Clayton Perry, sitting through his final City Council meeting, wanted to hear the numbers one last time.
It was May 18, and the city’s Ready to Work program needed council approval for $35 million to fund the second fiscal year of its ambitious, voter-approved workforce development effort, which begins July 1.
Among other questions, Perry asked Mike Ramsey, who leads the program, how many people Ready to Work will have placed in jobs by the end of fiscal 2024.
Ramsey’s answer of 2,000 people prompted Perry to opine again that the initial goals of Ready to Work had been drastically reduced since 77% of voters approved funding for the program in November 2020 with a one-eighth cent slice of the city’s sales tax.
“Back then we said … it was 40,000 or ‘up to 40,000’ — for $150 million,” the District 10 councilman said.
By the time council approved the program’s first full fiscal year budget and $183 million in contracts in February 2022, the “up to 40,000” campaign language had been replaced with a series of targets: intake up to 39,000 applicants, enroll up to 28,000 and place 15,600 in jobs.
Critics express skepticism that even the scaled-back goal can be met, given the current numbers: As of June 21, 440 people have completed training, according to Ready to Work’s dashboard; of those, 162 have reported finding jobs.
However, the pipeline is filling. More than 3,000 people are currently in training or degree programs, and thousands more have completed the first step toward enrolling in one of Ready to Work’s dozens of courses. And those who have landed jobs have seen their median income rise from $13,000 to $37,000, fulfilling the program’s promise of meaningfully boosting graduate’s fortunes.
Defenders of Ready to Work say scaling a workforce development program of this magnitude is unprecedented, and the foundational work to make it a success has now largely been done, using data and feedback to adjust the…
