All right.

The time is now 2.05 p.m.

on January 27, 2026, and the meeting of the Economic and Workforce Development Committee is now called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Castillo?

Councilmember Galois.

Councilmember Ms.

Gonzalez.

Councilmember Spears.

Chair Viegra?

Here.

We have a core.

All right.

Great.

The first item on the agenda is approval of the minutes.

Are there any corrections to the minutes?

All right.

If not, can I get a motion in a second to approve the minutes?

I've got a motion in a second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

Motion carries.

All right.

We've got public comment.

Madam Clerk, are there any citizens signed up to speak on the item for any of the items for public comment?

There's no one wishing to speak.

Great.

Okay, so we have our remaining agenda items.

We have briefing and possible action.

Let's begin with uh item number two.

Uh, and that is the recommendation of the fiscal year 2026 growth stage grant program.

Is there a staff presentation?

Yes, there is.

All right.

The floor is yours.

Hello, everyone.

Uh, my name is Sarah Wappel.

I'm our business advancement coordinator with the um economic development department, and today I'll be presenting our recommendations for fiscal year's 2026 Grow Stage Grant programs.

So the state has authorized the City of San Antonio to administer loan and grant programs through the chapter 380 policy.

Through that, uh, we have our economic development incentive fund.

This is where we have appropriated um the city's general fund budget, uh, some a portion of the city's general fund budget to this fund to uh help with the assistance of those that catalyze um research and innovation.

Um this can be companies who uh have uh scalable increases in research and innovation uh for startups in our community in our city's targeted industries.

Um for this year's fiscal 2026 budget, the department recommended um a million dollars to continue our growth stage grant programs.

In February of 2023, we presented to the Small Business Advisory Committee as well as the Economic Workforce Development Committee on our recommendation for several uh pilot growth stage grant programs.

Um these were to support those companies who showed scalable increase or scale scalable um growth in their companies.

Um this could be through export uh oriented business or startups who had demonstrated growth in commercialization.

Um and the goal with these programs was to retain and grow headquarters here in San Antonio.

There's a couple of factors for this.

One um headquarters are uh important catalysts for retaining professional development here in San Antonio, and they also work to um continue to grow our innovation hubs here in the city.

And so the the goal for these grant programs was to create a continuous virtuous business cycle.

So this allowed for these companies to have access to capital that maybe previously wasn't uh there and experiment with different growth plans to um get to them to get them to that next stage of development.

Um this was also um something that we generated to promote those long-term relationships with businesses here in San Antonio.

So I'll start with our our second stage grant program.

Uh we have the survey data from uh from six months now that the program's um been in effect.

Um with that we awarded a total of 450,000 in funding to uh a total of nine grant uh grantees.

Um from the six-month survey data, we had four out of nine report revenue growth in those past six months since their execution, and uh a combined total of 7.06 million in cumulative cumulative revenue growth from those companies.

Um, and and these companies are those that demonstrated uh again that they were expert oriented, but had uh two years of revenue or employment growth in the past five years.

They also had submitted a written growth plan to show what the their business model and marketing plan would look like, um and they were also approved by uh this committee as well as city council.

Um and there's a couple great stories here that I want to mention, particularly Cowboy Technologies who had used the funding to employ different marketing strategies that the company previously didn't have access to.

This opened up a lot of opportunities for them on the business development side, and it's now going to be something they continue to use down the line and mark their budgets for because it had such a transformative impact on their pipeline on their business development.

Additionally, there's a lot of companies here who had an additional employee added with the with the grant funding.

And this was pivotal, pivotal to opening up capacity for the business, whether that be to applying for federal contracts or expanding their senior operations and leadership.

So that was our second stage grant program, and we're going to be recommending some proposed guideline changes for this year's funding.

Now, for the most part, we had a lot of discussions with our partners with the grantees of this program and also just on our daily business retention and growth visits that we do with companies to see you know what necessarily can we tweak about this program and what might expand the pool of applicants to help with the intention of this program.

And so this year we'll be recommending a slight change to the employment levels for the employment requirements for this program.

We're looking to recommend 100 employees or less, which is again to help with targeting those startup companies who may have a smaller employment range but are still capable of demonstrating that growth potential for a second stage company.

We're also recommending an adjustment to the wage requirement for new full-time employees.

This was previously set at 1715 hour, which was the current COSA wage at that time, minimum wage at that time, and now we are recommending $20 an hour to meet the to align with our ready to work OJT program requirement of $20 per hour as well.

So just to continue that alignment, we've we've recommended that adjustment.

And then we're also adjusting the industries for this grant program to focus on our five strategic industries.

As you may remember, that's mobility, our corporate services, bioscience, IT and security infrastructure, as well as our mobility, if I didn't mention that, or corporate services, excuse me.

Now we're also looking to recommend a maximum of 100,000 per grantee for this, and this is again to expand the growth potential here.

