Good morning.

Today is Tuesday June 2nd at 8 31.

And I call to order the Health and Community Services Committee meeting.

In addition to being able to attend in-person remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom at the link on the agenda.

This meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

I don't believe we have anyone attending electronically today, so I can dispense with that.

All right.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God and justice.

All right.

Can I have a roll call members, please?

Okay.

Altonbird?

Here.

Cunningham.

The end for snake.

Here.

Maine.

Present.

And part.

Here.

Do we have any addenda to the agenda today?

No.

Do we have any public comments?

No public comment.

I don't have any chairs' remarks.

Do we have any unfinished business?

No unfinished business.

All right.

8.1 is consent agenda.

Committee action approving the health and community services committee meetings from May 5th, 2026.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Vice Chair Altenberg, second by Member Kasman.

Any questions?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

8.2 is a joint resolution approving the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Program Year 2026 annual action plan and authorizing emergency appropriation in the amount of 42,989 for community block community development block grants, also known as CDBG grants and home program home program income.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kasmin's second my member main.

Welcome, Dominic.

Morning, Chair, good morning, committee.

This action plan is the product of our program year 2026 annual application round.

It actually started back last September when applications were released.

They were due in December.

And then here in 2026, uh staff recommendations have been working their way through the HCDC process, which did include two public hearings at their meetings, and then was finalized at the last meeting with a vote to approve these recommendations that you have in front of you.

Included in the action plan is just under $5 million of allocations, the majority coming from the community development block grant or CDBG, which is about $3 million.

The home program about 1.6, and then the balance of funding is 250,000 of emergency solutions grant or ESG.

The funding strategy within the action plan remains consistent from years past.

We always max out the 15% cap that we're allowed to spend on public services, which equates out to about 440,000.

And we pass that through to about two dozen grants to about 20 different nonprofit entities providing a variety of services to Lake County residents.

And then with the balance of the funding, we certainly prioritize housing.

About two-thirds of the rest of the funding goes toward housing projects with a focus on new construction and adding units to the um of supply, which kind of works out to our tax the tax credit project.

We do have recommendations uh for funding for four projects contingent on tax credit allocations.

We find out later this month which one is selected.

Hopefully, at least one, maybe even two of those projects get selected, and then probably in a month or two, we'll propose an amendment to reallocate those fundings and make sure we're adhering to our spending um spending requirements with HUD.

Um that will come through an amendment probably back in front of this committee in the next two months.

Um then the rest of the funding, a little bit some capital improvements with our projects, some infrastructure projects with municipal partners, um, but again, the majority focused on housing related funding.

Happy to answer any questions on the action plan.

Questions, member Kazan.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, can you um help me understand?

Um, I'll just ask all the questions so you can.

Um, if the funding has changed significantly from last year, if the rules surrounding the funding um have changed since last year, and also are there um new partners that we haven't worked with.

Um, has there been a uh I would I'd just love to recap like any of the new partners and and and how that has worked out and whether your ways of um analyzing uh applicants have changed at all.

Just thanks.

So I'll start with the funding amounts, uh, not significant changes.

Home went down slightly, CDBG went up slightly.

So just in terms of the straight amounts, not a huge change from years in the past.

Rules around the program, also relatively flat, and nothing changed.

There have been some proposed ones for next year, but and I'm just talking about CDBG home and ESG.

There's other things happening with different HUD funding, but just for those three uh programs, not a ton of change from years past.

Um the second question, the second question on new partners.

Is that what it was?

We have seen some new partners.

I think specifically um pivotal development is a new partner that's uh part of our the four projects I mentioned that are contingent on tax credits.

Um I thought so.

I yeah.

Yes, they have two projects actually proposed.

Um we haven't worked with them in the past, um, but they are they're a for-profit entity coming in to do affordable housing, one project in Waukegan or proposed project in Waqegan, one at Box Lake.

And um, so that that's good news.

We're always looking for new partners to come in, especially on um development side.

I feel like there was a third question in there that I forgot.

No, I think um I think has your your review of the applications, is that process stayed significantly the same?

It is consistent from last year.

Um if we do scoring changes, they're handled at age like we propose them in front of HCDC, but no, it's been relatively consistent, in fact, exactly the same as the year past.

Um it's heavily focused on housing.

We try to incentivize housing and new construction specifically uh within the programs.

I love to see the prioritization of housing.

Thank you so much for all the work that you do on this.

Appreciate it.

Yep.

All right.

Any other questions from the committee?

Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

8.3 is a joint resolution approving the Lake County Affordable Housing Program, program year 2026 funding recommendations.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Cosman, second by member Kenny's back.

So these recommendations went through the exact same process, the different item.

It's a different because of the different uh funding source.

These are the local dollars that were uh appropriated through the county's budget process.

Um so essentially the same same application process.

The only slight difference is around some of the strategy.

We try to use these dollars to target projects and applications that do things that the HUD dollars can't, um, including spending on projects that uh benefit up to 100% of area and median income.

So, for example, the community partners for affordable housing community land trust program.

We try to fund at least one unit where they can go up to 100% AMI, and that's what these dollars can do.

Other flexibilities include the timing.

We don't have to necessarily wait for HUD to give us these dollars once they're hopefully approved by the board in the next month or so, they become available to the partners.

So projects that need timing certainty, we try to use these dollars to fund those.

But in terms of scoring and process, exactly the same as the action plan.

Questions.

All right, fairly straightforward.

Thank you, Dominic.

Any uh all those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Thank you.

All right, we'll move on to 8.4 is a joint resolution authorizing four contracts for the workforce innovation and opportunity act in school youth career readiness and work-based learning with the regional office of education, Grays Lake District 127, North Chicago Community High School District 187, and Christo Ray uh Crystal Ray St.

Martin College prep totally 552,000 to serve in the WIOA eligible high school seniors program.

Welcome, Director Sereno.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kasman, second by member Kenisnik.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Um, so with our workforce innovation opportunity act under our youth funding, we are allowed to serve in-school youth.

A percentage of our funding is allowed to go to in-school youth.

So our workforce board decided to put up requests for proposal out there with the purchasing department.

Um we have worked with North Chicago High School over the last six years with this program successfully.

And these three other sub-recipients, Christo Ray, uh Grays Lake, as well as ROE, our new sub-recipients.

The goal of the program is to work with seniors, get them on a career pathway, career awareness, but also to expose them to work-based learning opportunities.

30% of this budget has to go towards the work-based learning opportunity.

So that means either job shadowing, earning wages for work, earning a stipend for attendance with that workplace opportunity.

Each of them have met the requirement of the RFP.

We've negotiated the numbers to be served for each of them, as well as a flat budget of 130, 138,000 per.

We will be working closely with them to provide the technical assistance on eligibility and monitoring them throughout the year.

One critical aspect any time a young person enrolls in our program at that point in time that they're done with our program, we have to provide 12 months of follow-up to ensure they stay engaged with either post-secondary education or employment during that 12 months.

Thank you.

Questions from the committee?

Member Kasmin.

Thank you for this.

This is an exciting program.

I'd love to hear.

I have loved to hear about the North Chicago, the successes with North Chicago.

So these are schools, except for the Regional Office of Education.

Can you help me understand how that works through the regional office of education?

So it'll be an intermediary working with other with the high schools and recruiting students from those high schools.

So it's identifying high schools as well as the students in the high schools.

So it will be up to them to sort of work with the schools and find the eligible students.

With us.

Yes.

Were there any applicants that weren't accepted into the there were nine total applications received?

Okay.

And what were the um were they just not as can you help me understand how how that works with um so we had limited funding?

So we did select the top four that scored the highest through the evaluation criteria.

Great.

Thank you.

Other questions.

Director Senior, I had a question, just if you can jog our memory, how many students did we have last year in the program versus this year?

Because we only had North Chicago last year, correct?

North Chicago served 35 through our funding plus an additional 10 through other funding.

So North Chicago has over the last three years have served 45 in this type of program.

So clearly we have more students now.

Yes, and we have put out more funding for this.

Okay.

And so was the funding provided by the federal government primarily for this?

Okay, so we received more dollars.

We did significantly more than we have.

Okay.

Great.

Um I think that was my only question I had.

Any other questions from the committee?

Oh, all right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

All right.

Moving along.

Eight point five is a joint resolution accepting the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, also known as DCEO, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Apprenticeship Expansion Grant 2025 modification in the amount of 35,000 and authorizing an emergency appropriation for the Lake County Workforce Development Development Department.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kasman, second by member Kenijnik.

Okay, so workforce development is the grant recipient to the apprenticeship expansion grant.

This is federal funding as well.

It passes through the Department of Commerce to local sub-recipients, workforce development being one of them.

So we currently have a budget that we're delivering apprenticeship expansion services, meaning we work with businesses as apprenticeships being part of the solution to onboard individuals and train them in their industry.

DCEO had extra funding available in the federal grant, and we talked as a region, so that's the northeast corner of Illinois about accessing some of that funding to host a convening for the staff across the region that works directly with employers.

So DCO is awarding us 35,000 to pay for that convening.

We're having a facilitator, a keynote speaker, as well as a venue.

And we have about 50 individuals that work directly with employers in the whole region that will be attending this one day.

