 What am I? Yes, we should get started. Okay. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to June meeting of the New York City first development board. It really is great to see everybody as Abby Joe was saying, lining up on the screen. We are actually thrilled. I'm so happy to be joined by Abby Joe Siegel today. And Abby Joe Siegel is the newly appointed executive director of the renamed Mayor's Office of Talent and Workforce Development. As Angie said on our executive call, that's a really amazing title. At our last quarterly board meeting in March, Deputy Mayor Torres Springer addressed the board and provided a summary of the blueprint for New York City's economic recovery. You're able to hear from her and listen to the city's plan to kickstart our economic rebound. Abby Joe Siegel is going to be able to join us today for an hour because she has a conflict with a meeting of workforce development funders. But in the future, we will work so that we can have you join us for the entire meeting. So we're going to jump right in and address board matters later in order to have time for Abby Joe to work to talk with us. Please note, as Grant did say that this meeting is being recorded. It's required that we record the meeting and post it online. And as a standing policy, we're going to ask that only board members speak during the meeting if there are others who are participating or involved. However, members of the public can ask questions through the chat. Please remain muted when you're not speaking so that we don't get feedback and can't hear things and state your full name when you are speaking so that we know who is talking. And now I will turn it over to Abby Joe Siegel. Thank you, Adria. It's a pleasure to be here and really appreciate seeing all the people pop up and I'm sure we'll continue to do. So I feel like this role and being appointed to this position is the culmination of my 25 years of working in New York City and various roles. And with many of you who are on this call, both most more recently in my work at here to here as well as historically in my work with affordable housing and community development. I thought I'd spend a little bit of time about why I'm here and why I'm so excited about this role in this moment of time. And then a little bit as follow up to Deputy Mayor Torres Springer's conversation with you all at the last meeting on the blueprint, including looking a little bit more deeply at some of the initiatives that we're working on on right now. And I do want to apologize that I can't join you for the whole call. One of the first things we fix in terms of this work is making sure that the New York City, the New York City workforce funders meeting and this workforce development board meeting does not happen at the same day in the same time. And we're already on it. So, so for those of you who don't know me, which I'm pleased to say many people I'm looking around do know me. So forgive me if you've heard my story before. But particularly because this board is so important to the work that I'm doing going forward. I just want to make sure everyone knows why I'm here and what brought me here today. So one of the things as many of you know my formative work has been really in service to New York City residents and New Yorkers and that's all New Yorkers in every borough, every zip code. With particular affinity to areas that that often are over overlooked and underserved. So my started through my most formative job other than you know scooping ice cream and mopping floors. My first job were sort of two and one was even I back in the day I had my first summer internship, which I was so fortunate to get through a New York City program. And I was able to work for city council member Ronnie Eldridge back in the day when in her first term and it was exciting times because it's the first time. It was just after the board of estimate was proved that that didn't work constitutionally. So the council was really forming and norming at that time into what we know today. Then I had the opportunity to work on what was then a very dilapidated deindustrialized waterfront the Hudson River Park. And there were a few crazy folks who believe that should be a world class waterfront park and not full of parked cars, garbage trucks and saltpiles. And so based on I learned so much there in terms of making sure you have a vision, you have stakeholders, you have champions are convincing other stakeholders and you need to show what's possible. And so we were able to do and that's where I started my workforce development work launch its first summer youth program hire folks from the dough fund to help work on the waterfront and really show that it could be an asset to New York and I think anyone who's been on any of the waterfront. Show what that is that that's the case and that's because of visionaries, such as Ruth Bessinger who knew we should really think about the water's edge in a different way than we had historically. And I share that because I feel like we're at the same sort of point in time when it comes to workforce and talent development that there's a lot of good vision there's a lot of good programs there's a lot of good players there's many champions. And I feel like we are an reflection point and we are in the position to sort of leapfrog where New York is today when it comes to talent and workforce development versus what we could be given the assets that we have as a city. And so I'm hope I'm here really to do my little part in that and it's really empowering and mobilizing all of you and New Yorkers across the city to really achieve shared prosperity. And thinking about how we do that. And I come to this most immediately working at a small nonprofit that we launched in the Bronx called here to hear. And I got to here to hear because I've been doing affordable housing and community development for many years with folks including folks on this board like less bluestone. And it was it just increasingly frustrated that despite the success of the affordable housing industry in terms of preservation and production of units and New York City is one of the leaders in that the same families from the same neighborhoods generation after generation continue to need affordable housing and we weren't going to build our way out of this. And so I'm I really wanted to understand what was going on in the other side of the equation because there's obviously the housing itself but then there's the incomes required to afford housing in New York and particularly in the neighborhoods where where one grew up. And so I was able to sort of shift my work and really focus on what's going on in the income side. And that's something that I think we all know the labor market has changed. It changed 40 years ago and it changed radically 40 years ago, although it was a gradual radical change. And we've known that and we've known that incomes have remained flat particularly for low or specifically for low income folks here in New York City and across the country. And as a result we really need to think about think differently what needs to happen in terms of making sure a young person or a middle aged person or an older person who lives in the neighborhood like the South Bronx Jamaica Queens Central Brooklyn you name it North Shore Southern Island Northern Manhattan is connected to the where the opportunity is and we have so many assets so here in New York we have a transportation system you can get two areas of opportunity relatively quickly through transportation but for some reason and we all know many different because it's not one reason it's multiple reasons. A young person growing up or a middle aged person in Southern Island may not be able to get there for reasons that had nothing to do with physical barriers but all sorts of other barriers and that's what we need to address. Someone is not on mute. If you don't mind going on mute that would be awesome. And so one of the things that we that we diagnosed when I helped with a number of folks to launch here to here in the South Bronx with the real focus on what would it take to have to make sure that every young person who's growing up in the South Bronx launch successfully into a family sustaining career by the time they're 25. What do we need to do differently and it really comes down to we need to do a bunch of stuff differently and and it's not just that the educators need to do something differently. It's not just that the young person needs and their families need to do something differently. It's not just that the employers need to do something differently. We all need to work differently together. And so some of the work that we did to here to here at here to here was really think about what were those changes and how do we make those changes aligned against a shared set of goals. And so based on that work it became evident that we know again I want to go back it's not because we don't have a good set of programs and many different programs here in New York City we do and we have some of the best in the country. And it's not because we don't have the wherewithal and the assets because we do we have a lot more assets and wherewithal here that any place else it is so true New York is unlike any other place when it puts its mind to doing something. But what we found and what I think is true for not just the youth system but the overall system is that we we have multiple systems and multiple silos and we don't have a system a true system for talent and workforce development in which everybody is doing something. Everybody from their seat whether it's at an educational institution whether it's at a nonprofit workforce provider whether it's employer whether it's a city agency understands what they're doing in terms of the shared goal of what we're trying to achieve. And so as a result all of these it's very fragmented. And so what I'm hoping to do working with all of you is think through how do we move from a set of programs and good work and build on that good work and not reinvent the wheel to a system that that is working towards a shared set of goals so that we can really close the gaps particularly the disparities when it comes to employment outcomes and who's really connected to family sustaining careers and choice filled lives. And I'm excited to do it with this administration because it feels like there's a true true commitment to getting that done and to doing it in a way that really builds on the work of many of you and many people outside of this virtual room. And says okay we can take all that work as well as learnings that we see from elsewhere from elsewhere across the country from elsewhere across the world and say okay we're going to do this and we're going to do it in definite New York fashion better than any place else in the entire world. And there's true commitment from the mayor from from the deputy mayors as well as as you all know we have a window of opportunity where we have the mayor and state really talking about how to get how to get work done or get stuff done as the mayor says. And then we have a set of deputy mayors particularly deputy mayor Torres Springer deputy mayor right all five of them very committed to this work. And so while this office technically sits under deputy mayor. Torres Springer. It really is about working across all of government because as we know it's not a single as you all know probably too well. It's not a single agency within New York City that drives work for talent and workforce development. And so it's how do we get all of these agencies to work together and in partnership with the private sector both employers nonprofit providers community based organizations residents students families to really really address the issue and make sure every single New Yorkers in a family sustaining career. So I'm going to take a pause and just say if there are any questions from the board on that and then I'm going to move into sort of talking about the blueprint and follow up from from the deputy mayors discussion last last week. I mean last month last quarter. And I'm going to take a sip of water. All right. I don't see any any questions but feel free to put them in the chat grant is keeping track of the chat and he'll he'll jump in if there's if there's something. So deputy mayor Torres Springer addressed the board in March and provided an overview of the blueprint and I hope you've all really looked at the blueprint. She noted that it was really a once in a