This money can be used for additional equipment and additional staff member marketing strategies, things that are going to get them to that next level.

And we're hoping that 100,000 can hope amplify the effects that we've seen in those economic multipliers that we've seen with the previous pilot program.

Next, I'm going to discuss our SBIR STTR programs.

So as many of you know, the small business innovation research programs and the small business technology transfer programs are administered by the small business administration.

And we had a matching grant program that piggybacked off the success of this of these federal dollars.

Now these are federal contracts that are given to startups that are companies who have employed less than 500 employees and are headquartered here within the US.

The important thing about these programs is that it's non-dilutive funding.

And so this is critical for startup companies who don't want to let go of equity in the early stages of development.

And it's also a really great way to meet with subject matter experts and get vetting from appropriate federal agencies within their subject matter field.

And so we had our SBIR matching grant program in 2024, which had awarded 11 grants, total grants, and a total program funding of 581,000.

We've had a great amount of success with this program, and I'll speak a little bit on some examples that I experienced meeting with some of these companies and discussing with them through their reporting and their survey data.

But they have a lot of honestly really innovative and groundbreaking technology that's going on here in San Antonio.

These companies have used the funding to provide additional employees for their staff.

They're working closely with UTSA.

And so there's been some significant impacts to their business development side of things as well as their operations.

Cigna Map, I can speak on.

They have a grant with a federal agency on spatial omics, and they recently hired a PHD student with UTSA in statistics.

And what's really cool about this is that they're helping to develop some analysis that helps them look at the molecular molecular structure of DNA using statistics and applying that to pharmaceutical outcomes.

So being able to have you know these funds really frees up a lot of their ability to manage operations sides of things, but also the research side of things.

So we've had a report reported growth of revenue of 3.36 million dollars.

And again, eight out of 11 employees of these grantees have reported revenue growth.

So significant impacts here.

So instead of the previous SBIR, STTR, federal ward at time of application, we're requesting that they have an existing award within the last two years.

This is really to accommodate for the fact that the federal government did pause the program in October of 2025.

And so we want to be considerate of that new new information.

Additionally, we're looking at maximizing the phase two award to uh up to 100,000 based on the company's needs and submitted budget.

Um, and this is really to help with the relative difference of the federal programs for phase one.

Typically, these awards are up to 250,000, and for phase two, it's anywhere to two million, three million dollars.

So we want to just be reflective that of that in our program, uh, given the significant funding needs for that phase two award.

For the program budget for the growth stage grants, we're recommending a split of that one million dollars between uh uh the respective programs of $500,000 each between the matching grant program and the second stage company grant program.

Um, and this was again uh um a decision by us but based on the the company needs here as well as the um applicant pools that we are expecting to see um if this were to launch uh for timeline.

So we did uh have some robust conversations at the small business advisory uh committee earlier in January and share this program with them.

Um additionally, um if this were to be approved, we would uh launch our marketing plan in early uh February, spring, and then uh with applications to tentatively open in in early March.

We would then um have applications close, staff review of applications in spring, May, May time period, um, and then we would take those uh recommended applicants back to you for uh consideration in the May June of 2026.

Um get approved would then be taken to city council for further uh consideration in August of 2026 with an estimated um fully executed agreement in September of 2026.

Um so that's our projected timeline for our recommended our department's recommendation today is to approve the growth stage grant program for a total program budget of one million dollars.

Um this funding is available in the fiscal year 2026 Economic Development Incentive Fund, and that's all I have for you today.

Thank you for the presentation.

So can I get a motion to approve the proposed FY 2026 growth stage growth stage grant program?

Uh motion to approve the growth stage grant program proposal.

I've got a motion in a second, we can begin conversation.

Uh thank you, Sarah, for the presentation.

I think the one the one thing, the slide I want to go back to uh in terms of I think it was just slide number seven uh of the eight of the eleven, and then um uh four and seven.

So um with the second stage grant awards and results to date, we saw um, and I know this was just a six-month survey, a four out of nine, and then we saw an eight out of eleven.

So I know this is a month to date, and it doesn't mean that their revenue isn't going to grow, but if we could get um in a memo form, just kind of what some of the problems why we why they didn't see it within this survey, I'd appreciate that because I want to uh look at is it do we need to then require a little more of their companies or just set our expectations that it's going to take at least three years from the uh from the investment stage to the revenue growth stage, or is it they didn't see revenue growth because they were adding on new employees, had to pay for different benefits, um things like that.

So that's the one thing.

Just because something doesn't grow in revenue doesn't mean that it did not that that there wasn't growth, it just may have meant to stay competitive, they had to hire a few more people or uh invest in uh more marketing or something like that.

So if we could just have kind of an explanation on what we saw, um just because if we see some characteristics on the revenue growth where it was like nah, they just it just didn't work.