And it's to start a strategic plan for the next two years on how we can collectively as a region increase the number of apprenticeship programs, registered apprenticeship programs with our employers.

Excellent.

I do how many different apprenticeship programs do we have in existence?

Employers that are in participating today?

In Lake County, we have eight that we have a registered apprenticeship program for this past year.

Okay.

Is that growing or not?

Or is it growing?

Um and so the focus with our apprenticeship programs over the last couple of years has been manufacturing and education.

So just to, you know, with education, we've been working with the high schools and their pair of professionals, those that work in the high school are ready to put them in a registered apprenticeship program where they're gaining contextual knowledge through some online classroom training and then work experience by working in the high school with the opportunity through the registered apprenticeship program to not only complete the DOL registered apprenticeship program, but gain their bachelor's degree in a teaching certificate.

Excellent.

Member Kasman.

Um there sectors you're particularly looking to move into with apprenticeships?

Healthcare is a big sector.

Um there are apprenticeship programs throughout in healthcare.

It's finding the employer that's ready to take that on and the work that goes with an apprenticeship program.

So there is some initial onboarding work that has to occur.

Um, so healthcare sticking with manufacturing, highly successful because of the skills needed, and it's on the job training.

Um, education, expanding that to more high schools, especially in the region.

Um, more high schools in the region are interested in that program.

Cool.

Um if you if you were going if when you're talking about health care, are you looking to pair with hospital systems or like like a North Shore or like an endeavor or a Northwestern?

Okay, both perfect.

Thanks.

Excellent.

Any other questions from the committee?

No.

All right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

8.6.

We wait.

No, yeah, it's 8.6 is joint resolution accepting the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity DCEO, Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, statewide response, statewide rapid response grant and authorizing emergency appropriation amount of 440,000 for the Lake County Workforce Development Department.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kasman, second by Vice Chair Altenberg.

So this is a multifaceted grant.

Every year we come to you with a rapid response grant.

That's a grant from again the federal funds that is set aside to work with companies and the impacted workers on layoffs, plant closings or relocations.

Under this current grant, we're looking to serve 25 of those dislocated workers impacted by those layoffs.

And Smurfit West Rack was one NSI Industries, Capital One, Walgreens, Discover Financial as well as consolidated hospital supplies.

So in working with them, we're providing them some additional career coaching.

Um career changers during this time, and then we provide the tuition for their occupational training when it's a career change or going into a dish a different field.

We also work with on-the-job training where they're connected to an employer right away, and we pay the training wages for the first six months as they're learning that new employment.

The other part of this grant is to expand access to digital literacy and using the digital skills boot camp model.

It's hiring another digital navigator for Lake County and working with the residents throughout Lake County.

The goal is to serve an additional 125 residents through that boot camp.

Highly successful program that has been working with the job center and the job center on the move sites over the last several years.

So we're looking to expand that and then continue go going forward to continue that.

Excellent questions?

Member Kasman.

Just a comment.

Thanks for um running with the digital navigator um people.

I I'm really excited that you're willing to take up and continue this program that's been so successful in changing lives and connecting people to opportunities.

Um you just really see it, and I and I I really appreciate that.

Thanks.

I have a question, Jen from the 25 dislocated workers that this will serve.

Is it have you have are does the state pre-identify these are the employers that are dislocating workers, and then you reach out to that employer and say, hey, we have this program or any of your employees who've been dislocated interested in participating?

Is that how it works?

So the employer um provides notification that there's a warr notice.

Um, and then in working with the state, DCEO and Illinois Department of Employment Security, we work with the employer.

We typically get a list of the impacted workers, and then we invite them in for services or we connect with them directly.

Most often we're connecting with them directly at the same time, we're connecting with them with an employer that's hiring in similar jobs.

So we're trying to do that rapid reemployment as well.

Okay.

That's great.

Okay, excellent.

Any other questions?

Yeah, member Altenberg.

So is it 25 like from one place and 25 from another place, or it's 25 total?

Total 25 for targeting through this grant.

Got it.

All right.

Seeing no other questions, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any mo any opposed?

The motion passes.

All right.

Moving along.

8.7's joint resolution to approve a memorandum of understanding between Lake County Workforce Development Board, Lake County, and the one-stop operator consortium in the amount of 46,455.25 cents, which needs to be amended.

Yes, staff is requesting in correction to the dollar amount for 48,000 118.69.

So can we approve as as amended?

Okay.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by member Alts of Vice Chair Altenburg, second by member Kasbin or Member Kasman.

Um can I have a uh motion to amend this resolution in the amount to 48,118.69 cents.

Motion by member uh Kniesnik, second by member Casbutton.

All right.

Um so the job center of Lake County is our comprehensive one stop in legislation.

We owe a legislation requires the board to go out for bid to select a one-stop operator.

That's an entity that's managing the partners of the job center and the work being delivered through the job center and the services to the individuals.

That's across all partners.

Um so every three years we go out for bid.

Um we put an RFP out there with the purchasing department.

And over the last several years, it's always been this consortium.

Um we have awarded to this consortium.

The consortium is made up of workforce development, um, College of Lake County, Illinois Department of Human Services, Illinois Department of Employment Services, and Illinois Department of Human Services VOC Rehab Division.

So those are actually the four core partners in the legislation and we owe a legislation.

So they work together collectively to manage the partners in the job center and what services are being delivered, how that's being monitored, how that's being managed, and how performance is being reported.

And and this is the same that one we've had in the in previously, right?

Correct.

Correct.

Um questions from the committee?

Number main.

Thank you.

Mine is just a little bit more process.

So when this goes to FNA, will there be or will there be sent to FA an addendum that will reflect this change because the FA agenda has already been sent out with all these items?

I think it's yeah.

Staff will note the staff will note the amendment that occurred today and what actually happened, but you will be acting on the amended version of this item, and then when it goes to the board, it'll go to the board amended on the agenda.

Yeah.

I I just think sometimes it's easier to get that notice in advance if there's other things that have been amended.

That's all.

All right.

Any other questions?

All right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Moving to 8.8 is a joint resolution approving the workforce development innovation and opportunity act, regional and local plans modification, memorandum of understanding with the job center of Lake County and authorizing the execution of all necessary correspondence to submit these plans to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kasman, second by Vice Chair Altenberg.

Thank you.

Um, so every four years we develop a regional plan, a local plan, and then annually we do an MOU for the job center.

The regional plan is the northeast corner of Illinois.

It's the seven workforce boards, 11 counties in the northeast corner of Illinois.

Our regional plan dictates the industries that are in demand in that region.

And we collectively work together to meet the demands of those industries.

The local plan is developed by our workforce board, talking about the services and the partners in Lake County to address the needs of those industries locally.

And then the MOU is a written document between all the partners in the job center, agreeing to here's how we're delivering services, here's the staff that are delivering services.

Are we delivering services physically in the job center or remotely at our own workplace?

And there's a connection.

Also, as part of the MOU, our partners are required to contribute to the infrastructure cost of the job center.

So there is a cost-sharing agreement tied to the MOU that based on fair share, each partner contributes to the infrastructure and a portion of the one-stop operator agreement that we've approved.

Um, so again, it's regional plan, local plan response to the regional plan as our service strategies, and then the MOU is how the job center of Lake County is operated among all partners.

I just have one question, and not necessarily related, I mean related, but not that I have any concern.

But the industries that we target healthcare manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, and information technology are generally the each county might have their own specific kind of niche, but those are the ones we generally target as a as a Chicagoland area county community.

Is that remain consistent?

Has anything changed?

Is there I mean the AI boom is a little controversial, obviously, in terms of the the warehousing and all that, but has there been thoughts about how we might look at that and decide is it fall?

I mean, it kind of falls into construction to a certain degree.

I don't know, manufacturing not as much, but construction.

Have we thought of is that something that is impacting?

The AI?

Just the the data center construction.

The data center.

Yeah.

Um, so there's conversation definitely around construction.

Um, so we do have that discussion, and when it is in a local area, we do share that information, and how do we help fill those jobs?

Yeah.

Um I mean, what whether we want them or not, I think is a separate issue.

But if we're gonna if they're going to come to a certain degree, then we want to make sure we have the jobs capable in the in the county, or not in the county, but in the Chicagoland area.

Any other questions from the committee?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

All right.

I think we're gonna look for now next or our annual update from workforce and Damar's joining.

Welcome, Damar.

Um so workforce development.

Our annual update this year is going to be based on impact stories.

Um so the workforce board hosted its first ever impact event in April.

And our impact event recognized successes and accomplishments from our program, services, and partners, our industry partners, as well as success stories of the people that we have served as participants.

Um, just to lay the groundwork, um, unemployment in Lake County um is 4.5%.

And we have followed a seasonal trend of high spikes in unemployment, seasonal unemployment during the November to January time frame, a little bit higher this past year than previous years.

Um, but it is our participation rate in the workforce that has been trending low over the last several years.

We're at a 66% participation rate.

That is not recovered since 2020.

Um, previous to 2020, we were around 69% participation rate.

Sorry, and we're at 66 now.

We're at 67.

Are we and I don't want to derail the conversation here, but are are we it?

But that's that's that's not just us.