generation opportunity to create intentional equitable and comprehensive economic recovery. We know the pandemic has changed a lot. And if there is a silver lining in that it means maybe we can build it back build back in a way that is better and more equitable and really creates opportunities for every New Yorker. Particularly those who have been so so long underserved and really redefine what talent and talent and workforce development is in the 21st century and really make sure we all embrace and recognize that talent. New Yorkers are our greatest asset as a city. And if we invest in New Yorkers and I know I'm speaking to the choir with this board. If we invest in New Yorkers there's not there's no stopping New York City and that's how we'll get to an inclusive economy. So I know you had a number of questions coming out of the blueprint. So I want to make sure we leave time for that. One was you know how is this how does the blueprint and how are we in this administration going to leverage this board. And I am will tell you in more detail later on that but I will tell you one thing I am definitely going to leverage this board and many of you on it in multiple ways. And so if I don't know you or haven't spoken to you please reach out and I will try to make sure to talk to each of you because you know when I sort of scan around the country and look at workforce development boards. Oftentimes they are absolutely catalytic and in a in a particular place and what's happening there particularly when it comes to public private partnerships and smart policy. So Deputy Mayor Torres Springer really emphasized that the pandemic exasperated and entrenched many of the inequities in New York and there's been a lot of recovery efforts to assist that and that's going to continue. I will also add to that that it really emphasized them but it also unmasked them. It's not as if they weren't there before it just they were deepened and made worse and made more clear to people and more visible. And so as a result we really need to think about how we how we how we create a talent and workforce development system that really intentionally is around equity and really addresses the disparities. And so when we go through the rest of the session today I think you'll start to see that. So we're going to hear from the mayor's office for youth employment. We're going to hear from Zankan. He's going to speak specifically about young people who are no longer in school or at work and some of the findings of the disconnected youth task force. And I want everyone to think about that in the context as we're thinking about talent and workforce development because these are the young people that we need to make sure launch into family sustaining careers. We're going to also hear from Martha Jackson from the mayor's office of people with disability as well as a couple of folks from which Martha will more formally introduce but some who I know well like Alicia Steinman from Ernst & Young. About people with disabilities who are who are really much the employment situation there is much more dire than even what we're seeing in some of the lowest income neighborhoods in the city. For instance about 66% of people with disabilities who are between the ages of 18 and 64 are not in the labor market or in the labor force. That compares just so everyone has a comparison to about 40% of working adults. So that's a significant difference. And so we need to operate with intention while to make sure people with disabilities are well served. And as we know like with any population there's a lot of diversity within that population and every person is different and the disabilities are different so really thinking that through. And so I'm incredibly grateful that we're going to hear from Martha today as well as Ernst & Young but more importantly is that we're working with them as one of the blueprint initiatives to really come up with a structured plan on how we make sure going forward. We're thinking intentionally about addressing that disparity of 66 compared to 40%. Additionally one of the other tools that we have that we've been working on and Laura Gibson from our office has been a leader in this work is on community hiring and that's been a great partnership with Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright's team to try to pass the community hiring legislation at the state. And the good news is we have some real champions at the state in the Assembly and the Senate and unlike last year we were able to get the bill introduced this year. So it has a bill number for those of you who are policy wonks that's a big deal for all of us who don't know that that's a big deal. And although it didn't pass it got a lot of momentum and we're hoping that it will pass for next year. But in the meantime the good news is we do have the project labor agreements in place and as we build out the implementation for that will be really ready to hit the ground running when community hiring does pass. So that's a way to really use the city's dollars and investments to make sure New Yorkers are positioned for family sustaining careers. So that's another initiative that we're working very hard on in the blueprint that's super exciting. Another one that's come up and come up from a number of you as well as is a talent portal and trying to try to figure out how do we make it easier for New Yorkers to access not just the jobs and the opportunities but the talent developers. Many of you and the work you do the work the city the city leads the work that nonprofits do the work that CUNY does how do we make it easier and how do we how is tech our friend in that regard. So thanks to the leadership of Jose Ortiz and a number of folks here we've been working to really landscape and understand what are the different resources out there now. And again this is another case where it's fragmented but how do we you know leverage what's the investments that have already been made and really connect the dots so it makes to make it easier and using tech to do that. And we've had some partnerships working with the the Office of Technology and others to and then and New York City opportunity to figure that out. So more to come on that but that that's moving forward and if anyone has good ideas and that please let us know. I also want to highlight that we have the the we've been up go ahead Grant. Think a state Senator James Sanders has a question. Thank you. I'm I trust you can hear me. I can hear you. Okay good good to see everybody this morning good to see Miss Segal I'm I'm you're you're saying some very good things some great things that we have to do. But there are some opportunities now the $22 billion has taken place at JFK and redevelopment the $8 billion that's finishing at LaGuardia the billions at 34th Street and the train station development. We need to come up with some type of plan to get into these mega projects now because we're we're leaving where we're not using them and most of those places are surrounded by these communities that you just spoke of, especially the Kennedy Airport one, which is surrounded by it's a Kennedy Airport is an oasis of prosperity surrounded by a desert of poverty. Thank you State Senator Sanders I agree. I'm echoing someone going mute. And we thank you so much I agree and these big contracts are super important. I would love to follow up with you additionally bring Laura Gibson who is who from our office who focuses on on the PLA agreements and community hiring. We have some limitations due to the laws in terms of what we can ask of folks which is one of the reasons we are we are so working so hard to get community hiring legislation passed, but you're exactly right. There's urgency here and it needs to happen as soon as possible and I you know we will work our hardest to do that and love your thoughts and ideas so so let's make sure we follow up. I look forward to that I do have some ideas. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for joining today. I want to continue because I want to make sure I don't dominate this agenda because I know it's a very packed agenda and we have some wonderful people coming coming to speak. I do want to note that we've been named a finalist by the Department of Commerce in the good jobs challenge, and that's really a credit to some of our key partners in government and outside government I really want to recognize and thank the folks at HRA who are the lead applicant, the folks at the mayor's office of youth employment who did much of the work, quarterbacking and supporting and writing the application and envisioning the application. I'd like to thank CWE and our own Joe McDermott who's one of the key partners in this so thank you very much. Super excited about that. And I want to credit Laura Gibson from our team who was an active leader in that so knock on wood we don't know whether we'll get it but to make it to the finalist round is an achievement in and of itself, and it will provide significant opportunity if we do get it. In terms of pre apprenticeship work for the construction and transportation industries as well as modeling the importance of wraparound support so so hats off to everyone and everyone please and your prayers and your fingers crossed hopefully we will get that and we'll know hopefully more by the next meeting. So the last item I want to just hone in on is is one in the blueprint of the future of workers task force. This is this is an area where I think we have the opportunity to work with you with with with you all and and and members of the public nonprofit workforce providers as well as community based organizations and other stakeholders labor other stakeholders to really think about how do we get from where we are today as I said before a fragmented set of programs partners players to a more more organized effective system of talent and workforce development. And it's not because we're going to have one agency that does all this work it's not because we're going to have one strategy that makes that it's going to be really how do we align everyone against a set of shared goals. So my hope is that we can have a conversation dialogue as part of this task force so we can get agreement on a set of shared citywide goals for talent and workforce development agreement for instance that we all are committed to making sure young people launch into family sustaining jobs by the time they're 25. And regardless of where we sit in the system we are going to work towards that whether we're private or public. Again adults really making sure every New Yorker who can and is and wants to work is able to and in a family sustaining job, including those that may have changed their interest and want to reskill and do something different and we have institutions set up to do that. And those institutions can be educational institutions they can also be nonprofit institutions they can be training providers that employers but that's available and there's multiple ways of getting there. Additionally we really want to make sure that if you're an employer in New York, you can tap the talent that you need, and that you're doing a good job advancing supporting and advancing that talent, because that's going to be and that sort of speaks to the broader economic blueprint is we want to be able to do that. We want to make sure there's economic growth and jobs but we also want to make sure that New Yorkers are well connected to those jobs. And then last we want to make sure we're addressing all disparities is back to it has to be with equity at the center and making sure that it is about every New Yorker and so figuring out what those goals are. And then also with the future of workers task force and this takes a bit of a page for those of you who've worked with me here to here is is really codifying what good is what is a good talent and workforce development program so we make sure that we are investing in what works and what will actually progress against those bigger goals and and and not because we want to you know put money in one area but so that we as a community can improve over time and just get better and better at what we do and learn from each other. So really thinking through the the the the codification and quality. And then last really like how do we structure. How does this office need to be structured has the workforce office work first board need to be structured. How do we work together and just really making sure we're explicit about