When we make our decisions regarding the next uh round, maybe we want to look um a little more discerningly at where a company sits, especially for those uh second stage grant awards as the economy gets tighter and things get more difficult if they are going strictly out of for uh dollars that are related to state or federal funding, that's another thing is getting paid might be slowed down quite a bit, and that could do that.

So um other than that, no, I I I appreciate the changes.

Um for the full-time employees.

The one thing in terms of employment for both guidelines, you have um 100 employees or less.

That's full-time employees, correct?

Uh so it would be uh a hundred employees or less, um, and that's part-time and full-time.

Okay.

All right.

And then um when y'all make the decision, I don't know if y'all take into consideration how many are part-time and how many are full-time, but to to take that into consideration.

Yeah, we request um uh documentation just to show that they have those um employees on the roles during the application process.

Okay, yes, that that uh that would help.

And then with the uh the uh SBIR STTR matching grant, they have 40 employees and less if we could see that also.

And I want to open it up to my uh council colleagues that may have questions.

Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Sarah, for the presentation.

I'm supportive of the staff uh adjustments, particularly the increase to the 20 an hour in benefits, but similar to the request of the chair, um, pleased to hear that we are requesting how many full-time and part-time employees when they're applying to participate with this program.

Um with the expectation that the applicants stay within the city during the duration of the program, uh, with this pilot, have y'all identified any applicants that did leave uh after completing the pilot?

Not at this time, no.

Um so we they still remain um in San Antonio, the the businesses you see.

Um now we we have to again uh administer the financial reports and the uh surveys at the six month, eighteen month, and thirty-six month intervals.

And so we'll be doing a continual kind of check-in to see if that company is still here, but for reporting sake, no, the uh no companies have left San Antonio.

Thank you for that.

And then in terms of the information that's being tracked as well, uh, are we tracking how many um employees are local and how many uh maybe working remotely?

Yes, so um we do have um part of the application is uh is their local workforce.

I don't believe we have the current stipulation of if that employee is remote or not, but we can consider that in the uh uh the future fiscal year 26 application.

And then uh moving on to the timeline, uh let's see.

When the applications open, will um you all come back to the committee to give us an update or what would that look like?

Yes, so um we are currently expecting to come back here um early summer.

So we're hoping those applications um launched successfully and that we can close once we've reached um uh that exhaustive funding level of recommendations, and so we would then come back to this committee with our recommended applicants um for the for each program respectively.

Thanks, and when that comes back to committee in May or June, uh I I think the information that the chair requested, I I would like to have an opportunity to review as well as uh the local hires as well.

Okay, those are all my comments.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Uh Councilman Gobline.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, sir, for the presentation.

Um I think it really makes a lot of sense to really make sure that we're focusing in on our um our key sectors here.

Um it just makes sense for our general growth here.

I did want to ask a question though about that.

I don't know if we track it already or we can review it.

If we've been reviewing it, um, how many of the recipients so far are within each bucket or each cluster bucket?

That's a good question.

I don't have the the data on that, but I know with SBIR, you're dealing mainly with IT or bioscience companies.

And so there's a significant amount within the SBIR matching grantees.

For the second stage, I'd have to get a breakdown for you on that.

Okay.

But these are all companies who are headquartered here in San Antonio.

And a lot of them were also federal contractors as well.

Got it.

That's helpful.

Just so we can see if there's any different trends as we go move over move forward with this.

No, so for um, and this may not be uh explicit in the in the guidelines here that I presented today, but in the in the guidelines and what uh was drafted in our previous agreements.

If there was a new employment, it had to be at the project site, and that project site would have to be located in San Antonio.

Got it.

Okay, that's helpful.

You said for new employment, correct?

Uh yes, for new employment.

Okay.

Um there was another question I had here.

Let me see.

How long are the each agreements typically lasting?

I know the phase for the SBIR, the phases are a bit different, but how long is the second stage one?

So um that was an agreement term of one year.

Of one year.

And we would have required those surveys at the 18 month and 36 month, even though the term did complete.

Okay, got it.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um last thing I was gonna say was um, you know, I I think similar to the kind of focus on the local hiring, I would like to see ways that we can continue to well, they're also here, so I guess that's one thing.

So I really appreciate the fact that all the HQs are still based here and haven't seen any movement away just yet, and hopefully it doesn't happen at all.

I was gonna make sure the R tax dollars are staying here and keeping them that business here.

Um any kind of uh recapture um agreements uh or in the guidelines itself.

I would like to see some of those, even if it's a memo for that after this, so we can kind of make sure that if entities do end up leaving, they were able to recapture some of that investment that we put into them.

Those are all my comments and questions.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilman Councilman Meskinz.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

Um I had a couple of questions on the the $20 an hour.

I appreciate the um increase in that.