That is nationwide to a certain degree, and maybe even similar to what's happening here in the Chicago land area, right?

We do have a highly engaged workforce compared to the nation and the state.

Um, the state is at 64 percent, and the nation's at 63 percent.

So we do try to go down in general.

In general, yes, it has the we're not we're not my point being we're not an anomaly.

We're not right, we're not right.

Member Maine.

Um, do those numbers are are they normalized for age of population?

It does include those retirees as well.

Yeah, so it takes the age.

Um so it's not the percent of people in the age group then that would be working, or yes, it is so it's the percent of the um working age population, so 16 through 65.

Schools that are eligible.

Okay, I just want to show.

But if you were then to do like a New York Times chart of, you know, with all their great graphics, listing the states from highest level of engaged percentage to lowest for those numbers.

Where where would Illinois fall?

I don't have that answer.

I think that would be important because you know, are we you know, mean, median, all though those are different, and they they can really influence.

So if average is 63, is that average 63 or is that median 63?

So, where are we falling in the whole rank?

It's just helpful context to understand that.

And to I think we want to be, and I'm not saying you're not, we want to see who's higher.

We don't want to go, oh yeah, well, other people are lower.

That that's not that's not our goal is to go, well, we're we're we're above that low number.

We want to see, we want to be reaching for the stars, right?

We want to see what places have those high levels and and be looking at that.

It's all great.

Yeah.

So of the one third working age residents that aren't participating, who's not participating?

Young adults, um, their unemployment rate is between 12 and 18%.

Individuals with a disability, although their unemployment rate is at 11%, um, more than 50% are not participating in the workforce, justice impact have a high percent uh unemployment percentage.

Underemployed college graduates are included in there, as well as long-term unemployed that have not returned to the workforce due to some barriers.

You can think of transportation, child care, um, digital access barriers, as well as the benefit cliff.

If they return to the workforce, they're losing some of their benefits based on the wages they're earning.

Just setting the stage, because when we talk about our successes, our programs, our industry partners, and the individuals we serve, it is workforce development that's creating that those opportunities and access to participate in the workforce.

That's what we're talking about.

Um, so in our recognition, we did recognize the College of Lake County for being a key partner in the workforce ecosystem throughout Lake County.

Um, CLC does house our job center and our staff.

Um, they have removed the rental costs to us over the last several years, and they continue to make that commitment to have us house there.

Um they're an active partner in the job center.

Um they're leading out with our CEGA initiatives as the grant recipient, and we work collectively with them to uh launch that program and continue developing that program.

Um and then just one last key thing here.

They are an educator of choice by our participants.

70 students right now receive tuition vouchers from WIOA from workforce development.

50% are enrolled in healthcare.

Um so you just see the dollar figure there that we've invested in tuition at CLC this past year.

Um, when we talk about investing in tuition, this is just a snapshot on what other industries do we invest in when we talk about paying for tuition.

We've invested 1.6 million in our grant funds towards tuition assistance.

Transportation is the leading one.

It has been for the last several years.

That's CDL, short-term training, which typically lends to an immediate job after completion of that short-term training program.

Healthcare continues to trend high, um, and that's connections with both the hospitals and the healthcare systems, information technology, professional services as general, from finance, accounting, marketing, HR professionals.

Director Sereno.

Oh, and I have a question then uh in terms of transportation, what are you don't need to list all of them, but what are some of the typical jobs that one would get after this training program?

So a lot of them like they're working at Schneider, where they're obviously doing transportation, whether it's regionally or locally.

Um, some of them are working within logistics and warehouses as well.

So maybe they got their CDL, but they're also logistics managers and things of that nature because they need that certification to have that type of title or have that um opportunity at that role.

Okay.

So so given our prevalence of of being a transit hub throughout the US, Chicago.

So we have a lot of the logistics companies, so they so get the okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Chair Hart.

I was gonna ask a similar question, but about IT, because I always think IT is, you know, I I don't know, unattainable, right?

You have to go to college and do all of these things.

But so can you help me understand the IT jobs and people?

Yes.

Um, a lot of our uh dislocated workers and job seekers are getting certifications in SQL, Scrum, um, IT foundation management.

So they're getting those quick certifications, and we're seeing that it's really a lot of the individuals that have had five or 10 years in the industry, they need those additional certifications to retain a certain level of income for the jobs that they're going for, but also this industry just demands that they need to be on top of those different certifications.

So it is short-term, um, it is specialized certifications that those individuals are going for.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't always need a college degree for some of these.

It's often like Microsoft, Azure, you know, different kinds of cloud computing or security.

So you as long as you get the certifications, you don't ultimately need the bachelor's degree, right?

You as long as you're proficient in those.

Yeah.

Which is great.

And thank you.

That's a really good point.

Because when I think IT, I guess I think coding.

Right.

And maybe you don't, you don't need to go to college for coding either.

So there you go.

Yeah.

Right.

Now.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

The next program we recognize was the Mundaline High School Adult Education Program, a key partner in the job center.

They also have a credit recovery with Regional Office of Education for high school students to re-get their additional credits they need to be high school graduates.

They have about 900 students they serve annually throughout all of their sites.

And many of their students, once they've completed the program with Mundaline High School Adult Education, they are referred to workforce development for employment services, paid grant-funded work experiences or internship programs, or going on to post-secondary education through our tuition assistance.

But a well-respected in the community and highly engaged in workforce development ecosystem across the board.

Talk about being engaged in the job center.

Again, as I mentioned, job center, our job center partners represent 14 different federal programs in the job center.

This is just a quick snapshot on what it looks like in a quarter with our performance.

Over 6,000 visits to the job center, over 3,500 telephone calls received through the job center, 2,000, over 2,000 applications coming in through the job center, referrals across those 14 federal programs on a quarterly basis, almost 300.

And then we also, the job, the one stop operator hosts a quarterly cross-training event where over 50 community leaders in community agencies attend that event to kind of all hear the same message about what is happening in the community and how we can help the residents of the community.

Job Center on the Move was introduced several years ago.

And then we also have staff assisted services at many of these locations and additional locations.

Again, in a quarter, 200 individuals and sessions were served through job center on the move.

It just demonstrates the value of being out in the community and not just housed in the job center in Waukegan.

And then the other program, just want to do a quick shout out to is the Skillbridge program.

So this is the program that we work with Lake County government, with the departments in Lake County government.

To date, over 70 applications.

I'm going to say 72, definitely, because I got two this week to refer on to the program.

We've had 16 interns.

We've actually had six individuals hired in Lake County departments.

Nine hired outside of Lake County, and then 15 Lake County departments have hosted an intern, about 4.5 months in that internship program.

Just quickly, who has hired in Lake County from the Scale Bridge program, Stormwater Management, Workforce Development, State's Attorney's Office, Veterans Assistant Commission, and two were hired at the clerk's office.

I just want to circle around with that program, Skillbridge, as I mentioned.

We hired workforce development, hired an individual through the Skillbridge program.

And it just aligns with the services we deliver as a whole.

But not only do we deliver those services to other employers, we embrace those services, meaning that 50% of our current employees have come through a service strategy as that.

The Skill Bridge, grant-funded work experience program, college interns, and two have advanced in the workforce by going through a registered apprenticeship program in our department.

So again, 50% of our employees, 20 individuals have come through a service strategy that we are delivering out there in the community.

That has resulted in our employees mirroring the communities we serve.

It has resulted in 20% of our employees being young professionals.

Those high school graduates and college graduates that just have been floundering from job to job, they now have full-time employment.

Veterans, we've seen an increase in the veterans we've served.

And also our leadership team, 30% of our leadership team began as an intern in workforce development.

So learning the skills of workforce development from within workforce development.

I'm going to turn it over to Mark.

All right.

So I will discuss business, business and industry partnerships.

And as Jennifer talked about our partner relationships with some of those local agencies, we really want to highlight the division of rehab services.

As we're talking to different employers in different sectors, we do have an array of supply that we offer those employers, whether they're individuals that are justice impacted, whether they're individuals that have certifications, whether they're individuals that have graduated with master's degrees or bachelor's degrees.

But we were able to work with LNT ONZROD in regards to addressing their CNC operating positions.

And a great partner of that was the division of rehab services.

We wanted to just illustrate within this slide that we have a portfolio of supply that we offer our Lake County employers, and it's not sometimes just a traditional worker.

It could be individuals that have barriers, but workforce development ensures that that person has the resources necessary to be successful.

As we talk about business engagement and partnerships, it is important that we have metrics and benchmarks.

And so this is a snapshot in regards to our third quarter.

As this program, our business service team is led by our business service manager, Jeff Hubert.

And so what you're seeing here are some of the accountable metrics and benchmarks that we hold against our business service team.

I won't go through each one, but I want to highlight the first two on the top.

You look at companies reached.

Currently, to date, we're on the third quarter.

We've reached over 983 employers here in Lake County.

Second, supply side, 1,523 job seekers have attended our job fairs to address the needs of our Lake County employers.

Right there, we want to show you that supply and demand and how we're connecting the two and how we're intentional with the services that we provide.

When you look at the graph quickly, um you'll see kind of the different industries that our business service team is penetrating at this at this point in time.