that how the various agencies work together. So I'm excited to convene the future of workers task force. A number of folks from this board I hope will be on it and will more to come as that as that moves forward because again I've only been here about six weeks, but I'm super excited to work with all of you. I know this is an ambitious agenda, but the time is now and the city needs to have a talent and development system that's truly working and worthy of the great city that we have. And with that I'm open for questions and are you tell me how we're doing on time. Turn it over to you. I think if there are a couple of questions that we we certainly have time to allow for that. I think I have sure I have a question that may be too tangential but I think is important when you talk about agencies working together Abbie. We've talked a lot about the technology economy in New York and how that is so important to well paying jobs. Is there a way to get the DOE to include software programming as a one semester class in every school or maybe start with a group of schools and a pilot program and I'm sure there could be private public partnerships to help get that off the ground but I'm curious is that something that has a place in your world and that we could help as a board promote. Thanks and who just asked that because I didn't see you on the screen. It's Dave Blotsky of uncommon goods. That's what I thought so thank you Dave. So so great question and I should state that when I was asked to join this office the mandate was not just about adults it was really looking at from pre K all the way lifelong and really thinking about that and says one of the key partners in doing that will be the department of education as well as the city University of New York. And the good news is there's real commitment at both institutions to embed career success skills and learning into the curriculum and the experience of students. So I can't speak to whether it's going to be a specific software coding class or not but I do know that there's commitment by the DOE to really work closely. With K 12 schools high schools and middle schools specifically to make sure students are well prepared for for the future of work. And I know that they're working on some initiatives as we speak there and I was thrilled when the Chancellor Banks appointed Jade Grieve to lead to be the chief for student pathways. She's a long time collaborator of here to here and of mine and of the work to really braid learning from work into traditional academic pathways so I am optimistic that your your concern and question and vision will be achieved in one way or another. At least in a set of schools and hopefully soon and more than a set of schools. Great. Thank you. Abby and Salisha do you want me to add on from the here to here career wise CUNY alignment that we're doing now. Sure. So hey everyone it's Alicia from Ernst and young as part of here and here career wise and the New York City Jobs Council we actually worked with CUNY directly and created micro credentials. So it's 30 companies and growing in the city. One of the programs was software engineering one was data analytics and one was cyber data and software engineering. So those are 100 hour classes that are offered at CUNY schools for kids and the thought was to expand that population actually had a call about the other day to make sure that CUNY is including their disability program. Making sure that those children are aware of the opportunities. The other thing we're doing is creating with the CUNY community colleges to your degrees through an applied associates degree and Angie's well aware of this too at NYU. So there are certain programs that are already out there that we probably could leverage and just linking it to the DOE as well as the current disability programs that already exist in the city. Thank you Kirsten and if folks don't know Kirsten Barnett she's the newly appointed head of the New York City. Job CEO Council and she's also hitting the ground running and will be a great partner as we seek to make sure the employer voice is very much at the table. We have Lenore's hand raised and then there are two questions in the chat so I guess Grant we can do the two chat questions after Lenore. Good morning and welcome Abby. I'm Lenore Freelander from the Labor Union SEIU 32 BJ. We represent building service workers like office cleaners, security officers, airport workers, residential building workers. And those are for folks who've been on the board for a while. You've heard me speak about this in the past, but I wanted to get your view on kind of scaling up around renewable and green energy and really, you know, kind of expanding the way that New York City thinks about that as as a hugely important area for development and the opportunity both, you know, kind of at the higher ed level of being a center of the technology and development as well as offshore wind and other sources of renewable. Many we're working in partnership with some of the other unions in the New York City public schools on a whole carbon free and healthy schools initiative to put solar panels on schools and kind of fix the school infrastructure so that they're much more energy efficient and also less dependent on fossil fuels. They know the mayor's interested in that, but there's just this incredible opportunity to kind of throw down go big and think about that as a new kind of industry for New York. So, you know, wanted to put that out there as something that's kind of a has the potential to New York has the potential to really be a center and thinking about how there's not only a training pipeline for people into the particular skill set that's needed, but also how it's the source of good high wage jobs and we're working on creating that. And the second thing that, you know, you'll always hear those of us in the labor movement talking about is workforce development, you know, and it was good to hear you talk a little bit about putting equity at the center. You know, having pathways and opportunities and breaking down barriers for individuals is super important, but somebody's got to, you know, clean the office somebody's got to be the, you know, that there's important work that's not fairly compensated and so, you know, all the steps that New York has taken are good, but there's a lot more work to do in terms of how jobs that are traditionally not as fairly compensated and not family sustaining jobs that get there and how we create an economy that that gets there so it's not just a path for individuals but kind of the structural change that seems like you're talking about a little bit and then really super glad to hear about an interest in folks with disabilities because there are also some structural barriers for them in terms of even being exempt from minimum wage laws or the right to organize and some other some other things so really look forward to that for that conversation. Yeah, thank you. I couldn't agree more with, you know, all of your points. I do want to highlight one thing you say it is it is a lot of this work is about structural barriers and many of you have heard me say that because New York has so much need and relative to the rest of the country a lot of resources both on the public and private side. We often get on the stage of Aspen Institute for our great, you know, outcomes in terms of numbers because we have done more affordable housing units we've created more we've connected more people to jobs. But when you start peeling back the onion, we haven't actually addressed the underlying structural issues that resulted in the need for those interventions so I am very interested in figuring out how do we shift the system to work better for New Yorkers. Such as people with disabilities, such as people who are right now, not making a living wage, and really thinking that through. Because, you know, as as Edward Deming said, we have a system we have is perfectly designed for the outcomes we've got and I think all of us are on this call because we're not satisfied with the outcomes we have so we have to look at the system to change that. So I look forward to your partnership in doing that. On the green jobs, that's music to my ears, and I think there's a lot in the blueprint around looking at green jobs and climate related resilient jobs. And there's work being done and we're doing it in partnership with EDC and other agencies to really think that through and really figure out where the opportunities are and to make sure those opportunities are not just accessible to New Yorkers but New Yorkers really end up in those opportunities and thrive in those opportunities. So, so we're definitely focused on that and maybe at a subsequent meeting we can dig more into that conversation. You're on mute, Audria. Thank you so much. We have three questions in the chat and we are running a little bit short on time, but I do want to get them out there and hopefully you can give sort of, you know, the 32nd feeling on each of them. So the first question comes from. James Parrot. Governor Huckle has expanded the state's workforce development efforts. How is this shaping up and how is the city working with the state on workforce development efforts? The second one is from Laura James. Could you provide a brief overview of the funding meeting that you're attending today, the workforce development funders meeting. And then the third one, Angie, I missed yours. I'm so sorry. So there's four. Can you share any of your thinking addressing gender parity gaps and how the city may play a role in this area? And Angie's referencing some reports that have been seen. Oh, that's the third one. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay, so James Parrot, great to have you on the call. Yes, we think there's a great opportunity to work with the state. We've been having conversations. I think there's a lot of alignment there and potential to work together in ways that I haven't seen since I've been working in workforce and talent development and even beforehand when I was working in affordable housing and community development. They're, they're building up the office that they've now moved to the Empire State Development Corporation, and I think there's real alignment and potential. So thank you for raising. It's definitely on our radar and focused on it. And I think a great opportunity for the city. Overview of the funding meetings. It's in New York City workforce funders meeting. It's a set of funders that are very committed to workforce and they have a collaborative and they have quarterly meetings. Maybe one of the team and one of my team could put in the chat the link to that meeting. It's, it's, it's organized around various topics and Maria today Maria, I'm sorry, Deputy Mayor, I'm tourist springer is going to present. I think a very similar presentation to what she presented to this board last quarter. But I definitely check it all check it out and hopefully they won't overlap in the future. The last question and you always give me the tough questions, but I thank you because you also give me the best advice oftentimes. So, yeah, no, it's been a real issue in terms of the gender, gender parity as we particularly seen it in the pandemic and as a working mom I've seen it in day to day, both in terms of what I'm challenges but also just work, you know, people come and ask like how do I do this and how, you know, and childcare is like more expensive than my college tuition. And so I think one is really the focus on childcare so super exciting that this administration's really focused on childcare recent announced big announcement with the Robin Hood Foundation and others. So that's one piece of the puzzle. Obviously, there's also structural barriers there, but it's definitely, again, I can't emphasize more how important is to disaggregate the data and really think about data in much more looking at it much more carefully about gender race. socioeconomic status zip code. So that way we can really understand it and I'll end on this. For me this work has to happen with the people on the ground. And that's very place based and the practitioners who are doing the work every day as well as the people who are who are having the lived events, because we have so many folks who I would call entrepreneurs who are working on the ground every day so for instance last last night I was able to catch up with one of the principals in the Bronx Kristen Cahill who I greatly admire she founded