Um, but was curious if if those $20 are for the the grant that's for the grant funding of of the for the grants.

Um so it would be any new additional employees that they hire um after execution of the grant agreement.

But okay and these would be full-time employees.

So the the business in itself does not have to pay the $20, it's just for this program.

It would be any additional staff hired um at the after the uh agreement is executed.

Okay.

And then I noticed here the wage alignment alignment with ready to work.

Um so I'm assuming are do they uh essentially become partners to Ready to Work if they fulfill that?

That's a good question.

So um we do try to connect businesses.

This is one of those uh programs that is really great at for forming relationships with these companies.

Um these second stage companies and SBIR companies have been engaged with uh with ready to work in some way, whether we've you know um requested that they pledge with a ready to work or um connected to them to workforce programs, but it's currently not a requirement that they um proceed to to engage with ready to work programs.

Is there a way to to connect to make not the requirement, but well, yes, I I would love for that to be a requirement, but is it possible to is there a way to formally align with ready to work then or um I can't?

Sorry, I can kind of jump in here a little bit.

And I know Joel, y'all you're right there as well.

My my thought on that, council member, is that the on the job training um process that that's somewhat of a different application process.

Do we want to cross-pollinate the two?

Yes, absolutely, and we would encourage them to apply for those on-the-job training opportunities, but to automatically um enroll them.

I think we we wouldn't be able to do that because we have to show what are they gonna teach that person.

What what skills is that employee gonna learn, um, which is a little bit different from what we're trying to accomplish here.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Um and then just to reiterate the chair's point on the four out of nine grantees at reported revenue growth.

Um just less than half.

So want to make sure that right we're um supporting them and uh in the right ways and and making sure that before they enter a program like this, it's uh it's something that they can also see on their horizon for themselves that you know they're growing as a company.

I think that's important for us.

Um, and then as this relates to bioscience, I know this isn't an industry that we necessarily incentivize, correct?

Um, we do with our strategic industry of uh bioscience and biocatalysts, yes.

Okay, can I guess can you send a report on what that looks like?

Is I'm not as familiar with that on the industries or the uh types of incentives?

Both, okay.

Thank you.

Those are all my questions.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Uh so thank you.

I think y'all have a lot of kind of follow-up information, but we do have a motion and a second.

Um there being no further discussion, we have a motion and a second to approve the proposed fiscal year 2026 growth stage grant program.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

Motion carries.

All right, we're gonna move on to item number three.

It's an update on target occupations for the ready to work program.

And there is a staff presentation.

Hi, good afternoon.

Uh, this my name is Joel Morgan.

I'm the assistant director of workforce development uh with the City of San Antonio.

Uh we administer the ready to work program.

Um let's dive right in.

So um again, the Red to Work Program has and continues to make adjustments based upon uh what employer needs are being directed, as well as some of the direction that y'all are giving us as well.

Uh we briefed council on some of these updates uh November 12th and December 11th at BA session, specifically looking at occupations and whether or not we were going to be trimming down the occupation pool that we currently had.

Uh, based upon those briefings, the advisory board stood up a working group that started uh looking at the data uh extensively come November of last year through January of this year.

That working uh session produced a number of different occupations that were being set up for review and ultimately up for uh approval to be removed.

Um January of this year, uh the full board took the recommendation that was presented by committee uh in December and actually decided to remove occupations.

We can go ahead and review those now.

So nine occupations at that January board meeting were approved to be removed.

Um you can see up on the screen, but I'll review it with you.

Uh, transportation and warehouse industry, uh, compliance officers was uh set to be a removed dietitians, nutritionists, uh, MRI techs, medical dosimetrists, uh, natural science managers, machinists, roofers, personal financial uh advisors, and security commodities financial service agents.

Um these were suggested for removal and ultimately approved based upon underperforming and underutilized within the ready to work program.

So they weren't meeting our placement uh outcomes as well as our graduation rate outcomes and or the market was not strong.

We were utilizing data from greater SATX uh to look at um Lightcast reports and determine what the forecast would be for some of these different programs.

Um so again, the board uh determined that it was the course of action we should take would would be to remove.

So that again happened in January.

Prior to that, um several months back, 11 were actually removed prior to that.

So again, we want to illustrate that even though uh this body has been making recommendations, we've been actually analyzing and looking at the uh program from that same lens of performance and metrics since its inception, but specifically within the last 18 months, there's been an aggressive approach to look at and make sure that we're hitting the right metrics and putting out a good product uh for the citizens of San Antonio, in specific uh 11 uh occupations that were removed prior to these last nine.

You can see phlebotomists, operations, research analysts, computer hardware engineers, bookkeeping and accounting, medical secretaries and admin assistants, computer information system managers, information security analysts, computer network, um, support specialists, network and computer systems administrator, web developers, and digital interface and general operations managers.