Um going from the top, you see manufacturing at 22%, professional services 19%, not-for-profit, 27%.

They're really increased during the ARPA.

Um I'm sorry, during the days of um COVID, um, make sure that our non-for-profits were okay.

Um, and then we get down to points of opportunity, health care.

Um, it was mentioned today.

You know, how are we addressing the healthcare sector?

So we are making an intentional effort over the next year or so to bring that percentage up within healthcare along with education as well.

So we do understand locally, those are key industries that we should have a primary focus in.

Again, this is just a snapshot as it pertains to our business engagement and our key priorities as it pertains to industry.

Excellent.

Oh, member May.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I was just wondering with healthcare, because I interact with them a lot.

And I know the hospitals will, you know, your part-time, they'll give you $6,000 credit for education, part-time work.

They will do that.

And they'll do it very quickly.

So I just want to, I'm just wondering how are we interacting with them because that's leveraging somebody else's money to really amplify this sort of stuff.

If you're full-time, it's 12 to 15,000 a year.

I'm glad you mentioned that.

So we are currently over the last two years, we've been partnering with Condell, Advocate Condell.

And to that point, they have some porters that are working part-time, 20 hours, 25 hours a week.

They're paying for their tuition.

But there was a gap.

There's a gap in regards to those individuals having technology covered transportation assistance and some other additional um medical support that they need for those classes that was not covered by the hospital.

And so we came in, talked to Advocate Condell, and we currently do have around five or six incumbent workers that are receiving that type of assistance, but we're filling the gap with workforce funding.

That's great.

And we have a couple other healthcare systems.

No, we have Endeavor, we have North, they all do these things too.

So I I know your time is there's there's only so many of you, but um these are pretty hefty um programs, and they are looking for, they're actually not even linked that you have to come back and work there.

They hope you do.

Uh I just know there's there's a lot of opportunities, and I'm just thinking of some of the different programs that CLC offers that you know are not like a retraining or anything like that that would really mesh very well.

And and you don't you can just do be doing patient transport.

You don't need a skill to get into these entry-level jobs, and they're giving a met with them last week.

It's six thousand dollars for part-time work.

And which which which uh helps us they're all doing a lot of them are doing now.

Yeah.

I just feel better saying it that way.

Yeah.

And and I just to that point, um, as you see the two percent, you know, there's there's around three percent.

There's around 27 healthcare providers we're working with, but Northwestern is one.

This, the AVK Condell um is part of our portfolio of employees that were assisting.

But to your point, um, with Northwestern Medicine, they didn't necessarily need workforce funding to assist with their um apprenticeship program.

We came to the table and we they asked about community exposure.

And so what we provided was community exposure with our partner agencies such as IDES, DRS, um, the housing authorities, so they could have access to an array of supply.

Um, so we kind of sit there and offer those concierge services, listen to them.

It's not always workforce funding.

It could be how can you expose some of these opportunities that we have within our community.

Oh, member member Casman, I'm sorry.

Um, have you uh do you work with addiction recovery services like Gateway or entities like that?

Yes, we work closely with whether it's Nurkel, whether it's the Casa, um, whether it's the Jocelyn Center and other mental health facilities, we do work closely with them.

We provided actually, you know, internships for them, but also we have just came and just explained our services uh to those agencies and their leadership team, so then they can filter those services down to their client base.

Welcome.

Moving into our incumbent worker training, occupation and wage analysis.

I'll be very concise on this.

This is another business incentive that we provide to some of our employers.

Sometimes it's not just attracting that new worker, but they need to scale up their incumbent workers.

And this over the last 12 months, we've had a focus in manufacturing and education, as Jennifer mentioned in previous slides.

Under our incumbent worker training program, we could cover 50% to 100% of the incumbent training for those workers.

So here we have examples of two industries manufacturing and education.

Within manufacturing, some of those certifications that those individuals would receive would be SOLIDWORKS.

ISO 9,000 training, AutoCAD, CNC machining, and et cetera.

When we get into education, as Jennifer mentioned prior, um, a lot of those individuals are receiving their bachelor's degrees and their master's degrees through our incumbent worker training.

Again, this is a retention strategy for Lake County employers to ensure that our employers are able to retain their workers and being able to scale them up appropriately.

At the end of it, we do on the bottom, you see the overall incoming worker training average wage.

It's imperative to know that these workers on average are making around 61,000 a year, um, which is a sustainable wage to reside here in Lake County.

Damar, what can I saw before LMT ONSRAD is a part what are I don't know them.

What are they?

Yes, they they do CNC machining along with maintenance technician um type of work.

Okay.

Okay.

I was just wondering because I saw them previously that we have a partner.

I mean, I wasn't not familiar with them.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Um, next slide.

So as we talked about kind of the up and coming supply of young adults, we did want to acknowledge that North Chicago Community High School has a really good um career readiness program that is funded through the workforce development board, where we're able to expose a lot of their juniors and seniors to industry.

And from that um partnership, Cardinal Health has been a really good partner that believes in exposing the young adults uh to some of their opportunities here locally in Lake County.

So we wanted to just acknowledge one, North Chicago Community High School, how they have a feeder system to our employers, but also how we do have industry partnerships with some of our key Fortune 500 employers here that are providing career development, industry exposure, site visits uh to some of our uh classroom uh seniors, juniors and seniors.

Next slide.

Um, we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge uh Lake County and the great work that has been provided through the summer work program each year.

As you're aware, you fund over 150 to 180 young adults through the summer work program.

Um we wanted to acknowledge that partnership.

Um so we talked about private sector non-for-profits and other entities being key partners, but Lake County government is a key partner of that.

Along with that, we do want to acknowledge that we were able to last year uh partner with the Digital Growth Initiative.

All of the 150, 180 individuals, 90 of them receive technology and not only just technology, the digital growth initiative team and the broadband team was able to provide um curriculum development.

And so for a one day or two days, um, each of those summer workers were able to be skilled up with the North Star curriculum.

So it wasn't only just exposing them to industry.

It wasn't just giving them a paycheck, but how do we skill up the next generation with technology?

And so we want to acknowledge that contribution.

Last but not least, it was mentioned by the chair as it pertains to workforce development AI initiatives.

And so today we did bring our project analyst, Eric Nordstrom here to talk about the next three slides and how we are addressing AI and artificial intelligence and how it might apply to certain key roles here in Lake County.

Good morning, everyone.

So earlier this year, as Damar mentioned, we started an AI-focused initiative in partnership with Deloitte Consulting.

And you can see here a few of the primary objectives or pillars that are kind of encompassed by that initiative.

The main ones I want to draw your attention to that were, you know, especially important for us were ease of access and just equitable access to the resources that we're going to be providing through this initiative.

But in general, our goal was to provide even just a base level of AI education and AI literacy to the county.

And especially from just an ethical use standpoint, making sure that our customers that we serve through the job center and the employers that we serve through the job center are able to understand what ethical use of AI looks like for them, whether it's for job search, whether it's for on the on the job skills or from an employer standpoint, how they can potentially start using AI to improve their business processes.

As part of that, and kind of to create a foundation for that work, Deloitte conducted a research and impact study at the beginning of this year.

And you can see here some of the highlights that came out of that study.

It was very, very illuminating for us.

The general trend was that nationally AI adoption is wide but shallow.

And you can see that kind of illustrated numerically in the left bubble with the 88% of organizations who report using AI in at least one business function, but only about one third of organizations actually have it scaled to any point beyond just piloting it.

And that was something that we also saw in the focus groups that they conducted with Lake County employers and other community partners that were part of the research for this report.

So again, this initiative is looking to kind of address that and make sure that the workforce is skilled up and AI literate before things get to a point where it's kind of mission critical and employers really actually need those skills when they get to a point where they can go beyond just piloting AI.

Yeah.

Would you mind going back to that previous slide?

I see that you note that there are no AI specific skill requirements in our top job postings.

Is that just meant as a piece of information or is there a judgment going with that?

No, so that's according to Lightcast report from first quarter of this year.

And based off of the most common or top job postings throughout Lake County, regardless of industry.

Um at this point, there are no AI-specific job require or skill requirements, but that's not to say that there won't be in the near future.

So we're trying to head that off and get things to a point where we have those skills in our workforce before those skills start showing up in job postings as far as the employer need is concerned.

Yeah, because otherwise that's you're just cutting off a lot of people because there's not the there's not the ability to acquire those skills and the conversation on what it means.

Um it's used in a very often in a very pejorative term, and yet there's a lot of important skills associated with using it.

So I've seen that here.

I just think you you have it.

I think we need to be cautious that it can be kind of a trigger word, and it doesn't need to be because people are using it and a lot of benefits.

And we need to also look at we have a shrinking workforce, you know.

We have fewer and fewer people under the age of 18.

So, how are we gonna make up some of those gaps?

While I would say still preserving our humanity, of course.

All right, thank you.

So, here uh just to illustrate another one of the findings from the impact report um was that roles are not disappearing.

We know that there's a lot of kind of fear around AI replacing a lot of different kinds of jobs.

And what this report illustrated was that that's not necessarily the case, at least for us at a local level and the common jobs that we tend to see in Lake County.

