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Committee accepts April 14 minutes; staff briefed on WIC, reentry housing and MIT digital navigator grants
Summary
The Workforce Education and Equity Committee approved the April 14 minutes by voice vote. Staff also briefed members on memos: acceptance of a Texas Health and Human Services WIC grant, subrecipient agreements for reentry housing support, and a competitive grant from MIT to design an evaluation of the city’s Digital Navigator Program.
The Workforce Education and Equity Committee opened its May 12 meeting by approving the minutes from the April 14, 2025 meeting by voice vote. The motion was moved and seconded and the chair said the minutes had been accepted; no roll-call tally was recorded in the transcript.
Staff then briefed the committee on several agenda memos. Jack Ireland, chief financial officer, answered a question about the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program memo. Ireland explained that the Texas Health and Human Services annual award largely follows a per‑participant reimbursement model and that the current per‑participant monthly reimbursement is “a little over $13.” He said that when the city serves 78,000 client-months in a period the reimbursement is calculated against that monthly per-participant rate.
On a separate memo, staff described a subrecipient agreement framework with Housing Connector and Volunteers of America for reentry housing support programs; the memo overview was informational and the committee did not take immediate action during the meeting.
The committee also discussed a competitive grant from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to support the design of an evaluation for the city’s Digital Navigator Program. Cruz Correa of OCCE’s financial empowerment team told the committee the MIT award is focused on designing a research-based evaluation to measure whether digital navigation services affect economic mobility for participants. Correa said the city’s Digital Navigator work had been recognized previously with national awards from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance.
Committee members asked procedural and timing questions about the MIT-funded evaluation. Staff said the MIT grant is for evaluation design and technical assistance; implementation of the full evaluation work would follow the design phase and utilize program data the city has already collected. Council members also asked about the grant period and whether design and implementation timelines match the city’s data availability.
Ending: No additional formal votes on the memos were recorded during the meeting. Staff said they would provide more detailed written updates or memos to the committee on performance metrics and procurement or contract details as requested.
