAF · April 17, 2019 5:08 PM

Business columnist Chris Tomlinson of the Houston Chronicle argues that Project QUEST is the most effective workforce development program in the nation.  Economist Mark Elliot, CEO of the Economic Mobility Corp., had this to say:    

“To see earning differences this large and for this long is unprecedented in the workforce development field.”

In photo above, COPS/Metro leader Sr. Consuelo Tovar fights for local funding of Project QUEST.  [Photo Credit: Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News]  In bottom photos, trainees learn to cradle a newborn and conduct PERRLA evaluations.  [Photo Credit: Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News]

San Antonio Program Moves Low-Skilled into Middle Class, Houston Chronicle [pdf]

Nine Year Gains: Project QUEST's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation [pdf]


Together Baton Rouge Praises 'Predictability of Standards' vs. 'Predictability of the Rubber-Stamp'

Posted on News by West/Southwest IAF · January 23, 2019 11:49 AM

[Remarks below by Dianne Hanley of Together Baton Rouge, delivered at Baton Rouge City Hall]

"Democracy can be a messy thing. It’s much easier to have no discussion and no public input, to approve everything with a rubber stamp. That’s one approach to economic development. It’s easy. It’s stream-lined. And it’s gotten us to 50th in the nation for economic outcomes.
 
It’s less easy to have to weigh the benefits of exemptions against the cost of services those exemptions could fund. It’s less “streamlined” to have to distinguish between exemptions that are truly needed as incentives and those that are simply providing public subsidies for a corporation's routine costs of doing business.
 
That takes work and deliberation. It takes time. It’s less “stream-lined” than the alternative. It’s more “contentious.”
 
It’s also, we believe, the most important thing we’ve done for economic development in this state in 80 years.
 
We applaud our Governor for opening the opportunity for public deliberation around these allocations of public resources.
 
We applaud the East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council and School Board for engaging in this messy thing we call democracy to develop guidelines by which exemptions will be evaluated in the future. Those guidelines require a modest level of job creation and prohibit granting exemptions on work that’s already complete. If applications meet these standards, they will be approved. If they do not, they will not be.
 
These standards provide the predictability companies and communities alike need to succeed.

They provide the predictability of standards, not the predictability of the rubber-stamp. 

They offer the certainty of criteria, not the certainty of the closed-door meeting.
 
It’s true that this represents a change from the past. But if the old way of doing things is so effective -- the rubber-stamp way, the closed-door approach  -- then why is our state doing so poorly economically, despite our extraordinary resources.
 
We welcome this new day of economic development in our state." 

Additional Note: 

After the organizing efforts of Together Baton Rouge led to the denial of Exxon Mobil’s tax exemption requests through the Industrial Tax Exemption Program by the Parish School Board, Exxon Mobil withdrew additional tax exemption requests the day before going before the Metro Council for approval.   Leaders celebrated Exxon Mobil’s decision to pull the requests for tax exemptions since these did not conform to the clear standards for ITEP established by the city.

About this victory, which results in $6 Million for East Baton Rouge Parish, $2.9 Million for the school district and up to $3 Million for city government, Together BR leader Rev. Lee T. Wesley said that “local standards provide the thing that’s most important, both for our corporate partners and for our community, which is predictability, what’s new is that, for once, it’s not the predictability of a rubber-stamp; it’s the predictability of a genuine standard. That’s a positive and important change.”  

At the same time, Together Baton Rouge publicly recognized and commended ExxonMobil’s investment in the community through education and other initiatives.  “ExxonMobil is a major asset to our community with a local team that often goes above and beyond to support community efforts,” Together Baton Rouge stated.

[Photo Credit: Hilary Scheinuk, The Advocate]

Together Baton Rouge Celebrates Exxon Pulling Tax Incentive Request, The Advocate

Exxon drops tax break requests after being rejected by EBR school board,  The Advocate

Together Baton Rouge" praises ExxonMobil's decision to withdraw ITEP request applications, BR Proud

Together Baton Rouge to address Exxon ITEP withdrawal, recognize company’s ‘vital role’, Business Report


Project QUEST Wins National $1 Million Grant for Training

Posted on News by West/Southwest IAF · December 05, 2018 1:04 PM

[Excerpt below]

Project QUEST, the nonprofit workforce development organization created more than a quarter-century ago by the COPS/Metro Alliance, has been awarded a $1 million grant that the organization says will allow it to serve more San Antonians with expanded job training programs.

The award comes from the Rockefeller Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as part of their Communities Thrive Challenge, which awarded $1 million each to 10 organizations across the nation, working to “help low-income and financially insecure people find and retain well-paid, meaningful work, achieve financial security or build economically vibrant neighborhoods.”

San Antonio’s Project QUEST wins national $1 million grant, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]


COPS/Metro, Austin Interfaith Lift Municipal Wages to $15/Hour

Posted on News by West/Southwest IAF · September 17, 2018 7:31 AM

Four years after launching living wage campaigns in their respective cities, COPS/Metro and Austin Interfaith leaders celebrated hard won hikes in the lowest wages paid to municipal workers in both San Antonio and Austin. This week, both cities become the first in Texas to set a $15/hour wage floor for city workers. In Austin, this new standard additionally applies to contracted workers, part-time and temporary workers AND to employees of private businesses receiving economic incentives (more in next section).