Roles are not disappearing, they're shifting.

They're they're changing as far as what the human responsibility is going to be in those jobs.

And it's shifting a lot more towards human oversight, human judgment, handling exceptions to different to you know your typical job responsibilities.

Um specifically, uh you look at things like medical assistant IT and IT support tech.

You know, you're going to be having those jobs shift when it comes to incorporating AI for IT support tech.

You know, before it was handling all of your basic help desk tickets, but with AI, you're looking at managing specific case escalations, outlier cases, very specific things that require a little bit more of a human, you know, knowledge or human hand in it as far as judgment of what to do with a specific case or how to handle a very, very specific um issue.

And it's the same thing with medical assistant, and you see it kind of consistent with all of these examples, where the human judgment aspect of it is what's going to become more of a focus as far as the human's role in the in the workplace.

And then lastly, here looking at just kind of how this um helps job seekers.

Uh it's something that again, us providing the AI literacy to our job seekers and our customers.

It's kind of a to it's kind of a double benefit because it's not only something that's going to help them on the job search, because you see here, you know, using AI to write a resume, but then once they get the job, they can use some of those same AI tools to actually conduct job job specific tasks, tasks and carry out their responsibilities.

So it's something that we are really excited to be putting in place because it's not only going to help our customers get jobs, it's also something that's going to kind of help future proof them in a sense and help them maintain jobs.

Um, and a lot of these things, a lot of these skills that apply to AI use are going to be to a degree um industry agnostic.

There are going to be some industries, obviously, that require hands-on work that aren't necessarily going to be as dependent on AI as other industries.

But for those other ones, um, it's a pretty, you know, transferable skill set in in a lot of cases as far as proper and ethical AI usage.

Memory.

Yeah.

Um I have some concerns with uh using AI to write a resume because those are spotted really easily in the in the other form that goes through, and they they dump them and they eliminate them because they have words and they have certain phrases at the moment that are used that make it clear that this is AI generated.

And as um pretty safe in here.

Uh, as with um many things, you know, our the students, they're way ahead of us.

I work with them and they've seen things.

They're offended when AI has been used to write things, and they also know which pro for some of the things I worked at was it was pretty technical, but they're like, oh, that they used Claude to write that.

They can recognize which AI program was used to write things.

So I'm I'm not a big fan of of the AI writing resumes because I don't think because it's just dumping a whole bunch in there and um with caution.

I think it has to be really be used with caution because I think that um they're not going to be, they're not getting jobs with an AI generated resume.

Well, and to your point, I'll say that um that's part of the reason why, you know, especially on the right side of the screen here.

You see critical evaluation and contextual judgment be some of the things that are listed for skills that matter most with the ethical use that we're really really pushing through this initiative.

It's making sure that folks aren't just using AI to generate the resume and then leaving it at that.

They're actually getting their human eye on it, going through, making sure that it fits truthfully what their experience is and what the job is that they're applying for.

Um, and to kind of help eliminate those those potential issues that come up with just kind of slapping an AI resume into a job application, making sure that it's actually got that kind of human element to it as well.

Thank you.

And with that, I'll hand it back to Jennifer and Damar to conclude the update.

Thank you.

So I'm just gonna wrap this up by talking about the people we serve.

Um, Israel, Israel, um, enrolled in a paid work experience at Domni Tool and Stamping.

Israel came from hospitality and food service, wanted to be a career changer, knew that there were other jobs out there, but didn't have the experience when looking at job postings, worked with the job center, connected to workforce development, um, got a paid internship work experience at Domney Tools, gaining the skills.

Um, and then as a production technician, moved into quality technician role, then went on to College of Lake County to gain his associate degree in mechanical engineering.

He stays at Domni Tool in an advanced role based on his degree that he's earned.

All of it with the support of workforce development and Domni Tool, the employer, moving him along with the skills he needs to be a good employee there at Domney Tools.

Crystal.

Crystal always wanted to work in healthcare.

She enrolled at College of Lake County to get her certified nursing certificate.

Single mother, three daughters, one with a disability, struggling, balancing work, part-time work, going to school and being the caregiver, workforce development helped her financially.

We helped remove some of those barriers, but also helped her with her training at Collage of Lake County, helped her with ensuring she had the transportation supplies and a laptop to do her school work.

She's in April when we recognize Kristil, she was working in the emergency room at Vista Medical Center.

Since then, she has moved on to Northwestern Medical Center.

She is now a patient access specialist at Northwestern in Lake Forest, earning close to $20 an hour.

And she sees her career advancing at Northwestern.

She has opportunities to advance at Northwestern.

And then last, this just wraps everything up.

It talks about everything we talked about here, how critical it is with workforce development, our partners, our industry leaders in Lake County.

How when we all come together, we see the success.

Alex through high school is working with the division of rehab services and also participated in our summer youth program.

After high school, he enrolled in College of Lake County to earn his associate's degree in megatronics.

Once he got his associate degree, looking for a job, connected with the job center, workforce development.

We talked about LMT.

He was hired at LMT through an on the job training program, grant funded, learning the skills on the job during the onboarding.

And he was hired as a CNC machine operator.

Full circle, full compliment of all partners and industry coming together in Lake County to serve our residents.

And that wraps it up.

Yes, thank you.

Chair Hart.

Thank you so much for that overview.

And I'm so sorry that I had to step out.

I did want to ask, I had just received, I think it was Youth Build's newsletter, and they were talking about how they work with workforce development.

So if I've stepped out while you discuss that, we're working with the nonprofits, no need to go back over it.

But if there's anything you would care to discuss about how you work with sort of the youth build programs at BHL.

Definitely.

So youth build, obviously, through their career readiness program and their pre-apprentip programming.

Workforce development has deployed at times its funding to support some of those young adults that are trying to go into trades and construction.

So we continue to receive those referrals from Tamika Wilson and her team to assist with their apprenticeships.

Also, there are times where they have their enrollment, and let's say that they meet capacity of enrollment.

There's a referral process where they might refer some of their client base to workforce development.

So those individuals can receive tuition assistance, paid internships, or direct hiring opportunities.

That's awesome.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Yes.

And thanks for a great overview as well.

And your great works.

Never all.

You are expanding and evolving and bringing in different types of industries.

And we're able to add more people each year, you know, add more clients.

And I think it's so important in this economy and what's what's happening around us that we're able to offer these vital services that people really, really need right now.

We know I know so many people who are getting laid off, and people are struggling a little bit right now.

So I'm really, really glad that we're able to have this widespread type of you know service in many different areas.

And we've added AI.

It's very exciting.

So kudos to you and keep up the good work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to echo um what Vice Chair said.

Um every year, I feel like you're expanding, you're going after it, you're trying to find new ways to partner with people.

Um there doesn't seem to be thought limitations on what you can do, how you can reach out, how can you build a new program?

I think that flexibility is exciting because it allows you to meet the moment with people.

Um and and to really make sure that you stay relevant in the lives of our community members, but actually like push it, push the edge of it.

So I'm I'm really excited to to see what you're doing.

Um big fan, I think um workforce, um, job center.

That is the bridge to equity for every single human being.

Um I that's where people can go who are having a very hard time with employment and maybe even finding their purpose can go and and get linked to opportunity.

Um I just it's everything.

Thank you so much.

So I just had one last comment, slightly unrelated, but related.

Member Maine had asked about late late labor force participation rates.

So the highest in the in the US is District of Columbia at 71%.

Um the lowest is South Carolina at 57%.

We're at fifth uh Illinois at 64%.

California as a big comparator, 62.5%.

So we're we're closer to the higher end than the lower end of overall.

These are from the labor, uh the federal government labor bureau.

Yeah, because I was looking for those and I felt something else.

But if we look at overall unemployment, then we're 45th out of 51.

In terms of unemployment rate at four, we're at four or some percent, right?

Well, this is April.

It was higher than that.

We were 5.1.

Is a state.

As a state, okay.

And I'm saying that that puts us in a context.

So the other forces that are out there.

Yeah, that make it um that make it difficult.

I have a can I have asked a question?

Yeah.

What is um because it's related, tangentially related, then diagram related.

What is the overall number of employed people in Lake County?

Because they don't have to live in Lake County, right?

So what's the employment numbers of jobs held in Lake County?

Uh so they don't have to live in Lake County number of employee jobs in the county.

Right, right.

Because that's just another in it's another related metric, but if that's increasing, it can also work for people who are nearby.

Do we know that?

You know, I want to say 350,000, but I don't know if that's employed individuals or jobs.

So I have to look that up.

Okay.

I I think it'd be right.

And kept Kevin Costine might also have a good sense of the trend line.

But he's not here, so I asked them.

I'll phone a friend.

Excellent.

Thank you guys so much.

Always enjoy it.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Moving on to 8.10 is the regional office of uh education annual update from Dr.

Carner.

Welcome, Dr.

Carter.

Good morning.

So I want I wanted uh you know start out by just kind of breaking out our budget.

And I know there's been questions in the past with uh like some of the other funding mechanisms that we've had.

So I'm very grateful, you know, for the county budget that has been approved by you all uh this past year.

And I kind of put up there what that really goes to, and it's our personnel, you know, a portion of our school inspections, school permits, and a portion of our rent for our building, which I'm very gracious for.

