Good morning, madam president CEO.

Thank you for being here.

We are looking forward to the presentation.

Got the documents coming before us.

I know you're loading up the computer.

Getting your things ready.

And when you get situated, please introduce yourself, your team, and the floor is yours to begin.

All right.

All right, I think I can be heard now.

Good morning.

Um, I'm Terry Wings, and I am grateful to be here this morning with uh Stephanie Nixon.

Uh, we're prepared now to take you through uh workforce for the city of Detroit.

Uh, in alignment with Mayor Sheffield's vision, we have an increased focus on youth this year, adult basic education, and good paying jobs.

We're proud to be coordinating with new departments that are also aligned in these areas, including the youth department and labor.

Uh, as you know, Detroit at work is focused on supporting employers and providing job placement, training, career advisement, and supportive services to job seekers.

Uh also, as most of you know, Detroit at work is made up of the workforce board, which is the legislative body required by federal law.

Excuse me, Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation, we call DESE, is the fiduciary identified to uh receive the funds and act as the Michigan Works Agency for the City of Detroit.

And it procures third-party service providers who operate the career centers across the city of Detroit.

Today we'll be talking through DESC's budget.

Okay, thank you.

Uh through the chair.

Um, in our fiduciary role, DESC is subject to regular city-state and federal operational and financial audits throughout the year.

DESC received a clean audit opinion during its last financial statement, um, which was finalized in December and January of this of this year.

Uh the public workforce system has standard requirements.

The law requires us to operate career centers, provide employer services, provide training, make referrals to barrier removal, assist customers to receive public assistance and meeting work requirements, and provide youth services.

We offer innovative programming, some of which we will cover today.

We connect with economic development to identify opportunities for Detroiters.

We serve special populations, including returning citizens, immigrant communities, and we advertise our services broadly to employers and to Detroiters, hoping to encourage those seeking workforce development services.

And because we are in Detroit, and because our mayor asked us to certainly to constantly look for opportunities to help Detroiters rise higher, of course.

Um, this year we are focused in new areas.

We are expanding services across the city.

We're partnering uh with organized labor, we're coordinating with the community violence intervention program to connect participants to jobs and GDYT.

We're expecting GDP, we're expanding GDYT opportunities and for youth in general, all of which we will talk about today.

Um, prior to 2020, over 90 percent of our services were delivered in person, and we operated three centers.

In 2020, we expanded to nine in order uh to be at least three mile in a three-mile radius of every Detroiter, so we'd be easily accessed.

During COVID, we transitioned uh to online services, and today almost half of our customers will prefer this option.

The centers in red, five, number five and seven serve less than five hundred customers a year.

So, in order to be fiduciary uh to be fiduciarily responsible or fiscally responsible, we tried something different.

We transitioned from one brick and mortar location at Bagley to three pop-up locations in Southwest.

Thank you, Councilmember Santiago Romero's office for checking in with us to ensure that bilingual staff remain available at these offices in district six.

Next slide, please.

Now, seven proposed Detroit Ed Work Career Centers.

This is where we're proposing.

Well, this is where we're proposing to move forward.

We uh we're considering further expansions on the east side.

You see the map.

We aren't sure yet, but there are sites to consider, including the Samaritan Center, you may be familiar with, or the new life remodel community hub plan on the east side.

We're also thinking about how to expand support at the East Warren, which is a beautiful location in district uh district four, council member Johnson, and intend intentionally working with the Department of Neighbors on an opportunity and empowerment strategy.

That's in that district.

So I'm gonna talk through our funding streams.

Um the DESC budget is reviewed by its board in June.

However, there's about five million dollars in funding requested from the city.

DESC anticipates about $57 million in funding coming primarily from federal sources.

You'll notice that federal funding levels are returning to pre-2020 levels with reductions, excuse me, primarily attributable to ARPA.

This year, new initiatives to raise funds for GDYT, including having employers pay for the wages of youth.

GDYT has really proved itself in my opinion over the past 10 years, and so I think it's time for employers to start paying for their interns.

We were successful in getting 500 more employers last year to pay for their interns, and we continue to work through that strategy.

We're also uh increasing our the availability of fiduciary services.

Uh, here this is how we expect to expend those resources.

Uh we've reduced expenses pretty significantly, have uh several cost uh cutting, if you will, initiatives in place.