08-27-18 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING August 27, 2018 supporting these volunteers. We look to begin the work as soon as we get the approval for the funding there with support from the South Bend Sustainability Office and Therese Dorau. Mayor Buttigieg continued, Next and, again, a very substantial commitment in dollar terms, in partnership with the Drucker Institute,we've received a major commitment from the philanthropic arms of Google and Walmart which amounts to $500,000 coming to South Bend. This is really about the cradle to career and beyond needs of our community. So we are asking what we can do above and beyond supporting the K through twelve (12) system here to support life-long learning. The goal, as ambitious as it is, is to create a platform that can house people's educational certifications including non-traditional skills. This will help allow these individuals to be recognized by employers and will help encourage that type of learning. We will continue to partner with the Drucker Institute on this and we hope to get a platform up by 2020 that can serve as an example to other communities attempting to help their residents with life-learning. Mayor Buttigieg went on, There are also a couple grants from Smart Growth America. First(1S)I want to recap some technical support that has already come our way. This is what lead to the pilot projects you have seen. There are a handful of them and they are different traffic calming designs that we hope meet needs of residents. Instead of spending huge amounts on engineering and then putting it into the ground,we are first (1St)piloting these opportunities. That is in the hands of our planning and engineering teams to try and look at which, if any, of these should be replicated in a more permanent sense. Smart Growth America is going to be supporting us again. We are able to announce the offering of technical assistance for small scale manufacturing. There is an extraordinary group called Sew Love. They help women develop skills in sewing and not only in just, for the lack of a better term recreational,but actually what they call industrial sewing. That is something there is a lot of demand for and that is a fine example of non-University-related skills development that we think will help people become qualified for jobs that are actually growing. We will be getting a site visit free of charge who will spend a four (4) month technical assistance period working with us to help us support this plan. Mayor Buttigieg continued, Last but not least, earlier this ye we received $100,000 from Bloomberg Philanthropies. The problem we are trying to solve with this grant has to do with the difficulty that many low income individuals face trying to get to work. If your pattern of getting to work is perhaps not supported by the existing transit system, we don't want people falling through the cracks. So we have been establishing this pilot program for rideshare credits that subsidize people's ability to get to work. What we've found is very promising initial results in terms of reduced absences, improved job stability and less turnover. This is actually benefitting not just the employees but the employers. We've been our own guinea pig in this. Some of the folks in the Venues, Parks&Arts who are on the lower end of the pay scale have been eligible for this. We've partnered with Beacon Health Systems,The University of Notre Dame and Senior One (1) Care. Again,this is specific to the lower wage segment of their workforce to help engage them on piloting this approach. The view is that, really,the employer carries a large part of the load but then it would come back to the employer in terms of the saving from reduced turnover. We think this is very promising and will be taking this back to Bloomberg. We were one (1) of thirty (30) of three hundred(300) cities overall to get this opportunity. We will now be competing with those other twenty-nine (29) cities for a shot at$1 million or even $5 million. This might serve a model for other cities in similar situations with their low income employees getting to work. We've put in our application and are now waiting for news in October. You will hear right away from us on that. Mayor Buttigieg went on, I wanted to be brief and these are only philanthropic grants. You will also see a great number of other grants we rely on through the Federal Government and through State partners.I am happy to answer any questions and thank you for the opportunity to run through this. Council President Tim Scott then opened the floor to questions from Council Members. Councilmember Karen White stated,Thank you for your presentation. I would also like to add that the Grant Revenue Summary was handed out to us(and is available in the City Clerk's Office)and I've been working with City Controller Hockenhull to see if we can put together all of that information. We want to know the number of grants that are coming in, who they are serving,the 3