These are just some uh early numbers.

We obviously for the school year, they go on a July 1 to June 30th calendar.

So these are just some numbers that what we've done for our lake county residents with regards to work permits, uh building permits, health life safety inspections, which we do annually at the beginning of each school year, and we always get those completed by October.

Uh truancy-wise, you know, the truancy officer is uh one of the uh staff members that's on the lake county budget.

I do have truancy specialists from another grant, but we've had over 386 truancy cases this past year.

Uh we continue to have, you know, well over 17,000 contacts with regards to licensure, and then with uh helping individuals get high school diplomas as well.

So I I mentioned like these next few slides are kind of gonna talk about what I've done.

But last April was uh five years in office, and we've really I'd say become one of the top ROEs in the state.

And that is because besides all those mandated services that you've seen, we've found different ways to support and provide other services and address needs that our local school districts and stakeholders have in Lake County.

So over these past five years, we've gotten a lot of different sources of funding.

Um and I put this on here, and I'm not going to go through it, but that, and there's still stuff missing, but that's how much we've brought added through uh my leadership and then with my department and securing more funding and new programs and initiatives for Lake County.

So that is just a snapshot for you.

And I wanted to kind of go over on the next slide.

Oh, sorry.

I had it a little messed up.

I'll show you my two buildings first, and then I'll go over the different funding.

Um currently, you know, we we're in Vernon Hills, the Lake Forest building we are leasing.

We started that back on January 1.

It has been a huge and immense uh treasure for our school districts in Lake County.

We've had multiple professional developments there.

We've had middle school leadership summits.

We have a PD professional development summit next week.

We've had school district leadership teams use it for their admin retreats.

So because of this new building and the the offerings that we're able to offer with the different space, our school districts are heavily utilizing this, and that's keeping them here in district in Lake County instead of potentially looking for off sites and other portions of you know, maybe our state or just over the border.

Um we've held numerous different student things.

We had a transition uh for our transition students, basically a store shop there a few weeks ago.

We had one of the district's graduation ceremonies.

Uh we had the Lake County job fair there.

So it's been getting heavily utilized as we you know fully move in there at the end of the summer.

Uh these these grants.

So the main grants that we've always received that you're you know very aware of are our ROEIC grant, which really funds our professional development insurancy services, and then the regional safe school program grant, those have been the main two steady ones even before my time, but all of the other um grants up there are the ones that I've helped secure since I've started, and it's shown some previous grants, and I'm gonna talk about how some of the grants that I've even gotten from the county are leading towards future success when we're gonna continue on with those programs.

And I can tell you just up there alone, it's probably well over 18 million that we've gotten for Lake County that has gone right back to our schools or supports for our students up here as I've talked about in the past or just other areas that we assist with.

You know, we do our compliance visits on a quarterly every four years for our school districts.

So we break that in to about a quarter of our school districts every single year.

Uh we oversee the school maintenance project grant.

So that's a state board of education $50,000 batching grant that you can do for construction or improvements.

We actually got that for the uh Lake Forest building to make the uh walkway for our school ADA accessible.

Um we also help with you know McKinney Vento and have done a lot of different things with that for our local school districts.

Uh, we have really helped in the early childhood arena as you know, start early.

Uh I worked with educare to help bring that to Lake County, and obviously they chose design location, and that is gonna be the first one ever in Lake County and is gonna be a huge um, I'd say just success for our kids as they grow up.

I mean, it's gonna have over 174 seats, and due to that relationship, also we've been able to bring a lot more professional development into Lake County for our early childhood um, you know, school population, and on top of that, we've continued to work with school districts to expand early childhood access in general and look to continue to you know have more preschools and things like that in the future.

Uh the other things are just like public school calendar, we approve those every single year.

The site-based staff development reimbursement, that is a fund that I've set up that I've continued to increase each year that based on the professional development that a local district does and based on their population, we give them uh money back to actually help pay for that.

So, for example, like a high school, maybe a two high school district of maybe 3,500 kids receiving extra $5,000 this year for professional development they did locally.

Uh Chair Hart.

Thank you.

Um, so a couple of questions.

First, I guess the site-based staff development reimbursement.

That sounds like a cool program.

So you're able to reimburse them, and where do those funds come from?

Money that either through potentially interest or money that I've just been able to save over the past few years.

Um, we have just basically taken that money and then given it back to districts that we have.

Okay.

So it's it's like revenue that you're getting in from some of the services.

And which leads me to my other question.

And I have been in the, I think many that have been in the facility in Lake Forest, it's beautiful.

Um, do you get like rental revenue?

Uh we are so one of the things we are uh you know, working on we have the the lowest potential you know, rent technically in the county with regards to you know having the um any entity utilize the facility.

We've made it very cheap.

Like, for example, we broke it into categories, um, such as like category one is ROE, ROE Foundation, category two is the county government.

Um, so they if they so choose to use it, you know, category three are public school districts in Lake County.

Uh I mean not, I'm sorry, school districts under my jurisdiction under the Lake County ROE, uh four taxing bodies in Lake County, five not for profits, six for profits.

So we've only had school districts use it so far.

Thank you.

And so if I so some of that revenue that you receive, can you can put maybe some of it into that site-based staff development reimbursement?

Um, but it might come from different areas too because you have other sources of revenue, and then you have this ROE foundation, yeah, too that you've developed, which is pretty awesome.

And I just want to ask, did you say county government would would have to pay?

No, they wouldn't.

Okay, just double checking.

I thought I heard you say county government.

I thought, oh, I gotta ask.

And my last one, what is McKinney Bento?

Yeah, sure.

So McKenny Bento refers to um home homeless students uh within Lake County.

So I do have two uh homeless liaisons that work with all the school districts in Lake County.

They work to provide them training.

Uh, we have a grant for that as well that we received um with the other local uh ROEs, such as like Cook, Kane McHenry, Will, DuPage, uh, Grundy and Kendall.

And it's kind of divided by based on the number of students homeless in each identified region.

And then we have funding that we can then assist if the local district reaches out and says this this student has a need for uh a, we can then, you know, if they have the receipts, things like that, reimburse them so they can do that.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, I think member Casman had a question, the member may.

Yeah, that's just getting back to that question.

Um so the school maintenance project, can you help me um understand like what what that what that is?

Yes.

So um each year in the fall, the state board of education puts out uh a grant opportunity for local school districts to apply for.

Uh if they are doing basically things with regards to uh upkeep, uh building, maybe building renovation construction, as long as it's on the health life safety side, like for example, it could be a boiler, it could be air conditioner, it could be you know concrete, it could be you know making things ADA accessible or whatnot.

The local district um can apply for that, showing that they're matching the funds.

So everybody could uh be eligible for $50,000 as long as they're matching that uh $50,000 locally.

Now, if the project, for example, is $300,000, you know, they're obviously coming up with 250,000, whereas this this be grant would pay for at least 50,000.

And and that's any district.

Yes.

Um is there any um preference based on what tier you are?

It's just any yeah, but any district and basically the state can do it, yes.

And then what happens is when they apply for it, that application goes to our office, which we review it or I do and then approve it as long as it meets all the qualifications, and then it gets sent to the state board, and then they approve it or award the the grant.

That's cool to see that help for school districts just trying to keep their buildings up.

Thanks.

And we're eligible for it this year too, so we got it.

So member main.

Thank you.

So many interesting things.

Um, Michael, could you address, and I'm gonna tie it into remote learning plan.

Yeah, could you um briefly cover where truancy rates are in Lake County and and trend lines related to that?

Yeah, so uh we had 386 cases uh this past year.

Uh that was let me go back with regards to so how truancy works is this every single local school district has to have an absenteeism and truancy policy.

So they have to manage everything locally first.

So they go through their steps.

Um and then usually once it hits about nine days, that's when they can then um utilize us and put in a truancy referral to our office, and then we will work with them.

We have uh a total of four individuals right now, maybe five next year, but they have a caseload and it's kind of broken up by the high school.

Basically, like I'll use like Barrington, for example, because Barrington is a K to 12, they would serve that.

But Warren, for example, is one high school.

I mean, it's two high schools, but one district, right?

They would kind of serve the feeder schools.

So we have it like that, so they can develop basically the relationships if that were to continue on.

So we've had over 386 truancy cases um identified that were submitted by school districts this past year.

They came from 12 high schools, 16 middle school junior highs, seven elementary schools, and then three of the charter schools that exist within Lake County.

Uh, with regards to numbers, it's probably a little bit higher than last year.

It's probably about 30, I think 32 more cases than last year.

So it has up ticked a little bit.

Um attendance, I that has been one of the state board's uh high priorities is ensuring that people are attending school.

And one of the things I'll talk about here in a few slides is one of the new programs that we're going to start next year that I think will also uh mirror and kind of marriage with the truancy program that we have.

So follow up, and then I want to get to the remote learning plan.

The truancy is that that's defined by number of days not in school.

Like if a parent calls a student out, is does that still count against their truancy?

No, it has to be unexcused.

Yeah, right.

So if we were to look at, and that's what I understand is happening, the parents just call them out.

So, in terms of overall attendance of students at school, those numbers are still uh my understanding is which could be wrong, still much below pre-COVID days.

