City committee reviews $2.6 million in workforce grants, highlights climate-jobs pipeline

Boston City Councilors and workforce officials on July 1 reviewed 15 grant awards totaling about $2,600,000 that the Office of Workforce Development plans to administer to support the city’s career centers, youth employment and training programs and a new climate-jobs pipeline.

The grants reviewed include a $1.2 million Department of Labor award for youth employment (docket 1188), multiple smaller Department of Labor and MassHire awards that fund adult and dislocated-worker services and administration, and philanthropic contributions earmarked for the City’s PowerCorps and YOU (Youth Opportunity) programs. The committee also heard about a $200,000 Citizens Bank Foundation grant to the Boston Climate Jobs Alliance, which complements a larger National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) award the city previously received.

Why it matters: the grants feed Boston’s two MassHire career centers and a network of nonprofit training providers that the city says will serve thousands of residents, with emphasis on unemployment insurance claimants, out-of-school youth and trainees entering green and building-trades career pathways. Committee members and staff flagged uncertainty in federal workforce funding as a central risk to continuity of some programs.

Office of Workforce Development staff described how the various funding streams flow. Katie Gall, Director of Grants for the Worker Empowerment Cabinet, said the city bundles federal and philanthropic funds to operate two career centers — MassHire Downtown Boston (operated by JVS) and MassHire Boston Career Center (managed by ABCD) — and to pay operators and service providers. "We typically have two years to spend most federal…