and has been leading her a high school which is one of the P tech schools with hostess and Montefiore, and she and her team do incredible work every day. And too often that work is at odds with what the system is saying to do, and we need to change that and we need to listen to folks like her. To really make the change and create the system that we all want to have in place. So I'm looking forward to working with all of you and I hopefully that was quick enough. Yes, that was excellent. Thank you so much for all of the sharing today. And I'm inspired to move forward and work with you and I can imagine that the board members are as well so thank you for sharing your vision and all of sort of the highlights and priorities and how you want to work with this team and really leverage the board and the board's expertise and yeah thank you. Well thank you so much and thank you so much for your leadership. Thank you. Grant just another one in the chat. Do we have time for one more from Saudi Davis or we're over time. We're a little over time but I also want to be respectful that Abby Joe has to go for the meeting. Not quickly I just it's on small businesses. Yes, we were working really closely with Kevin Kim is commissioner of small business services and recognize that you know that this is not easy work they're not easy answers if they were silver bullets we wouldn't all be here we'd all be doing something differently so So, yes, thank you for raising and and we are working with with SPS and the commissioner there. I'm going to get off the. All right. Welcome Joe. I'm very sorry I apologize for being incompetent. You missed my shout out Joe of your great work on the good jobs challenge so thank you. Can I see it. That's great. Okay, so now we're going to continue the meeting continue on in this meeting with the item that we introduced in the March board meeting. A profile of best practices among employers as you recall board member Joe Turner, provided a compelling overview of his organization. And their approach to open hiring. Which entails having literally no job requirements as a way of removing all barriers to the jobs at the organization was really impactful presentation that Joe made. As Abby Joe Segal previewed one of the initiatives included in the mayor's blueprint for economic recovery is increasing employment for people with disabilities. I will selfishly note that I think one of the things that's really important that we have to remember when folks with disabilities are getting into the workforce and maintaining jobs is the critical nature of them having access to home care services and the incredible shortage that we have in the home care workforce really limits people's ability to access those services and so, you know, driving really hard to improve the quality of jobs and improve the compensation and have home care workers earn living wages is going to directly result in supporting people with disabilities to be able to enter and stay in the workforce. I'm excited to have three individuals with us today to discuss best practices for hiring and supporting people with disabilities. I am pleased to introduce Martha Jackson, acting commissioner of the mayor's office for people with disabilities. Martha. Good morning. Thank you. Can you all hear me? Yes. So thank you all for joining this morning. It's really wonderful to see so many familiar faces and it's also very encouraging to see the number of people that have joined the meeting today. I am Martha Jackson with the mayor's office for people with disabilities. And as our office always does, we start off with an access check. So I will do a self description for those of you who have a visual disability or are calling in from without having the zoom available to you. So I am a mature white woman with fair hair, blue eyes. I have blue rim glasses wearing a blue shirt and a white jacket. And I just want to thank Abby and Chris for asking me to join this meeting today. So as Abby mentioned, there are over 400,000 working age adults with disabilities living in New York City. She did quote the 66% of adults pre-pandemic and during pandemic it was approximately over 80% of New Yorkers with disabilities that were jobless and not in the labor force. But this is also the largest untapped talent pipeline and with adults at poverty rate nearly doubling that of the average for all New York City residents, which is 34% versus 17%. And there are issues of racial equality, people of any age with a disability in New York proportionally, disproportionately people of color. And these do reflect very long standing issues facing people with disabilities. But as you know, the mayor has put out his blueprint. And he has asked both MOPD and the Office of Talent and Workforce Development to study these challenges that have affected the entry or re-entry into the labor force and deliver a comprehensive plan to rebuild, renew, reinvent, to increase ability and the accessibility of career training, employment opportunities, expanding financial counseling programs, which is crucially important, and sharing best practices for employers to attract and retain workers with disabilities. So this is an unprecedented opportunity for us to create a systems change that will affect, uplift and support people with disabilities, their families, the nonprofits that serve them, young people with disabilities, transitioning students, CUNY lead students and those from our private colleges, city agencies, and the business community. So we all know that no one entity can do this alone. We cannot take on these challenges by ourselves, not government, not the state vocation rehabilitation agencies or philanthropy, but I think we are all aware that when business takes the lead, this is when change happens. So joining us today are some of our business partners, Alicia Steinman and Jamil Mitchell from EY, Ernst Young, longtime supporters of the work here at MOPD, here to share one of their best practices. Which highlights what businesses can do to meet their business needs while empowering New Yorkers with disabilities through the dignity and power of work to live independent and fully and financially secure lives. You've already heard from Alicia, so she does more than just her work at EY. She is a partner in the insurance practice of the EY financial services, focusing on wealth and asset management sector. But if you see in the information that was sent to you, she is a remarkable change maker from disability to education to hunger throughout this country and the world, and we're very pleased to have her join us. And with her is Jamil Mitchell. He's actually the leader for their neurodiverse centers of excellence in global ecosystem at Ernst and Young. And we asked them here to share their best practices for you, the business community today. So Alicia, I'll turn it over to you. Thanks, Martha. Good morning, everyone. I did already chime in. So Jamil has some slides that we're going to walk through. We do want to walk through our best practice. Just give a little background on our neurodiverse centers of excellence, how the story around how we created them, how we've scaled them, not just in the US, but now globally. But we also just wanted to make sure this is an example of our neurodiverse centers of excellence, but we do recognize that that is one disability of many. So we want to make sure that we are considering it a best practice, but thinking more holistically on how to scale it. And it's also really important that we to note that we set them up as centers, but our vision is inclusion. So it's they are the folks that work in our centers are part of our workforce. So they need a little more support and they might have be considered in a specific center, but that doesn't mean that they are not part of regular teams. They work on any team and any practice and any service line. They just are provided a little more support that they need to make sure that they're being successful at the firm. So that is one of the pieces that we like to highlight that it is. Yes, they are set up as separate centers, but it is a part of a very large global firm and inclusivity is very important to us. So with that, I will turn it over to Jamal, who is our global leader for our neurodiverse centers of excellence and has been involved since the beginning of since inception. And I'll tell a little bit about the story. So thanks, Alicia. And just again, a way of being inclusive for anyone that cannot see me visually. I am an African American Hispanic male. I am bald. I am wearing today a light blue collared shirt and I have some square glasses on that are insignia with EY for my vision, not because I need it, but as blue screen blue light protection in the glasses itself. So very, very excited to be able to share with this larger team and really appreciate the opportunity to highlight our approach here at EY and well as give some overall stats that Alicia just was sharing have been a part of our neurodiverse centers of excellence from its inception. And this reception served as our first manager counselor moved from an operations lead to a chief talent and strategy leader and ultimate now what we refer to as our global ecosystem leader. And what that really means is I help to curate the ecosystems around how our team members that identify as neurodistinct or neurodivergent and how they are supported both from an internal perspective and sometimes from an external perspectives. Opportunities like this to showcase what EY is doing and why we're doing it is really important such that we positively impact the under an unemployment rate, which is still hovering around an 80 to 85% number, meaning individuals either don't have an opportunity or they're operating or working within fields or capacities that are actually below their skill set. And part of the challenge for some of these individuals is specifically based around our recruiting process. So Chris can you go to the next slide. What we have highlighted for you all here is a four step or a four phase process that we take many of our neurodistinct individuals through. And when I refer to individuals as neurodistinct or neurodivergent, I'm specifically referring to those who identify with being on the spectrum. So, we have burgers, ADD, ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and any other any other cognitive difference that individuals actually identify with. There's a note in the chat that asks can we zoom in a little bit more. I think that someone wants to make sure they can actually see the slides. And so, Chris, I think that you're taking care of that for us. So again, going back to this four step process that I'm referring to, we take our applicants through a interview that allows them to answer questions in a prerecorded fashion if they choose that allows them to really be able to rehearse and or re-record themselves so that they ultimately are presenting themselves as best as possible to the persons that are going to review their responses to these specific questions. If we have candidates that choose not to want to prerecord, we will literally get on the phone with them and talk them through that same process. And all of these processes I want to highlight has been kind of crafted and created with the neurodistinct voice in mind. So this is our neurovirgin as well as our neurotypical individuals coming together to create something that is more holistic. And while this process is specifically geared towards our neurodistinct and neurodivergent hiring, the process as a whole is one that we look at as a best practice that could be embraced by anyone, whether or not you have a disability identified with having a disability or even if you come from a different socioeconomic background where this may be your first corporate opportunity. The processes that we are putting in place while they are not totally universal design, we are looking at that geared towards how do we be that much more inclusive within our recruiting efforts to really become that much more attractive to individuals that are not a part of the traditional area in which we would seek talent. The phase two within this process talks about the assessment and the assessment has been created in collaboration again with our neurodistinct population such that we are beginning to assess a person's technical ability. So this actually takes a process from it being behavioral based and nodding appropriately or smiling very appropriately with