I would uh probably agree with that.

Okay.

So I just wonder, and I'm not asking for a solution here, although if you have a quick one, that would be great.

Like remote learning plan, like the remote learning and the ability to do that, that's certainly opened up avenues for for many people.

There's great things.

I know there's places I'm like, oh, I can attend that lecture while eating spaghetti at home.

So there's all sorts of great things that have come out of that.

But it's also really clear that children and parents have went, you don't need to go to school.

You don't need to be in person, and so parents call the students out because the parents are like, ah, they don't have to be there.

And then children's own skills, their social skills, their interpersonal skills, um are horrible.

Um, their anxiety is higher.

I mean, that's a it's a vicious positive feedback circle, right?

They have anxiety, so they don't go to school, so then they have more anxiety because they can't be there.

Is there a larger conversation?

Not putting this on you, but kind of what is the larger conversation of having that balance of saying there is a time and a place for remote learning child's very sick or something like that, or they live in a school district that can't offer a certain program.

And normalizing that it's okay to sit at home in the dark, I'll make this dramatic, right?

And then just kind of but it's happening, but being on their screen.

So how is that trying to be balanced?

You understand what I'm saying?

Can I can I ask a quick question?

Yeah, just to your question.

So are what is the prevalence of do you have to have a very specific um use case for it now?

I'm I'm just trying to figure out.

I'm just curious.

Like, is it is it common now?

That there's still like kids can still do that, yeah, in our school districts on our uh well, I can I can tell you.

So, like I'll go over the remote learning plan and touch on your thing too.

So the remote learning plan is uh deals with like the emergence, the emergency piece.

So, for example, not all school districts have them.

You know, some have gone back to if it's a snow day, it's a snow day.

Some have the e the remote learning plan in place just as a safety measure because it does protect, let's say you know, you have a water uh main break or whatnot, you can use that.

So that's that.

But to answer your question too, in order to uh to be fully remote, um, I could say at least in the public school setting, uh, this the school local school board has to have an approved plan in place.

So they actually have to have their board vote the policy that you can go remote and then has to meet uh one of the few criteria, potentially um social emotional behavior um in those pieces, and then you can only get certified for one year.

And then if let's say if I was a freshman and that I was allowed to in my district, I have a plan, somewhat not like an IEP, but somewhat like almost a remote learning plan, and they would have to follow that, and then from there, and when I go to my sophomore year, I'd have to, if I chose to, I'd have to ask the district, well, am I allowed to continue?

And they have to recertify, or they could say no, you have to come back in.

What could then happen then is also, you know, potentially if students are in the non public setting, some of uh those could be occurring.

And then to like you mentioned with the different programs of you know, some school districts might have not have this course that I can hit on in a minute too for you.

They they can.

They they can the parents, and it's aided and embedded by the parents.

I mean, the schools are in uh in a challenging situation there.

But they're like parents are calling them out of school for longer.

And then the schools, the burden is then on the school to be able to make it up to make the lecture remote to offer alternative assessments and things like that.

So it's and school boards respond to their parents for the most part, right?

That's who looks them and stuff like that.

But it's there's yeah.

Is this just in the wealthy districts or something?

Because at be near me, this is not this is not a thing.

It's um, I mean, because teachers don't love to teach hybrid.

So they'd have to have the teacher teaching hybrid, the kids in class and the kids at home.

So I'm not, I don't, I'm trying to understand like what I mean, uh since COVID, I think at least most public schools have gone back to you're either there or you're not.

And on snow days, they have the option of doing remote learning, but then they you know, some of them have opted not even to do that because it's it's less.

So I mean, if I don't know how prevalent this is, but member Danford, did you have a question to add to that?

Oh, well, yeah, I I'm just a follow-up, if I could, please thank you.

Um so it sounds like uh what member Maine is talking about is almost like a parent-induced truancy, where parents are either before or after the fact calling kids out.

And I don't know how prevalent doctor, that pro that problem may be.

I mean, I think I I'm seeing it more and more.

And I don't know if the wealth of the school district has much to do with it.

I mean, obviously, you got a lot of parents who are very laissez-faire, and kid doesn't want to be there, parents got their own problems, and yeah, I'll take care of this type of thing.

And maybe you could give us an indication if you're seeing as part of a systemic problem of truancy, that it's either parent-induced or parent supported or whatever, because that's a bigger problem, maybe that needs to be addressed.

Yeah, I I mean I can tell you obviously um the cases do vary, but you know, some have been uh because of that.

So we've also then worked with the local school districts and then also done parent education uh with regards to that too.

We've put a huge emphasis on also, you know, really getting in early because um it matters obviously if you can catch a like a first grader who might be you know truant, but instead of waiting if he's truant from first till eighth and nothing's done over those the course of those seven years, it's really hard to just miraculously expect that individual to go to high school, you know, the high school on a daily basis.

So for us, we've really you know put emphasis on the earlier ages um and in tacking the elementary wise with uh with regards to the school districts, and then to your point too, trying to find different ways that we're also working with the parents and the student in general, and then if needing to escalate it, have it escalated further.

We've only had to in my time, I would say bring I think uh three cases to that next level, which is more of the the judicial, you know, with the state's attorney's office, because in you have to go to school, whether it's public, non-public, homeschool, virtual, uh, you need to go to school.

So we've tried to also work with that too.

But yes, it is us something that the state board also recognizes too that needs to be looked at.

And if I could follow up, Chair, just kind of uh member main used that great word tangentially earlier, uh related as far as um kids.

I don't know what policies are now in school district.

My kids have been out of of school, but um what as far as kids and policies of actually not being able to go more than two minutes ever without touching this phone, how do you deal with that in a classroom?

I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of districts or a lot of schools or classrooms that say no, you can't touch your phone, but you know what they're doing.

They're doing it.

So is there anything that's being used to address that?

Because I consider that kind of like a truancy within the classroom, if you will.

Yeah, I can tell you all all school districts at least in Lake County have developed some type of um to your question, like a policy with regards to the cell phones.

Um, obviously they they just passed something in the state legislature too on what Sunday, uh, that will be in effect.

But you know, if districts have already had something, they they can utilize it for the next year or two and then have to get with the actual um potentially is be proposed plan by I believe by 2031.

But I can tell you last year, districts really worked on ensuring that you know devices, um device policy existed.

And at the same time, I can tell you there's kind of been a shift too with regards to screen time on tablets or computers and trying to look at different ways, even at the K to five, like reducing that amount of time on the screen or tablet, and then trying to find different ways to reduce that even as you get into middle school and high school and not just you know, always having a computer, you know, maybe an overabundance of technology at times, and now trying to potentially scale it back.

So I mean just from my experience to my kids that they're required as soon as they get to school to put their phone in their locker, and they can't access it till the last bell.

So they can't carry it with them during the day at all.

Middle school.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So I I mean, I I I think it's good.

Like they're not, you know, allowed to touch it all day long.

So yeah.

We do have 10 more slides.

So I just want to be.

Yeah, I want to go I'm gonna go, I'll go fast.

Yeah, no, I don't want you to go fast, but just you know, just yeah, us yeah, yeah.

Uh so this is just the attendance insurancy team and some of the resources that have been provided, you know, for local school districts and uh transportation for the students, potentially mental health, um, which I'll hit on also uh tutoring, credit recovery, um, potentially mentoring.

So these are just some of the services that we do.

Uh, on top of that, here's our professional development.

Uh so we had the countywide institute day, which we restarted a few years back.

This past year we had over 3,000 attendees at three sites.

Uh one, we had a K to five site that was hosted at Vernon Hills High School.

We had a six to twelve site, which was hosted at Lake Zurich High School, and then we had uh solely a diverse learner, which incorporated special education and everything with regards to OT, PT, social workers counselors.

We had that at Grant High School.

Um, we've had the safety conference, which continues uh to be strong for the past few years, had almost 500 people this past year, uh, done leadership academies uh for aspiring leaders.

Uh at red mini summit, which is a summit we're having multiple school districts attend next week, but we've really um provided more and more professional development, had some things on AI, you know, how to potentially you know use it in your school.

We actually had students speak at a we had like a national summit there in the fall where we had some of our local students speak and lead a panel there, so it's been great.

The regional safe school program uh continues to go strong.

We had in the base program, which is a sort short-term suspension program, over 138 students uh participate in that program this year, which has also then lowered our long-term numbers.

Uh, we had 19 students at the end of this semester return back to their local school district.

Uh, we've continued to have probably about a 95% success rate in both of those programs.

Uh the Illinois virtual schools and academy, which I had started back in 2022, we have had probably over 21,000 courses taken since inception.

Uh this year we've had 6,700 students served.

Uh one of the cool things uh this year is the University of Illinois system in partnership with us, we're doing dual credit next year.

So we're offering four dual credit courses in conjunction with the University of Illinois system.

Um, on top of that, it has served well over uh a quarter of our school districts in the state, and well over uh I'd say close to 70 counties now in the state.

And it's low cost, and we've you know found different ways to make this accessible, and it really just helps provide opportunities, usually in different situations, whether it's a teacher shortage, whether it's a student who's hospitalized or whatever the situation may be, we try to find a way to accommodate, and they just started summer school yesterday.