Leaders also leverage increased city investments in long-term workforce development ($2.4 Million for Capital IDEA and $2.2 Million for Project QUEST) plus affordable housing (San Antonio). Bexar County announced that they, too, would pay their lowest earning employees at least $15/hour. Austin leaders successfully intervened for programs under threat of budget cuts, including PrimeTime after-school programming and parent support specialists in the Austin Independent School District.

Additional background:

Press Statement, COPS/Metro Alliance
Press Statement, Austin Interfaith
San Antonio Ranked Among Nation's Highest-Poverty Cities, Rivard Report
City of San Antonio boosts municipal wages (2015)
City of Austin passes 'Living Budget' and closes labor loophole (2015)


Together Baton Rouge Discovers $400M Omission in Property Tax Records

Posted on News by West/Southwest IAF · September 17, 2018 7:24 AM

After succeeding in changing how economic incentives are granted in Louisiana, and teaching local municipalities and school districts how much tax exemptions cost the people they serve, Together Baton Rouge (TBR) leaders identified another source of public revenue loss: property tax roll omissions. 

Vigilant leaders of TBR discovered that approximately $400 million in taxable property (at four Baton Rouge facilities owned by ExxonMobil) appears to have been omitted from the preliminary 2018 property assessment rolls provided by the East Baton Rouge Parish Tax Assessor. 

Left uncorrected, this apparent omission of taxable property would result in a one-year loss of approximately $5.9 million in revenue to East Baton Rouge Parish taxing bodies over the next fiscal year, including a loss of $2.7 million to East Baton Rouge Parish public schools in the current fiscal year (a year in which the school district is running a multi-million deficit).

Holding Their Feet to the Fire, Bayou Brief

Letter to Tax Assessor, Together Baton Rouge

Attachments, Together Baton Rouge


Labor Market Intermediary Institutions

Posted on Initiatives by West/Southwest IAF · July 22, 2018 9:15 AM

West and Southwest IAF organizations are pioneering workforce initiatives that bring working people out of poverty level jobs and into living wage careers. By building the political will for investment of public monies in long-term training, local organizations have successfully brought together employers, community college officials and community leaders to create long-term workforce development and education programs for actual jobs in high demand occupations.

Inspired by the success of the oldest of these labor market intermediaries, Project Quest in San Antonio, leaders established an additional nine projects in the West and Southwest US: Capital IDEA in Austin, Texas; Project ARRIBA in El Paso, Texas; VIDA in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas; JobPath in Tucson, Arizona; NOVA in Monroe, Louisiana, Skills-Quest in Dallas, Texas; Capital IDEA-Houston in Houston, Texas; Project IOWA; and Arizona Career Pathways in Phoenix. In 2014, DuPage County United launched its own labor market intermediary, Career Connect Metro West, just outside Chicago.

Collectively, these institutions have trained and placed over 16,000 adults in living wage jobs which pay, on average, $40,000 annually plus benefits and a career path. This number is expected to grow as the West / Southwest IAF expands into Phoenix, Des Moines, Albuquerque and DuPage.


WORKFORCE PROJECTS

Project Quest
Capital IDEA
Project ARRIBA
VIDA
JobPath
NOVA
Capital IDEA-Houston
Skill-Quest
Project IOWA
Arizona Career Pathways
Career Connect Metro West


PRESS

Report: ARRIBA Program That Helps Low-Income Students Through Nursing School Has $893 Million Impact, El Paso Inc.(2021) [pdf]

Job Training Can Change Lives.  See How San Antonio Does It, New York Times (2019) [pdf]

San Antonio Program Moves Low-Skilled Workers Into Middle-Class, Houston Chronicle (2019) 

Texas Job Program Shows Unusually Strong, Lasting Gains, Study Finds, Austin American Statesman [pdf] (2017)

A Capital Idea: We Can’t Think of a More Valuable Initiative, Houston Chronicle (2014)

A Look at How Project ARRIBA Helps Individuals and the Community, KVIA (2014)

Job Training Program Adjusts Amid Funding Cuts, Texas Tribune (2013)

Who Can Fix the “Middle-Skills” Gap?, Harvard Business Review (2012) [pdf]

School for Success, The American Prospect (2012)

Project Quest a Worthwhile Investment for City, San Antonio Express News (2012)

Workforce Training of Parents Boost Children’s Aspirations
Austin American Statesman (2011)

Tucson Tech: $200,000 Grant to Help Train 50 Adults
Arizona Daily Star (2011)

VIDA Success Stories Multiply; Job-Training Organization Moves Forward
Brownsville Herald (2009)

Building a Career Where There Was Just a Dead End
Washington Post (2007)


INDEPENDENT STUDIES

The Economic Impact of Project Arriba on El Paso County, Texas, Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness, University of Texas at El Paso (2021)