Um prior to that, there were two that were also removed, uh, analyst management and paralegals were also removed for a total of 22 occupations since inception, which have been removed from the offering in the catalog.

So that leaves us with a grand total of 62 ready-to-work target occupations that are still active.

Um we are continuing to monitor uh those 62 to make sure that they are delivering on the metrics that have been uh set forth.

Um we also wanted to highlight the fact that we're not just looking at removing occupations that are underperforming, but looking to uh put marketing and emphasis behind those that are doing well.

So it's not just about uh cutting those that are are doing poorly, but it's about building up and lifting up the ones that we know have strong support from employers and that are performing well.

So um there are a total of 20 occupations in in specific that we're looking to target and to market to push out even greater out into the community.

These are uh occupations that are performing at least at 70 percent plus or above with regards to approved job placement within six months.

Again, you can see a heavy emphasis up here on education.

There's some manufacturing, um, there's some trades that are also listed on there.

If we go to the next slide, you can see carpenters, first line construction trades, uh community health workers and some health care fields on here, not a surprise, paramedics, uh LVNs, nurses, uh rad techs, things of that nature.

So, again, there are some good programs that are actually performing quite well, and we're looking to build those up.

And that is our report.

Any questions?

This item is for briefing only.

Um I am hearing what I don't see on there, and but what I'm hearing we have a need for is court reporters at the county level.

Are we working with them on any way to make that and I know technology is changing, but we still need people for the bigger uh cases.

And if I always say if the courthouse slows down, it kind of slows down what we do on part part here at the city.

Do we have any interest at looking at that or maybe working with the county on looking at how we get more court reporters?

Excellent question.

Actually, court reporting came before uh the advisory board um last year, early last year, and a presentation was made from uh ACD, uh one of our uh educational providers, as well as a light cast report where we were digging in looking at the forecasting.

That time the board decided that there wasn't enough, there weren't enough positions that we're gonna be opening up that would be able to support bringing it on, but it's always something that could be looked at.

The wages were quite strong when it was presented, and there is opportunity, but the board at that time deemed that it wasn't strong enough to move forward.

I and I understand that, but I think I think the county's not hiring because they're just not there, you know, and and that's the other thing is if we do that here and they can go out to our uh our neighboring counties, we might want to look at that again just because of the wages and the fact that um as we have another election with new judges.

I am hoping that the judges that are in the courthouse start to move a little faster.

So um the I just want to keep that on the radar.

The other is um is there work or coin coordination with the military in terms of veterans, in terms of what they may have in terms of military training, and if we could have uh target occupation that helps transition.

So if they were a medic in the military, can we can we look at getting them something within the medical fields here through the ready to work?

I think I'd like to look at that too as we move forward, and then the other target occupation that I I and I don't even know what you call it yet because it seems so new, um, is as we look at humans to kind of help with that artificial intelligence piece.

Uh, and I know if we could be cutting edge and seeing what programs are out there, whether it's something that the community colleges do, or something that you know is a six-week course, and it could be adjacent to something else.

We might want to look at that also.

And then, of course, um to end with digital is um like we have community health care workers, we have digital navigators now that help with that, and uh that might be where you we combine, and if we could do a six-week certification program.

I don't know who's hiring other than um in terms of digital navigators.

I think Methodist Healthcare Ministries is looking at that.

I think Methodist Healthcare Ministries is looking at that, um possibly ARP for the seniors, and then others that uh offer something are moving online, may we may need to partner with those.

So those are just my uh thoughts.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

I am I understand that the occupation removal is some of the um some of the categories that I see the occupation titles.

It it seems like for some of them, they may be have more people entering the field.

And the other thing is I think um it's so fast the way we're seeing with the technology where the like when I look at bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerk, a lot of that is because that's online now and the reality of that.

So thank you for the presentation.

I look forward to hearing from my committee members who would like to go first.

Rick, uh Councilman Gabon, sorry.

Thank you, Chair.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Uh really appreciate kind of going through the important successes too.

Ready to work.

I really appreciate the last two slides.

I did want to know if we could get uh the raw numbers of number of jobs that have been created through each of these occupations and sectors.

Um I was thinking more about this, even in terms of uh the community health, education opportunities committee, uh, thinking about the kind of impact we're having through ready to work on these sectors in our community and just literally employing uh well, training and employing uh educators, health workers, um directly, pretty much.

And so if we can get those round numbers, that'd be really helpful.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we have that data.

I would tell you uh the program's matured enough now to where uh having data is not a problem.

We have plenty of data on on what's out there and what the interest levels are, and we also take census and work with the employers, so we have a good uh idea of what they're looking for as well.

That's great.

That'd be really helpful.

Um I don't think I have too many other questions beyond that one.

Let me see.

Um I mean, uh of course, with the phasing out of the other ones, uh other occupations, uh something we've talked about at a B session, so I appreciate this deeper dive, uh, the next steps of it.