Uh referral GPS initiative, if you remember, this was through one of the grants that I had gotten.

Uh since its inception, we've had over 25,000 people utilize this service in some form or fashion.

Uh, we have paid for over 2,900 treatment sessions for students impacted by income or insurance.

Um, and it has been used by 51 unique uh school districts, and I know there's only 50 in Lake County, but that does incorporate like the privates as well.

Um, this was set to end June 30th, but I am continuing this service on through uh funds that I receive or are accumulated.

The stop it app.

This is uh part of our LC Smart that's a Lake County School Mutual Aid Response Team agreement that we created that if there was ever uh mass casualty events or uh unique situation where school districts need to help each other.

Uh we have this agreement in place.

This is the app that we use and the safety app that we provided for school districts as well that also serves as a countywide notification system as well.

If there's like a lockdown or threat.

That was paid through one of the grants.

Uh Navigate Eight Lake, which some of you have um seen before.

We had over 6,000 students participate this past year uh with over 150 industry partners.

Uh we are looking probably close to 7,500 to 8,000 students participating this upcoming school year in the 26-27 school year, and that'll be held at the Lake County Fairgrounds again.

One of the things, uh, the you know, the ARPA funding that I was awarded through the county government.

Um, it helped with this.

Obviously, we're continuing this on.

One of the other pieces was the work-based learning platform for the county uh that we have, and we've gotten business partners signed up, uh and then it's helped with uh internships and keeping track of credentials for students.

Um, you know, obviously the ARPA funding is ending.

I will continue the school links, the works-based learning uh county initiative and paying for the work-based learning platform for the school districts that have you know signed to continue on, which is over about 28 of them.

Uh we had our our fifth annual educator of the year ceremony, May 6th.

We had over 960 attendees.

The overall educator of the year was from uh Lake Bluff.

So it was a nice event again.

And um it continues to be, I'd say, one of the the highlights of the year, and I think just an opportunity for people to collaborate and be together.

I jumped a slide, but this is the school links, which I've talked about.

Here's the platform that I'm continuing to utilize for the next few years for free for our school districts.

Uh these are just other roles and committees um that I've continued to serve on, which I can skip through.

And the ROE foundation, which Chair Hart had kind of alluded to.

So since um where I reimagined it a few years back, we've probably raised over 4.1 million dollars.

Um happy to announce that you know, we have secured all the funding for the the Schuler students who lost their scholarships for the remaining two years.

Um 6,500 students are enrolled in the Dolly Parton Initiative.

Uh, we've handed out over $35,000 for next step grants to high school districts, and it's almost every high school and district in Lake County has received one almost in some form or fashion.

Uh, we continue to help local school districts with their local foundations, and we haven't even had a convening back in February.

And we're continuing to find different ways to support ready to learn initiatives in Lake County and you know, and access to more health care, whatever it may be, and how we can ensure that students can go to school ready to learn and have the things or tools they need to be successful.

And then the last piece is some of the things that we're continuing to work on.

The next year we're opening the countywide alternative learning opportunity program, which will be um something that I have overseen, but I'm gonna have a push-in and pull-out model, and what does that mean?

It's like a tier two and tier three.

So tier one is at the local school district.

The local school district is going to work with the student, has to identify that they might need an extra intervention.

The tier two is our push-in.

We'll push into local school districts, at least from grades four to twelve, and then bump down to K to three the following year.

And that will they'll have a cacle, and they'll actually just basically live in those schools and work with those students who are struggling uh academically, which could tie into truancy because you know it's a student could be truant and they might need academic support.

So those teams would work together as well.

And then we'll have a pull-out site, which would be for grade six to twelve if they need that higher level, maybe smaller learning area to learn, and they would have the school districts that have access to that for free and just pay for transportation.

Um we're expanding on our work-based learning initiatives, um, more opportunities and internships for students in high schools, uh, designing a countywide career and college center that will help support our school districts when like navigate 8 Lake and other initiatives as we try to find a different way to do Schuler 2.0, but in a different fashion.

And expanding grow your own initiatives as well.

Uh, this we've offered numerous different programs for individuals to become educators, whether it's starting off as a paraprofessional or maybe just right out of you know high school.

We've also uh through my office uh most recently gave out $15,000 to paraprofessionals, um, $1,000 scholarships to pairers who are becoming teachers across Lake County.

So we're continuing to find different opportunities for uh low um low cost education for individuals to enter that field.

And that's it.

And that's it.

Chair Hart.

It's amazing what you have accomplished over these last five years.

And I just really want to say thank you and how proud I am to have you in Lake County doing all this great work.

And you know, I I was able to attend the dinner.

I had to leave because I didn't really want to flight, but um, you know, it struck me it's it's pretty brave, right?

To kind of go into a new role and say, I think I'm gonna try to have this dinner and I'm gonna do it at the fair grounds.

So, like to put yourself out there like that when you're new in role and say, boy, I hope people come.

And I think the first year you had almost 500 people, that was a really um, I mean, I would think kind of a risky endeavor.

But you had obviously uh looked around and saw that people were hungry for an opportunity like this to uh to recognize their peers and to be recognized and come together.

And that is just one, you know, probably pretty small thing that you do when you think about your Navigate 8 program.

Uh, you know, the law, the list is very long.

And I I just want to say thank you.

When I first became chair, uh county chairman of another neighboring county had reached out to me and said, Hey, why don't we partner on legislation to kind of get rid of the ROEs or bring them together?

We don't need them, they don't do anything.

You know, um, that was before you came along, and I said, you know, I'm I'm new enroll.

I don't I'm not ready to to do something like that.

And um, you came along and and I think it's just been really tremendous.

And and thank you so much for everything that you're doing for the kids and the families in Lake County.

It's it's terrific.

Thank you.

Were you referring to the educator of the year dinner or something else?

Educator of the year dinner.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, which is a when you think about all the programs, that's like there's a lot that goes into it.

It's like one night.

And the fact that the restaurant is it what is the name of the whomever it is that is able to pull it off, like feeding a thousand people at essentially the same time.

It's uh it's pretty phenomenal.

But think like that's one day that you're planning, but all your other programs are, you know, they go year long and sometimes for many years.

So anyway.

Yeah, no, I'm just because I've I've heard about it from just students and teachers in my district, and it's just such a phenomenal recognition.

So really appreciate it.

Um, member Aldenberg.

Okay, and then member Casmin.

And then Member Kasman.

Um there's not enough we could say about the transformative nature of this office.

I mean, you have come in and just exceeded every expectation that any of us had for this office.

You found all kinds of grants, started all kinds of new programs, helped the schools in ways that we couldn't even have imagined that your office would be capable of doing.

And I think it's just been, you know, really amazing.

Do you know of another ROE in the state that that does the this many programs?

I think I what I would say is I think every ROE does the mandated services, which kind of on the first two, and then it kind of varies, I think, based on the county on what they're doing.

When I say does everybody have, are we one of the only one counties to have the mental health access?

I would venture to say yes.

Um, the navigate the countywide thing, uh the career fair, I think we're another one or two.

The, you know, so I think there are some programs that are similar, but I think it's also then spurned other people to do more to where they're at.

So well, we're very fortunate to have you and have all these amazing programs.

And I know across the county, all the school districts really appreciate everything, all the new services you're offering and keep up the great work.

It's it's amazing.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, you know, as you know, I was on a school board before the county board.

Um, I I remember asking, like, what does the regional office of education do?

And it was the answer was, well, I mean, you know, there's stuff we have to comply with.

Um, there were the compulsory things that they that they did, but uh at least the schools that I was familiar with, um, the ROE just wasn't relevant in their lives, other than those compliance checks.

Umce you've come into office, uh, you are completely relevant to every single school district in this county.

You offer services that they need, um, that they were having to scramble to get in other places.

It was far more expensive.

Um, you've been a real partner to school districts and student learning and staff development.

Um it's night and day.

So I just really appreciate.

And the thing is, we talk about the number of programs.

It's it's not the number of programs, though it's that every program is based on conversations you have with school districts.

You're so embedded with the school districts now, and there's that open line of communication.

And so the programs, yes, the number is awesome, but the relevance to the daily operations of our districts and what they need is really what's so impressive.

And the number of students that you're able to touch.

And I think probably lives changed all the time.

So I just I can't thank you enough.

Um you are you your office is seen as a real partner, a real help, a real source of support.

Um, I think schools sometimes feel like you know they're in it, they they did feel like they were in it alone.

Um, they they had each other, but it they kind of felt like this sort of they were siloed off into the corner without a lot of, you know, with the new um things they were supposed that they were sort of forced to do every year without a lot of help in in trying to meet those, you know, those um directives, but also just the the shared concerns that they have.

So it's a big deal.

And thank you so much for all that you do for our students, our families, our school districts.

It's it's critically important.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well said.

All right.

Dr.

Carner, thank you so much for for presenting.

I think we'll move on to our next item, which is uh number nine, the county administrators report.

No county administrative report.

I do not believe there's a need for executive session.

Do we have any member remarks or requests?

Seeing none, we are adjourned.

We will meet again on July 7th, 2026.

Thank you.