Committee advances five-year workforce strategy, reviews local-business preference and hears board nomination

The committee on workforce development met to consider a five-year strategic workforce plan, review the city's local-business preference program and hear a nomination to the Workforce Development Board. Staff presented the preference program's history and mechanics, outside analysts reviewed industry and labor data, and committee members voted to note two BCA reports and to advance the five-year plan as modified.

The local-business preference program was traced to ordinances first enacted in 2011 and later changed through administrative and budget actions in 2017, 2021 and 2022. Staff described how the preference is applied: small businesses and certain certified local firms receive percentage preference points when city contracts are scored. Examples discussed in the presentation included a baseline local preference of 6 percent for some businesses, additional small-business or local-employee preferences that can bring the total to higher single-digit percentages and a combined maximum preference that staff described as up to roughly 12 percent in some circumstances. Staff also described efforts to create reciprocal recognition with regional programs and to digitalize the application…