Um especially the IT ones.

I mean, of course, I know it's a key sector, and I think it's an important sector in the community, uh, but it's definitely something that we've heard directly from residents in our district uh who have gone through the ready work process and just the struggles of getting into that.

The industry is always difficult.

Um, and yeah, I'll leave that there.

I think that's it.

Thank you so much.

I think I could add something to um I didn't mention during the presentation.

But even though these are being removed, there is opportunity if employers come to the board and say, hey, we are interested, even for ones that are removed to uh set up what we call cohort trainings or say a sponsors uh sponsorship program where they could come in and say, I will hire so many individuals off of this program, and the board would have the ability to pivot based upon what industry is saying.

So it's being removed generally, but if an employer comes and expresses interest, there is opportunity to re-engage.

That's great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Joel, for the presentation.

I think this is a necessary step to ensure that ready to work continues to place individuals in jobs.

And I'm looking at the dashboard and 3,713 participants placed in approved jobs, right?

That's impactful.

Um, so just really grateful for the work that y'all have done uh in terms of job placement with the sectors or the occupations rather that are being eliminated.

I think this was a necessary step, as I already mentioned.

I'm reminded of one of the job fairs that we had in district five, and there were a handful of folks with their IT credentials that were sharing their story of uh not getting a call back, having a difficulty with placement.

Uh, and I think you know, with these resources and this program, we should be setting folks up uh for success.

Um, and I think with this step, um, we're in a better position to make sure that folks are getting the training where there's uh work on the other end of the program.

Um, you know, the chair touched on a couple of uh points, uh, but I'm curious to if y'all found in terms of some of these sectors like with IT and health care.

Uh, is it over saturation?

Is it uh key industries or businesses have left?

Uh, what have you all found in terms of uh why there's been difficulty with placement with some of these um uh certifications?

It's kind of a mixture of a lot of different things, quite frankly.

Um in some cases there could be a little bit of saturation with some pockets specifically on the IT side, but what we're finding is getting with the employers and making sure that we're aligning the training specifically to what the employer is looking for instead of just producing certificates that aren't necessarily targeted to some of our key employers that we work with.

Um that's been a focus actually uh for the better part of about 18 months.

Um, and we're starting to see some of the fruits of that.

We've had actually pretty strong last three, four months with regards to placements on some of that focus.

Um, but again, we really can't tie it specifically just to overproducing.

Although I will tell you, we are looking at uh not just trimming down occupations but also looking at the training providers directly within those occupations to make sure that they're adhering.

So there's there's a double trimming that goes on.

You have the occupation and then the training providers underneath, and so we're analyzing both of those at the same time.

I think I appreciate that.

And of course, as um uh council member God mentioned, right?

A lot of the success with uh community health care and uh education.

I think there's a lot of opportunity uh within the education committee for us to see where there's opportunity to support those um folks who have graduated from the program.

Yeah, definitely.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilman Messiganthals.

Thank you.

Um I had a question.

I don't know if on future presentations you can provide the amount of participants in each of these areas, just a you know, a column that shows just how many are participating.

Um I think that's helpful, and then the the industries that were removed, the folks in those industries that are currently enrolled in programs, nothing affects them, correct?

Great question.

No, it does not, um, even though the occupation itself is being removed, individuals that have already been trained will receive the same level of of care um and assistance as anyone else on the we're just not getting more individuals.

Getting more, yeah, I just wanted to confirm that.

And then, yeah, I think this is um I um support ready to work and really believe there's a ready to part and the work part, and this is that focus on the ready to part, right?

Making sure we're getting these participants ready to enter the workforce, uh, trained properly with high paying, you know, ready to accept those high paying jobs.

So um I appreciate the a presentation on the ready to part because I haven't seen much of that yet.

It's been focused on the other on the um on the work part.

So uh thank you for that.

Uh those are all my questions.

Thanks.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh, this item was for briefing only, so we will move on to the next item.

Item four is an item to establish a work group to explore the sales of City of San Antonio branded merchandise to promote San Antonio's global visibility and generate additional revenue.

This one is near and dear to my heart.

Um but uh I I don't I do not believe there is a presentation, but I do believe uh Alex is going to speak on this.

Yes, ma'am, and it's really just to open up a discussion among the committee about this item.

Um Chair Viegran has has referenced it in the past and the opportunity.

Um in the background memo, we tried to reference um we we have had um a specifically a city store that was at one point you know co-operated, but we've had city staff involved in some of this work, we've had visit San Antonio leading this work, um, and we have a number of departments that design produce um amazing merchandise that um could easily be sold, um and and we definitely know that there's an opportunity there.

Um but really it was about um discussing with this committee if that's something that we want to explore further, and if so, what kind of um expertise would we want to have in that kind in that working group if we want to do that type of research?