Nine Year Gains: Project QUEST's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation (2019)

VIDA: Implementation and Early Impact Report, Pathways for Advancing Careers in Education (2018)

Escalating Gains: The Elements of Project QUEST's Success, Economic Mobility Corporation (2018)

Escalating Gains: Project QUEST’S Sectoral Strategy Pays Off, Economic Mobility Corporation (2017) 

Economic Impact of Project ARRIBA on El Paso, Texas
UT El Paso, Institute for Policy and Economic Development (2015)

Economic Impacts of the JobPath Program on Pima County
Applied Economics (2014)

Return on Investment from Capital IDEA: Research Brief, Full Report, 2014 Update
UT Austin, Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources (2011)

VIDA: Economic Impact Study
UT Pan American, Data & Information Systems Center (2010)

Project Quest: A Case Study of a Sectoral Employment Development Approach, Aspen Institute (2001) [pdf]

Capital IDEA: Generational Impact Study (2011)

Beyond Graduation: Promoting Post-Program Engagement & Advancement
Aspen Institute (2009); On the Road to Success video (2010)


ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

Further reading on workforce development strategies

IEF Labor Market Programs, a memo by MIT economist Paul Osterman (2002)  

Video about the establishment of Project Quest in San Antonio (1994)

Story about the establishment of Project Quest in San Antonio by COPS/Metro


Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith Wins Battles Against Unaccountable Tax Giveaways in Caddo Parish & Beyond

Posted on News by West/Southwest IAF · June 13, 2018 12:40 PM

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith leaders celebrated significant progress in how Caddo-area public officials weigh decisions related to public monies and the Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP).

As a result of a tenacious local effort, leaders in Caddo Parish succeeded in persuading Sheriff Steve Prator (R) to become the first elected official in the state to deny an ITEP request under the Governor's Executive Order. Caddo School Board soon followed, rejecting Inferno's ITEP request by a vote of 7-5. Even after the Caddo School Board President called a special session to reconsider Inferno's request, the board rejected the request -- again.

After Sheriff Prator rejected all ITEP applications by Calumet, the Caddo Board attorney attempted to rewrite board policy to automatically accept all ITEP applications presented. NCLI successfully defeated the motion.

The City of Shreveport eventually approved a separate ITEP request by Calumet but, after intervention by the leadership of NCLI, reduced the approval to only 31-50% of the request.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the Chamber of Commerce then attempted to present a matrix to the School Board to use as a guide when considering future requests. But NCLI was quick to respond with their own matrix, presented to the Board by Reverend Theron Jackson. The School Board eventually integrated NCLI demands into a revised matrix.

Not blind to what was going on, nearby Bossier Parish School Board and Police Jury decided to bypass the controversy and reject Calumet's ITEP request outright!

After two years of hard work on tax exemptions in Louisiana, Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith leaders are proud of their work and looking to shift their attention to other pressing issues impacting their communities.

City Resolution on Calumet

ITEP Matrix, Caddo Parish School Board

Calumet Estimated Property Taxes, Updated


NCLI Reduces Shreveport City Tax Exemption to Calumet by 49%

Posted on News by West / Southwest IAF · May 24, 2018 7:20 AM

After compelling testimony and intervention by leaders from Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith, the Shreveport City Council reduced Calumet's tax exemption request by 49%. The original request was for $858,444.30 and the amount approved totaled $437,769.70.

Read more

Working Together Jackson Fights to Preserve Location of Zoo

Posted on News by West / Southwest IAF · April 12, 2018 7:57 AM

1804-WTJ-CL-Heather-Ivery-Expresses-Support-for-West-Jackson-Retention-of-Zoo-Photo-by-Justin-Vicory.jpg

When the Jackson Zoological Board announced its intent to relocate from west Jackson to northeast Jackson, Working Together Jackson quickly mobilized for a press conference with Mayor Chokwe Lumumba.

Said WTJ leader Heather Ivery, the "intent to leave west Jackson is disheartening -- not only because of the possibility of losing a historic, 100-year old ecosystem, but because of the lack of transparency and involvement of the community in the decision-making process." Mayor Lumumba echoed WTJ's words, calling the proposed $50 million investment required for relocation "disrespectful to the history of the zoo and the folks in the community in which the zoo currently resides."

Read more

DAI Makes the Case for Public Investment in Job Training

Posted on News by West / Southwest IAF · April 10, 2018 5:35 AM

Adriana, a single mother of two, is a Skill Quest participant. Before the program, she earned $600 a month cleaning homes, and the thought of going to school was a dream. Now when she finishes her radiology degree next year, she will be placed in a job in Dallas earning $50,000 to start.

Read more

  • ← Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • …
  • 13
  • 14
  • Next →

Tweets by WXSWIAF

Sign in with:

Or sign up:


get updates

Liquid syntax error: Error in tag 'subpage' - No such page slug site.signup_page

Sign in with Facebook, Twitter or email.
Created with NationBuilder
using a public theme by cStreet