the person who's making jokes that may not be as funny during the interview process and really steaming folks through the process of really highlighting and are focusing on what their talents and their abilities are. Individuals are given very specific instructions where they follow those instructions and complete that assessment and then that assessment is actually graded by a couple of individuals within the team that are at the senior capacity that are identifying as again neurodistinct neurodivergent. The third step within the process again because we are trying to create relationship with these individuals is a video interview. We call it an LBI. Again, a best practice because some individuals that are neurodistinct, they have challenges with perhaps eye contact. They have challenges sometimes with focus. This is not all but this is some. And while we are looking at creating opportunities that are that much more inclusive, we do want to make sure that we are embracing the fullness of the individuals that we would be connecting with and not making any assumptions but rather asking questions. The live interview allows us to review the actual assessment that individuals participated in. It also allows us to dig deeper within their skill sets and how those skill sets could potentially apply to the role. The last phase or this fourth phase, I should say, is something that we refer to as super weak. And it is a commitment for individuals to really partake in different activities that would be consistent with those that they would or could have if they receive an offer and they accept that set offer. The actual week is filled with live opportunities. Individuals can showcase their talent is filled with opportunities where they could team is filled with opportunities to get writing samples is filled with opportunities where them to be able to audibly contribute and there are some stress tests that are done throughout the week to see how individuals collaborate and or how individuals overcome different challenges. These experiences again aligned very specifically to what the day to day functions could be. So we take away you asking the question. What is a day in a life? You are literally able to see the day in the life within this experience and if an offer is extended and if it's accepted, you have more of a feel in the flavor. The one thing that I also love about this process is that is done again in collaboration with our near distinct team members that are either at the senior level or even at the manager level because again to Alicia's point we offer up opportunities for individuals that identify as near distinct and it's not a siloed team whereas we are collaborating with multiple teams within the firm and we are providing support and or accommodations to team members when and or if they're needed. Of course, can you go to the next slide? So that is the recruiting aspect pre employment if you will, which I think is sometimes serves as a barrier for individuals that identify as near distinct. Another component that serves perhaps as a barrier or a bit of a hurdle that individuals need to continue to leap over is the supports and the management of individuals once they come into any organization. This focus has everything to do with making sure that programs are sustainable and not just hiring individuals that are neuro divergent into an organization where there's an expectation that these individuals now somehow convert to the environment that they're in. This is more so about creating knowledge transfer on a continuous basis such that the organization is ready for this neuro divergent talent and they are aware of some of the characteristics also associated with team members and really creating this level of inclusivity such that we're not expecting everyone to conform to one particular way. And as much as we're being that much more inclusive of embracing different styles of work. That's done based upon the level of trust and confidence that's built within team members over time. It's done within carrying consistent communications and communication avenues for both the managers as well as some of the coaches internally that we have. That is supporting team members is done by understanding when roles and aspects of a role change. What do we as an organization as a company do in order to support team members such that they are always able to perform at their best level. It's being able to also move individuals from a place where someone is speaking for them and having them really challenge some of the systems and advocate for themselves about what they need in order to be successful. Again, all of these things are done on a continuous basis and particularly this level where in we are able to share these best practices out. Why but also internal to EY such that there is a level of awareness that is consistently being made so that we move from now everyone's aware. Now how do we activate the information that we've received. I'm going to pause now because I've been speaking for a few minutes to see if there are any specific questions before I talk about the training and the support that's also associated with our team. I'm sorry I may have this in the beginning of the slides but in terms of where EY is recruiting from for the participants in the relationships that exist to funnel talent in. Great question and I'll share with you we are recruiting from everywhere. I spent a good deal of my time on campus at different universities or colleges and talking about you know what EY is doing specifically within a space of your diversity. We also often are partnering with our campus recruiters but where I'm spending my time really may be in addition to the alumni offices the offices of disabilities. I'm actually talking to some of our underground gaming clubs right to talk about the atmosphere and the space that individuals would be able to launch their careers here at EY. Also doing conferences and talks like this offers a host of resumes that somehow flood flood into my inbox or request via LinkedIn. The different conferences as well but also through some of our referrals through the actual team members that are working for EY who better to be able to share about their experience about the company than those that are actually working within the company. We also get referrals from partners but I would say that the overall referral base and where we're recruiting it really does run the gamut of academia not for profit as well as providers that are working with this broader neurodivergent population as a whole. All right Chris can you go back to that slide real quick I just want to cover this training piece. So the training piece is something that we continue to focus in on because EY is a constant with the place where constant learning is occurring. We don't rest on laurels and what you're trained on. Six months ago we as always opportunity to build. We have a learning culture and that learning culture really supports being able to create time and space for individuals to devote to learning as well as to improve. Upon skills that they have interest on some of the team members that we have literally came into the firm with some knowledge around some of the skills that we're looking for. But they've actually built upon those skills and they've learned new skills as a direct result of being a part of the firm. We have adjustments that we will provide when and or if needed. Those adjustments may include but are not limited to time it takes to complete said trainings time that they need to basically split between training and actual job performance as well as space where they may need to take certain sessions or be able to complete certain types of trainings. It is literally being able to look at where a person is from a technical ability now being able to provide road maps to help them to get to where they need to be as well as being able to be very specific about the classes that they need to take so that they're not figuring it out on their own. But they're working with a counselor who's continuously basically aligned to them in order for them to ultimately receive what their goal is i.e. being a subject matter resource within one tool or the next. And then how we allow them to then give that time back or give back to the organization if they're interested in doing so is being able to train others. Again these processes while they are literally geared toward our neurodivergent neuro distinct population. Many of these tools that we put in place and some of the resources that we offer are very much applicable to anyone whether you identify with having a disability or not. And this I believe is one of the things that helps to make our program here at UI that much more bespoke because we do take into consideration the neuro distinct neurodivergent voice. And we're working in collaboration with them as we are designing and continuing to enhance these different protocols and practices that we have. And we share them with our clients as well as anyone that wants to be able to have a difference of both process and experience to see how the organizations could ultimately be impacted by this great work that we're doing. I do want to share in all pause again that we have 92% retention of the individuals that identify as neuro distinct 92% retention. That retention is not just within one job or one role but it is in the actual individual that identify as neurodivergent or neuro distinct who are moving in other areas of the company or even within the practice such that they are in senior capacity and management capacity. And our program has been in existence for about six and a half years. So this is not about a job. This is about career opportunities for individuals that identify as neuro distinct. What questions are there. I don't have a question. I this is Adri up how I just the retention rate is just amazing. Yeah, I mean, I think it's obviously a testament to the entire process the phases of recruitment and onboarding and then the wraparound supports that continue. And having a culture where you're continuously developing and providing opportunities for learning just. Thank you for the presentation. Yeah, it's not even the number and to add on to what Jamal said, it's not even the 92%. It's the fact that they are excited. They are happy. They are appreciative because they're given a chance that, you know, not many people give them. And so they're just so excited to be part of a company and be part of something and to be employed that it really just makes. I mean, it is life changing for them, which is really, really exciting. Yeah, Alicia that that the excitement, the pride that individuals actually have is been absolutely tremendous. And one of the component that I want to add into this is that while we do. Obviously, basically check a box, if you will, from a diversity, equity and inclusion perspective, we hire individuals based upon the skills that they have and what we need as an organization. So our team members are directly impacting our bottom line. And this is a business imperative while this is again. Impacting diversity, equity and inclusion, but this is not tied to resources program or our corporate social responsibilities. This is tied to directly impacting our business and working alongside some of our professionals in supporting both our external and individual. This is Martha Jackson from the mayor's office for people with disabilities. And I just want to add on to what Alicia and Jamel mentioned when it comes to retention for people with disabilities. When given the right job and the right supports, just like anybody else, retention rates are usually quite high. And our workforce development program here at the mayor's office NYC at work, we've connected well over 500 individuals to all kinds of jobs at all kinds of skill level. And the retention rate is always high anywhere from pre pandemic in the in the mid 80s and above. So as you're looking to address your own challenges, this untapped talent pipeline needs to be tapped. And there are many of us on the call here who have worked together previously. But I just want to say for any of you who are interested, please don't hesitate to reach out to me to get further information about how to connect with the real talent that can make a difference in your own business. As Jamel said, this is a business imperative, but it meets the demands of the business and that's what good talent does. So I just wanted to share