We did bring a couple samples so that if you're trying to think of like what what are we really talking about?

I know that the chair in the past has mentioned you know, there's LAPD or NYPD, you know, having something with our police and our fire departments, but we also have just other items that um we often give away as gifts for um on uh dignitaries.

We've got commemorative items that oftentimes we're told can we buy that?

No, you can't.

Technically, we we just make a couple of them.

So it could be from that extreme all the way to just something that you want to take um home if you're visiting San Antonio and you want something lightweight that you can take back to your family, having things that are branded, marketed um with the city of San Antonio specific, um either logos or or branding.

Yeah, so that's what we're thinking of.

Thank you.

Can you show some of the items?

Um if you don't if you if you're traveling and you just need something light, these are court coasters with the city's quadrifoil on them.

Um so they're they're kind of all over the place.

These are a couple of t shirts that parks and rec produces.

I don't know if y'all have seen them.

There, there's they do like the the different Loteria tiles.

So for different years, that was 24.

I think this one was 23.

It's got like a whistle on them.

Um sorry, let me see.

Our um global engagement office um produces these for international dignitaries that visit us.

It's a commemorative tie.

This one has the Alamo, it has all the missions on here.

Um, and then there's usually a matching scarf also for that.

But um you you can't really buy these anywhere.

Uh these these are just something that we offer as gifts.

So these are kind of some of the things that we just a sample of what we we wanted to see if this is what y'all would consider.

There's also the opportunity, what we saw other cities do is have um not a storefront, but just a virtual presence, where we would be able to um have these items listed and people could could order from there.

And you um I I don't know exactly what the process is called, but they basically make them as you order them.

So that would eliminate the cost and the the challenge with keeping an inventory um and all of the work associated with having a storefront as well, which our friends that have operated storefronts in the past will tell us that it it can be quite challenging to do that part.

So that I'm there's a couple of us here.

Me, Mario is back there with Visit San Antonio.

We've got Colleen Swain, who was actually involved with the city store previously as well.

Crystal Jones with Arts and Culture.

We've all kind of been brainstorming on this a little bit.

So if we can answer any questions, we're here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alex.

So as we look at the new airport and what we have coming there, as we talk uh about cities, uh cities like Louisiana and Orlando.

That if you talk uh New Orleans, I should say, New Orleans and Orlando is if you talk about them, people globally know where they are, and that's because they've done a good job of branding.

So this was one of the things that I wanted to bring up at the task force.

Of course, I uh will sit on the task force because I sit on the Visit San Antonio board and it was my idea, so I don't want to burden that with y'all.

But uh I would like another council member to volunteer, but this is really a time just to for briefing and discussion in terms of who you think should sit on it.

Uh we don't want it to be too big.

Um, and then also uh establish maybe another time where we come back where the the group comes back with what our our goals and expectations are so that the committee can review that.

And if you have any questions for um the visit San Antonio team, Mario and Justin are here.

Uh we did do a visit San Antonio store where there were tons of magnets and things, but nothing with the city of San Antonio logo in particular.

But Colleen can speak of when they had the visit San Antonio store, and then um Crystal can speak to how we engage some of our artists in and doing that.

As you know, municipal courts has done a great job of branding.

I've they've gave us a pair of socks, I believe.

They have some really nice bags.

Um we we all know about the Fiesta medals, we've all done our own stickers.

So this would be something where uh we talk about the process of how we put this online for for others to kind of use and how we trademark, and then we'll get legal involved to see what we have to do with the money if we if if it becomes a hit and goes, you know, worldwide.

Everybody wants to visit uh City of San Antonio t-shirt, um, where we would put these dollars, which I'm leaning towards the general fund.

Oh, but let's um we can have that conversation.

So I'd love your input.

And y'all are more than welcome to ask anybody who's here questions.

Uh who'd like to go first?

Uh Councilman Galwann.

Yeah, thank you so much, Chair, for bringing this conversation here.

I know something uh we've talked about bits and pieces here and there, something that I really hold near and dear, because I want every library shirt possible.

Um, but I also think uh in terms of the direct question about who do you want to be a part of this task force or group.

Um I think of course arts makes sense to me, VSA makes sense to me.

I also think OHP, uh World Heritage uh could be a part of that, um just given the fact that they manage some of the most iconic structures here.

Um I also think ACS personally.

Um I think they have an incredible graphic design team, an incredible marketing team that just is able to really capture what a lot of our uh I mean some of the most successful events in our city are.

Uh so I think just kind of giving their expertise from that group would be good.

But I think overall, I what I would like to see come from this, of course, is uh the revenue if possible, but also um the sense of pride that I think residents can get uh about their neighborhood park or their neighborhood library or their place that they've gone to that's a public facility to give that sense of pride and um I'm trying to think of the right word for it.

Something that captures the spirit of that I really believe this is something that's part of our everyday life, right?

That is what public government and city government is.

It's not necessarily just this big entity, it's something that does natural the work that we do every single day, even the garbage pickup, right?

Like that is something that we just cannot neglect and we take for granted often.

So I think that to try to capture that feeling of pride and and civic government is just what I'm trying to look for here.

But I think I'll stop there.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Anyone else want to speak on this?

Councilman Castilla.

Uh thank you, Chair.

I really uh appreciate your idea of particularly uh getting inside the San Antonio Airport to sell um what this merch can look like uh similar to Councilmember Valvan.

I believe Animal Care Service has a great marketing team.

Uh and uh municipal courts has uh identified a really interesting swag, right?

I'm thinking in terms if it's at an airport, municipal courts has a blanket, and if we're at airport, sometimes you need a blanket.

Um and they just have the items that their team uh has ordered in terms of swag is just uh really useful.

Uh and I think it's important to have like functional swag, right?

Not something you're gonna buy and then throw away.

Um I I think there is opportunity.

Um I'm thinking about our fire stations, right?

Each fire station, they come up with their own design, their own slogan.

Uh and I think it'd be great to have the fire department come up with one for the city of San Antonio where they it it's what the firefighters believe like represents our fire department uh on a t shirt would be uh really good.

And then of course, uh the library also with Smarty.

I think there's a lot of opportunity with swag there as well.

Um so just really looking forward to the discussion, and then of course um what items come to fruition.

Really exciting.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilman Mescadas.

I'll say something because everybody else is um no, this is great.

Uh I appreciate the conversation and um yeah, any opportunity to highlight our libraries, I think would be great.

Um Cody Libraries and District Eight.

So I'd wear a t-shirt that's at Cody Library all day.

Um but yeah, I think people really do connect with the libraries.

Um and then our the artists, all the artwork that we have at the city, if there's any way we can work with them to have any prints available at the airport, I think would be um good for them as well.

And um I think yeah, and I mean if you've traveled right to New York or something, you always see those NY FD shirts, and so just some generic uh SA FD shirts would be great.

And um, so yeah, look forward to it and um happy to make any recommendations when when need necessary.

Thank you.

Uh yes, Councilman Castilla.

If no one else volunteers, I'd like to volunteer to serve on the subcommittee.

Yeah, yes.

So uh we have our two subcommittee members from um our two members, uh, council member Castillo and myself.

Now I did get a list before we and I I will check with uh councilman Spears if there's any other we did get a number of departments.

Is there any other department y'all think we should include or any would you like us to bring in business people now, or should you wait until the initial group starts is my next question to you?

Uh so uh so that the as the two options that Alex brought us was do we do virtual or do we look at a store?

And so I don't know if you want us to come with items and ideas first, and then we can have EWDC possibly look at the different what two different store option trademark options would look like if we need to do trademarks, and then bring in members from the business community that would possibly vendors.

So I didn't know if you wanted if y'all wanted to see product before or how we're going to integrate the art piece before with just a small group with the city, or if we want to bring in people from um the community at this point.

Um Chair, uh, what I would share is that there's a number of different options.

Those are the two that are that I articulated.

Another one that came up quite a bit as we were just brainstorming is just um not just, but the concept of licensing these things and selling them in already existing um retail options.

So you know there's just there's a lot that could be done.

We know we've got the ideas and the creativity, but we we're we're this is not necessarily what we do operating retail um like this.

That that that's not something we have experience in.

So at what point do we want to engage with that level of expertise?

I I think it makes sense bringing them together at the same time.

Whether it's different like focus groups in that way, and then they kind of merge together.

I think it's worthwhile.

Just I think it'll take time to figure that out, right?

What works for a city government to create this kind of tea?

I think this will make sense, but if it is another way that we can do it, that's also great.

Um I don't think I have any other suggestions for who else to be on there at the moment.

Okay, so we'll meet initially as the group that's been brainstorming, and then from there we'll we'll we'll we'll tie we'll keep you guys updated regarding the focus group with the retail uh piece on it, and then if we need ideas from you all about who we bring in for retail, uh we can do that too through this committee.

Um, and so we'll we'll send out a calendar date of when we can meet meet and hopefully what was the date I said, Alex, that we were gonna report back to EWDC?

Was it March?

I go back and check.

Okay.

Uh well we will report this group will report back to you before we, of course, move forward to the full council so you guys can get an idea.

Um, so thank you, Councilman Castilla, for volunteering.

Uh this was we need to take a motion.

This was a for a motion.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't even do the so um we need a motion and a second that we can move forward with the work group to explore the sell of city San Antonio branded merchandise.

Can I get a motion?

Can I get a second?

All those in favor say aye.

All opposed say no.

Motion carries.

All right, thank you.

Uh the time is now 3 02, and the meeting is now adjourned.