that with you and thank you Alicia and Jamel for sharing your amazing center with us today. And thanks for opportunity. There's one question in the chat from Talia Barzel. How many people per year do you look to hire across EY and how many with disabilities? So there's not a very specific number that we tie to where in we're looking to hire a certain quote unquote number of individuals with disabilities we typically are hiring based upon business need. So just to give you some stats as it relates to our team, we've grown from four individuals based out of Philadelphia about six and a half years ago to now having over 300 globally. Those individuals that we've hired has been specifically tied to the location, the region or the country and where there is both business need as well as access to talent and then access to the support. That would be very critical for individuals from an external perspective. So our growth model is specifically tied to how we're doing business where we're actually doing that business. But similar or actually I would say different than other organizations who've started similar types of programs. We haven't sat down and said, hey, we want to hire 1%, I have 3% of our workforce be identified as those with disabilities. But I can tell you clearly there are a number of individuals that have disabilities within EY current state as well as those that we're specifically gearing towards certain recruiting aspects around, but no particular number per se. And GIC your hands up. We're going to let you have the last question or comment so that we can move to the next business. Great thanks and I can take this offline but I guess I wanted to hear really quick if you could if folks could talk about just what academic and university partnerships look like. I know that there's work locally and with CUNY and again I think that I suspect NYU is so big where I am that there are probably people working under diversity. I just don't know it yet. And so I guess I'm wondering if you can even speak kind of at a national level or locally if there's work to kind of pull together a consortium of higher ed so that we can do our important part in kind of helping and supporting what you're doing. And your great question and Alicia I would love for you to jump in here as well I can tell you that across New York we're working with you know pace universities for doing a lot of work with CUNY in a couple of different capacities. But typically how we've worked with the academic organizations within or at least connected to neurodiversity as a whole has been working with them from obtaining MOU spending time on campus doing mock interviews info sessions about specifically the work that we've done here. I think that we can be very creative as to how we continue to lean in with different organizations or different academic institutions. There is opportunity to create more of a consortium because there are pilots and silos that are kind of being focused on both within New York and outside of New York that I'm definitely a part of. But it really does depend upon that organization and our institution as to how they want to lean in and work with us and what we usually do is come with some examples of how we're working with other institutions and that specific institution would say this will work for us now how can we actually either schedule some time to connect have you on campus and are connecting with students and doing something where there's a general cadence. So it's not a one and done but maybe something that core occurs either quarterly or at least you know two times a year but Alicia anything you want to add there. Yeah I just think there's to your point Angie I think it's very very siloed and this spoke so individual colleges but I think if there's an opportunity here to create some sort of portal or some sort of hiring you know pool that we could then pull from the different universities or colleges within the city. Whether it's their disability program or or folks that identify with a disability that maybe are not in the specific disability program to then feed into our talent workforce sort of hiring pool so I think that's a great point and I think we should probably Martha take that as one of our action points to to create. Thank you that sounds really exciting and would love to be a part of it. I'll follow up with you Martha. Thank you. And to that and is it possible Alicia and Jamal to provide your email information because I did see another question that had come in from your and this way I'll directly with you guys. But I'll just put in the chat in the chat and Jamal can add his. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. So now we need to turn to some board business in your packets. Everyone received the minutes from our March 29 meeting and we need to vote on those minutes. So I hope folks had a chance to review them. And I am going to ask for a motion to approve the minutes from the March 2022 meeting. Motion. Thank you less. Is there a second. Joe kind of seconds. Joe. Thank you Joe. All in favor either a thumbs up or. Excellent. Thank you everyone. Thank you everyone. Now I'm going to turn it over to Chris to talk about a resolution that will require a board vote. Good morning everybody. Sorry it took me a while to get on camera. Let me share my screen here. We are going to you were going to consider a request to transfer funding. It's a request that we have entered team many times in the past and it is a request from small business services to transfer funds from dislocated worker to adult. And let me just share my screen here. I'm not sure why it's not working. It's working fine before. Can folks see my screen. Not necessarily well but this resolution is on page 12 of your board book. So I just wanted to preview that but this slide is a little easier to read. So what what small business services is proposing is to move $3 million in dislocated worker funding to adult funding. And because of a state policy that kind of transfer requires the approval of the full board. So just to remind you about a couple of basic definitions a dislocated worker is an adult who's lost their job or has been informed that they're going to be laid off and they're not likely to return to their previous occupation or industry. And the reason that we have to make this adjustment is because we get money like every other local area in the country through a formula. Every state gets money through a federal formula that allocates all dislocated worker and youth dollars. And then this is the budget that you can see here for program year 2021 which is equivalent essentially to our current fiscal year which is fiscal year 2022 and runs July 1 2021 to June 30 2022. So we get about 21 million we got about 21 million dollars in adult money, which is 58% of the total for SPS and about 15 million in dislocated worker dollars or about 42%. However, that does not match the actual customers walking through the doors, either virtually or actually of the 18 workforce one career centers that SPS manages. In reality it's closer to 80% adults and 20% dislocated workers. So what we need to do is we need to, you know, right level that funding amount and that's where the $3 million comes into play. Couple of caveats. This doesn't mean that anybody is denied services. It just means that we're spending the right kind of money on the right customers. So, and this is basically an accounting exercise, but we have to do it or the consequences would be probably that we would have unspent dislocated worker dollars and we wouldn't have enough adult dollars to cover the customers that are actually coming. So let me pause there and see if there are any questions. This is a little bit arcane. But many of you have been through this before. Any questions about this? I don't think it's terribly controversial. It just allows SPS to spend the right kind of money on the right customers. Any questions? Chris is less just to confirm what you're saying. There's going to be a funding left in the dislocated worker budget to continue through the fiscal year based on current projections. Well, based on current projections, we would not be able to spend the dislocated worker dollars and we might have to give some of it back. After we move the money, if we do approve to move the money, there will be dollars left to continue through the fiscal year. That's correct. So SPS and UICD always plan, you know, the dollars are always can be spent over two years and the agencies typically hold back 10 to 20% to carry over for follow up services into the next year. So that would also be a play here. Thanks. Any other questions? And I apologize. This is a little arcane, but necessary. Audrey, do we want to move? One other question, Chris. Technically, I mean, technically, I know we get funded differently, but technically a dislocated worker would be more often than not an adult who would then qualify under the adult line, correct? And if the funding did, for some reason, if the dislocated worker funding did run out, they would be eligible under adult, correct? Not exactly. I mean, we get different pots of money to serve adults. So all dislocated workers, yes, technically are adults. Anybody who wants to be served by a Workforce One Career Center has to be an adult, which just means you're 18 years of age or older, full stop. Dislocated workers are adults who also are either, you know, they're either recently laid off or they were informed that they're going to be laid off. And there's a particular set of funds that's available only to that group of workers. And so if we don't have enough of them coming through our doors, we're not going to spend our money down. So that's why we got to right size it and shift it from dislocated worker to the adult side so that we are right sizing it for who's actually walking into our doors. Again, it's really kind of an accounting exercise. We're not going to, no one's going to not get services. And Chris, this is for this fiscal, we're almost at the end of the fiscal year. So help me understand what we're, is this for this fiscal year or next fiscal year, the state's fiscal year? Sure. It's, it applies to this current fiscal year. That ends June 30th. Correct. And technically, technically it is, these are program your funds that are available this year and some can run into past July 1st. But in order to make this change, we have to do it before June 30th before the first year on the funds is over. Well, I guess what it means is that SPS has been moving ahead on spending this money, assuming we would transfer it. Unless the bulk of it is going to be spent after July 1st. I mean, I have no problem transferring it. I'm just curious about the timing and what exactly is going on with since the fiscal year ends so soon. This, how much are we talking about transferring? 3 million. I mean, it's a fair point. And historically, we have, SPS has brought these resolutions to us in June. But we could certainly ask that it's sort of we set up more of an early morning system, so to speak, in anticipation of these to give the board more time. But historically, this always happens. We always get a mix of, I don't know, 55 to 60% adult and maybe, you know, the balance being a dislocating worker, but pretty consistently the customer volume is 80% adult and 20% dislocated. So there's always a mismatch, but we could set it up so that we have a better early warning system to make sure the board is informed and that we request a transfer earlier. Like, is it certainly should have laid less is concerned about dislocated workers not getting served. There's almost no time left. For them to get served. So, yeah, Chris, I was hoping you were going to transfer from administration to program, which I'll give you two hands for. Anyway, enough on this. Are we ready for a motion? Yes, we are. I'll move to approve. In less second, all in favor. Thank you. Okay, so we will stay with Chris for the programmatic and budget updates. Yeah, I'm going to keep this really brief for a little bit over time and we have other speakers and I want to be respectful to them. I'm going to show my screen again. I'm assuming I can find my deck now. Okay. Okay, so big picture top line. Our we owe a budget. It has increased will increase considerably for the next program year which starts July 1. And as otherwise known as fiscal year 2023. Like, huge increase like 23 and a half million dollar increase. So, in our current year, we've got about a $63 million budget, but that's going to go up to about 86 and a half million. Why is this happening? New York State, obviously, got hit very hard by the pandemic early on lost a lot of jobs, which James Parrot has documented very well in a series of articles. And New York City in particular was hit very hard. And so the period that the US Department of Labor uses to come up with the formula allocations for states has now I think caught up with the primary period of the pandemic. So, relative to other parts of the country. New York State got hit harder in this period and New York City got hit harder than other parts of the state. So as a result, we're seeing a more than 33% increase in our wheel funding. Again, will be at $86 million plus for the current fiscal year just to put that in perspective. I'd like to nerd out on the historical wheel and we had dollars, which was the law before wheel. I know this is a little bit small. I'm going to try to zoom in as I'm talking. But basically, we have not seen this level of funding since 2005. And so, you know, and that's a nominal dollars. So we were at just shy of 100 million in 2005, but that was in $2005. So this is a huge, huge increase relative to where we've been. And we are, you know, Abby and our mayor's office of talent and workforce development and the board are going to work very closely with SPS and YCD to make sure that these additional dollars are really aligned with the initiatives in the blueprint, including the future of workers task force and the recommendations that they make. So we look forward to working with you more on this front, but probably speaking, it's, it's really good news. It's a lot of money to spend, but it's a good challenge to have. So with that, I will, are there any questions about that? Hearing. Somebody can go and mute. So obviously good news that we have. Oh, I do see a question. Senator, state Senator James. Greetings. Oh, there I am. Greetings. I think that in for the people of New York, this is some some sunlight after a very dismal period. I just want to know, what are we going to do different now that we have got an influx? I'm hoping that we can think of what to do different. What can we do more creative than we've done traditionally? I would want us to think of some AG hard hitting stuff rather than just give more to what we've been doing already. Just a way of looking at it. Thank you. Definitely. I, Chris, I saw you come off mute. I was just going to share that, you know, we have started conversations at the executive committee level. And actually there's a requirement to spend a certain amount of money of this money on youth programs. And so we will hear from our next speaker about that specifically. So Chris, did you want to say something? I was just going to say I concur. Senator Sanders, thank you for that comment and we look forward to working with the board on on figuring out the right way to invest these these additional dollars. Absolutely. So in light of these additional funds and the current requirements to spend a minimum of 75% of our real youth dollars on out of school youth. I'm pleased to have Zane Khan with us today from the mayor's office of youth employment for youth employment. Zane will provide an update on the city's ongoing approach to out of school youth also commonly referred to as disconnected youth or out of school out of work young adults. So Zane, welcome. Thank you. Chris, you have the slides. Thank you. Hi everyone. So thank you for having me at this meeting. My name is Zane Han. I work at the mayor's office of youth employment. I'm just going to run through a quick presentation on some of the findings and analysis of the disconnected youth task force, as well as some next steps. Next slide. So for some quick background, the task force was created out of city council legislation in 2017, really to create an agenda by the city on how we would serve quote unquote disconnected youth. And the task force constitutes 14 different city agencies, mayoral offices. Some of those players are D Y CD, SPS, HRA, ACS, DHS, DOE and CUNY. We also have advocates part of the task force, including nonprofit providers and workforce intermediaries. So one thing we want to point out always is that we prefer the term out of school out of work, because it's a descriptive value in neutral term compared to opportunity youth or disconnected youth. They aren't a group that could be easily categorized. They're in every demographic, every community. Some young people who aren't out of school or work might easily be. And the difference is usually something as small as whether or not when a young person has a moment of crisis, there's a caring adult in their life. When the city's economy does well, and the school system performance improves, a lot of school auto work numbers go down. There's a case between the Great Recession and COVID, but we shouldn't confuse that with success. The absence of a negative disconnection is not the presence of a positive. So a clear path towards career success and economic security is still what the agenda is for us. Many of those no longer out of school auto work. They're working in part-time jobs. They have high turnover, limited upward mobility, and that was the context when COVID hit in the winter of 2020. Next slide. So again, out of school auto work, it's not a category, it's a category, not a population. Based off of the American Community Survey data that we had in 2019, we think we have a really good idea of who out of school auto work young adults are. So a significant majority are black and Latino. An important point for us to highlight how the same inequities we see across many social indicators apply here as well, and a gap that COVID only exasperated. And then if we think about some additional likely characteristics, a representative out of school auto work young person could be thought of as an unemployed 22 or 23 year old high school graduate looking for work, maybe interested in higher education but facing challenges on both fronts without a strong network or support system. So, you know, out of school auto work young adults, they're not necessarily disconnected from everyone. A majority live with some family and they live in every neighborhood in New York City. Yay. That suggests to us that there's a huge potential to drive down these numbers with an upstream prevention strategy that emphasizes early career exploration and work based learning. More people were graduating from the DOE than after the great recession, hitting a high of 90%, a six year graduation rate before COVID. But what COVID really highlighted is that many people were graduating high school without a plan for career post-secondary, something we will touch on later. The number of out of school, out of work young people before the pandemic was at a low of close to 110,000. But we estimate at the height of the pandemic, it likely tripled to close to 300,000. And we think it's now closer to what it was after the great recession, probably somewhere between 160,000 to 180,000. And just one reason we aren't specific here is that there is a year lag for that community survey data. And what we had in 2020 was heavily weighted because of the low survey turnout. We have other, sorry, we have other economic indicators that I will get into after this. Next slide. So becoming out of school, out of work has a substantial negative impact on individuals as well as their communities. How quickly an individual can reconnect matters a lot. Income goes down for that individual from just one year of disconnection and it falls further within two years. Next slide. So where the past slide was quantifying the cost to the individual, this one reflects the cost to taxpayers per each case. And the additional tax revenue governments can expect to an individual successfully return to a worker school. The annual cost of taxpayers is roughly 16,000. This captures, you know, lost tax contributions, increased public expenditures on health corrections or other social services. So we can say over a lifetime the cost to taxpayers is estimated at $273,000 per out of school, out of work individual. And these are conservative. They don't include lost earnings and economic distortion imposed by raising taxes to pay for government programs. A report in 2018 by measure of America calculated the additional tax revenue governments are poised to see if they reconnect individuals throughout a school out of work at $12,300 for each individual. And using that same definition of lifetime, we would bring in an additional $209,000 per individual who's reconnected. So over the long term, shrinking the number through prevention offers returns many times more than the cost of investments necessarily do. Next slide. So what you see here, these are the recommendations that were in the first report. We grouped them around what we created as a new framework for how to serve out of school, out of work, young people, reengagement, prevention and systems change. So we consider these recommendations in the first report, which was released last year early 2021 as live in terms of setting guidance for policy through the year. Plus that we've been, since we released the first report, we're deepening our thinking and getting more specific about how we could systemically support this population. As a city, we had never categorized programs before for young adults and now we're looking at them more strategically. So the framework is one way that we're hoping to do it and prevention programs. They're meant to target people who need to do high school completion, who need post-secondary transitions, college persistence and completion, and job attainment and retention. Reengagement for us is about reconnecting out of school, out of work, young people to education or the labor market, high school or college completion, and then training or placement respectively. And then many programs serve both functions and multiple populations, but key to what we heard in the past is that we need to focus more on reengagement and that's something that reflects our programs. If you look at the state of programs that's meant to serve 16-24 year olds through some lens of workforce, education and wraparound supports, the significant majority of them are around prevention, duly so, but there isn't. There's a mismatch essentially between what is specifically for reengaging young people and how many young people are actually out of school, out of work. So the previous administration announced a few modest measures when we released the report, but it was mostly through leveraged funding and not new funding. But we've made some gains since then under the Adams administration. The DOE has made a commitment to career pathways for every graduating senior. DYCD expanded SOIP to serve 100,000 youth and young adults between the ages of 14 and 24, which is really exciting for us as we build ramps to it and from it to other programs at the city funds. So much of the work that we're doing now, it's on building and aligning a system that removes barriers for youth and families and connecting to services and programs. We're trying to create more flexibility in programs that allow youth to have the best chance for success, so longer timelines, more leveraged and subsidized internships that are informed by industry and more wraparound supports that are precise. Next slide. So before questions, just wanted to talk some quick next steps on the task force. Our office has worked to develop several compelling proposals that reflect the administration's priorities, build on strengths that we already have and hopefully achieve impact at scale. So we are hoping to reform a coalition within and beyond government to refine and validate these proposals. A second report will detail like the out of school auto population more precisely with attention to economic and educational impact of COVID-19. So we understand the scale of the problem and how we're going to solve it. We aren't sure exactly what the structure for the task force will look like. We briefed our Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright on it, and her team is strategizing on how to integrate these conversations into others so that we're not duplicating efforts, but largely around thematic focuses of benefits access, permanent housing for those in shelter, and mental health supports, and then underpin it with economic development for youth and young adults that aligns to the blueprint from Deputy Mayor Torres Springer's team. And then Deputy Mayor Wright, she's specifically very interested in how we re-engage out of school auto work youth, and we hope that that will lead to some more investment in programs that specifically do that. So if we have any questions, I'm here to answer them. I'll drop my name and email in the chat if you want to connect further on any of this, but thank you for your time. Thank you for the presentation, Zane. Could you also provide the presentation to folks as well as the contact so that they can reach out? Yes. Thank you. Mark Elliott, I'm a board member and president of the Economic Mobility Corporation. I had two questions. One is, how do they measure out of school, out of work? Is it a point in time, or does it reflect some duration where they've been neither in school nor work? And the second question, what share of the long term out of school, out of work, are people aging out of foster care? It's a good question. So it is a point in time. This largely measured through the survey that the American community survey data does. But we try to balance that because it is just a reflection of the time of the youth unemployment rate, the high school graduation rate, the college going rate, and then also the labor attachment rate. Those are all things that we're working on that we hope to have in the next report. But there would always be, because of the way that we collect data, some level of a lag that doesn't reflect the present, which we're better at doing through DOL data on the unemployment rate. The share of young people who are aging out of foster care, it isn't significant in terms of overall numbers into the out of school, out of work population. I think it's somewhere below a thousand every year. Part of that is because the age gap is up to 26, but there is more integration efforts that are happening across the city on this. So a few years ago, the Fair Futures campaign came out that was meant to attach a caring young adult that could be like a navigator, a tutor, a coach to every youth who was in foster care from eighth grade all the way to the age of 26. So that has now become the ACS's actual policy. Fair Futures is not just like a program for specific foster care providers. And we're hoping that that helps with the out of school, out of work strategy for foster care youth. Thank you, Zane. And thank you for the questions, Mark. We are going to now move to hear a brief update on the summer youth employment program from Valerie Mulligan, who is the Deputy Commissioner of Youth Workforce Connect at D.C. Valerie? Hello, everybody. Nice to see you. I will be really brief since Zane already went into depth on some of the things the city is working on on the youth side, but I wanted to share an update on the summer youth employment program, because as you all know, this right now is a major priority of this administration. I think the last time we spoke, I shared that the summer youth employment program was expanding to a really ambitious, unprecedented scale with the goal of serving 100,000 young people this summer. And since that last update that I provided, we have closed the SYEP application with a record 165,000 youth who applied to the program, which is really exciting for us. The reach of the program has grown. The energy around the program is just really paying off and we're seeing that in all of our numbers and all of the data that we're looking at. And we have, I'm thrilled to report, I just in the middle of this meeting got an update that we have surpassed our enrollment number from last year. So we have more than 75,000 young people already enrolled, which means that they are actively working on their orientation, getting financial empowerment training, starting all of the preparation for their summer jobs. So we are way ahead of where we have been previous years on the SYEP program. We've been really focused, I mean always, but in particular this year with the expansion and making sure we're expanding access to the program for youth from underserved communities. So we've expanded slots for targeted populations like justice involved youth, youth who are involved in the ACS system, youth who live in NYCHA, youth with disabilities in partnership with DOE District 75. And that work is ongoing. So hopefully the next time that this group convenes, I can update you with real numbers to show the progress that we're making on that front. And then finally, I wanted to highlight that the biggest part of SYEP in terms of making it a success is our partnerships with employers. And we've really seen that the same energy I talked about in terms of youth recruitment is paying off in terms of partnering with new and exciting employers. We have hundreds of new or newly reengaged employer partnerships this year, which are leading to right now in the data over 1000 new work sites that our youth will have access to through SYEP. And from my perspective, that's really moving the needle in terms of giving young people choice opportunities across different neighborhoods that they might want to go to outside of their own. And so that has been a goal that this administration, Mayor Adams directly, Deputy Mayor Wright have really been pushing DYCD and the city's employer partners to step up for SYEP in a new way. And we're seeing that payoff. And finally, I wanted to highlight some sort of exciting program stuff we're adding on the employer side. We have been engaging employers to help us build out what we're calling enrichment content to the program. So that will look like career panels, site visits, and other ways for our young people to interact with employers through the city on top of their internship opportunity. With the goal of really expanding what we can offer and what the young people are exposed to through SYEP in that really brief time that we have them with us. It's a six week program, but we're trying to make the most of it and build as much enriching add on content on top of the job opportunities into the program. And so that's really new and exciting for us this year and has come with a number of new employers who are participating with us in that way. So that's it for me. Happy to take any questions or, you know, oh, and one more thing. We are still accepting worksite applications. I know we have uncommon goods taking two interns this summer. Very excited about that. A few others of you partnering with us, but we are here and excited to find a way to work with all of your, your organizations to work with our young people and to connect you to their energy. So thanks everybody. Thanks Chris. Thanks, Adrienne. Thank you. I know Grant, you wanted to say a couple of words. We are running super tight on time and I wanted to get SPS in. So. Yeah, no, thanks, Adrienne. Valerie quick question. I know you mentioned that we had a few board members which, you know, appreciate you guys for taking on interns. But, you know, we have about 34 board members that's on the board. If someone wanted to at this point of the game say, hey, we want to take on some interns. Is it too late to take on interns or could they still take on interns? You can still take on interns. We're still accepting applications for employers. And I am happy to connect you directly with our director of employer engagement who can deliver you all of the information and make the process as easy for your companies as possible. Thank you. Great. So we can get, if we don't have Valerie's contact information, you can certainly share that. Okay. So, now let's turn to Jessica wise assistant commissioner of the workforce development division in the New York City department of small business. So Jessica can highlight. That SPS is conducting on providing stipends to individuals in training. Thank you, Andrea. Good morning all Chris. Are you going to share your screen. I have about three minutes to do a 15 minute baby presentation. So I'm going to go really fast and I'm going to drop my name and contact information in the chat. I'm happy to talk about this in greater depth. I just don't think I will have time to do that today. So the first slide Chris can go to the next slide is why stipends. I think that's fairly obvious. We have there. We are trying to target low income New Yorkers in order to get low income New Yorkers. To do to do trading. We need to incentivize them and stipends are the best way to do so, especially to help support them financially while they are not in the workforce and doing training. Next slide. All right. So what did we actually do? We created a randomized control trial by randomly selecting trainees by cohort to receive stipends. So we selected, we randomized not individuals, but full cohorts of trainees and then would give all of those trainees a stipend or all of those trainees not a statement. We did this from August to June. We had 103 people in our treatment group who received a stipend and 85 who in our control who didn't. The cohorts included cable installation commercial driver medical billing and post production. We also did a recruitment study and the recruitment study sent out an email. This number is actually inaccurate apologies. It's about 48,000 people. We sent an email to 48,000 people and about half of those people received information that the training program was associated with stipends and then half didn't. And the idea there is to really get a sense of, so just to take a step, the first part of the randomized control trial with 103 in the treatment, the 85 in control, that's really to see what are the impact of stipends on those folks. And how does that differentiate from them from their counterpart? We did not get a stipend. The recruitment study was really about, are we attracting different people? Lower income people, maybe underrepresented folks when we recruit for stipends versus when we don't. We have partnered with a professor named Jud Kessler and the mayor's office of opportunity on this. Jud has been working with his team on essentially supporting us with the randomized control trial and then analyzing all the data. Next slide please Chris. So, this is just a bit about how we design the experiment. We're going to send out these slides. I don't want to use the time to go into on this, but I'm happy to talk through this. Next slide please Chris. Oh, there's one more slide in the middle. There we go. Preliminary results. So the analysis is ongoing and there's nothing statistically significant yet, but there's a 30% reduction worry about financials for the treatment versus the control. And the treatment group was less likely to be distracted by their finances during the program. More likely to come up with money in the event of an emergency. And less worried about housing stability in the, in the, in the, in the preceding two months following the training. So where we hope to have more concrete results in the next couple of weeks. But we are, and we can go to the next slide. We've received funding through the economic blueprint for stipends. So we're working on executing that. And then we are going to, through the executive committee of the board submit a supportive service policy that will govern how this money can be spent in the future based on what we've learned. And then we're working on, you know, how we are to advertise it based on the recruitment study and kind of all of our lessons to put them in a package and put them into action. So that is my four minutes on something we'll be working on for one year. So please take it with a greater soul. And I'm going to put my email in the chat. Again, happy to talk to any and all folks about this. Thank you, Jessica. And I can imagine, you know, hopefully we'll have some time in a future meeting when there's more also, you know, data that's coming out of the study. Great. Thank you, Audrey. Thank you. So I just want to remind everyone that our next quarterly board meeting is on the calendar. It is for Thursday, September 15 from 9am to 11am. And either we will have checked before then or have checked now that it does not conflict with the New York City workforce funders meeting. And we will let you know as we get closer, if it will be virtual or actually in person. With that, can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Motion. Thank you, David. Can I have a second? Second by Sanders. Thank you, State Senator Sanders. Everybody in favor? Yes. Yes. All righty. Thank you all. And I hope you have a good rest of your week. Take care.