Economic and Workforce Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Is Debbie here? Oh, no. The time is now 10.38 a.m. on August 31st, 2026, and the meeting of the Economic and Workforce Development Committee is now called to order. Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Council Member Castillo. Council Member Calvan. Council Member Mesa-Gonzalez. Council Member Spears. Chair Villagran. Here.

Chair, we have quorum. Thank you. So I want to thank y'all for indulging us. In the delay, we were at the press conference for the storm on the update, and we are all wanting to make sure that all the information gets out and gets out accurately. So please share that with the with your community members. And I will mention that the San Antonio Food Bank is looking for volunteers. So if you know any groups that need some volunteer work, we're gonna put that out there too. So the first item on the agenda is approval of the minutes. Are there any corrections to the minutes? Can I get a motion and a second to approve the minutes? I've got a motion and a second. All in favor? Is there any discussion? I'm sorry. No discussion. Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, say no. Motion carries. Madam Clerk, are there any citizens signed up to speak on the item for public comment?

No, Chair.

There's no public comment.

All right.

Okay, so we will begin with items that were on consent that actually we're gonna move, I'm gonna move. The first item on consent is item two, recommended the Workforce Solutions Alamo FY2027 operating budget in the amount of 195 million $380,770 to full city council for B session on September 16th, 2026. Do I need to make an amendment or? Okay, so I wanna on consent take this to B session so we can get a bigger presentation on this. It has been asked, well, I know Councilman Spears wanted to hear this one because it's related to the county. The mayor has requested, and I'm pretty sure we're going to have others. So if I can get a motion to approve item number two to move to a B session on September 16, 2026. We've got a motion and a second. So we will not have a staff presentation at this time. We will wait until the B session. So with that, is there any other questions or discussions? Okay, with all that, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Motion carries. The second item on the consent is item three to recommend growth state grant program applications to the full city council for award. Can I get a motion to approve item three? Can I get a second? I've got a motion and a second. Would the staff like a present, would the committee like a presentation? Okay, no? All right. So there is no presentation. This is a consent item. Is there any discussion?

Yes.

Yes. Okay, we do have a question.

Sorry about that. Nine of the 20 applicants were ineligible. I just was curious the disqualifying reasons.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. My name is Rebecca Acuna. I'm the Business Advancement Manager. So to answer your question, there were a total of 20 applicants, and nine of them are being recommended. Eleven of them were found not to be eligible for reasons of they did not meet the qualifications for the second stage, which would have been demonstrating at least two years of growth. over the last five years or not having at least $1 million of annual revenue. And then for the SBIR, SDTR grants, there were, you had to have received a SBIR grant at the federal level. And one of them, one of the other ones for the second stage was not in the, within one of COSA's districts.

And all of that was clear before they applied?

Those were all written down in the grant stage guidelines. Okay. Of course, stage guidelines.

Okay, thank you. Thanks.

Any other discussion? All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, say no. Motion carries. The remaining items are for briefing and possible action. item four is a briefing on the economic development strategic framework is there a staff presentation all right The floor is yours.

All right. Good morning, chair and council members. Great to see you all this morning. So we will try to keep this brief, but definitely encourage your feedback and any questions. We just wanted to let you know that our team has been hard at work over the summer since we last met with you all at the end of May. Definitely getting a lot of support from Brenda and Ashley and the team at the Economic Development Department. I'm here with Tom Stelman and Alexis Angelo, who have been working with me on this effort. And we are nearing the finish line, so we've got a draft updated framework. And we've been building on the themes that we've been learning from our stakeholder input. We've had a number of additional key stakeholder interviews. We had a successful small business survey. We had over 180 responses. So we've gotten a lot of great information from that. We've also, if you remember four years ago, we did an online survey of site selectors and real estate professionals, kind of a perception survey of San Antonio as a place for business. This time around, we've been doing, instead of a broad survey, kind of a targeted series of one-on-one interviews with a half dozen site selectors that have worked with San Antonio and considered it as a location for projects and the responses that we've been getting really I think validate a lot of the themes that we've heard and they've been very positive I think Tom and Alexis and I have been really impressed with the positive perception that San Antonio does have as not just within Texas but as a major destination for business growth nationally and even internationally to an extent. We've heard there's definitely some continued messaging that can be enhanced and improved for just telling the story of the city as being open for business, especially in sectors where you have a lot of opportunities. and continuing to focus on infrastructure, real estate, and building on the very strong workforce partnerships that you have through Ready to Work, through Workforce Solutions, through your higher education and K through 12 partners. So we've also done a ton of data analysis. I'm not gonna go into that. We really just wanted to give you a sense of where the updated framework is heading and some of the new and expanded items. And as we're framing the discussion, we're talking about how can San Antonio really level up its economic development efforts. And the way that we're answering that is increasing the competitiveness, competing, again, nationally, internationally, creating new employment opportunities at every level from entry to high skilled, high paying. and also just expanding the wealth and the asset base of the community for your residents, for your businesses, and for the city itself. We know that a commercial tax base is something that needs to continue to expand. So as we get into the updated framework, we've retained at a high level the same three goals, but each one has been improved and amplified. So innovation and industry, placemaking and real estate, and talent and workforce. and we're really asking how can the city level up on each one of those and before we treated the capacity and resources as goal number four we've kind of refined that as really a support mechanism the tools and resources and partnerships that support all three of those key goals and what i wanted to do is just walk through the what has changed from the 2022 framework to the the updated framework So I'm going to go through each one of the three goals and show you what the initiatives and the action level looked like before and then what has changed. And I do want to say that nothing is staying exactly the same. Every one of the strategies and actions is either an elevated or an enhanced area or something that has been new and elevated. So within goal one, We still have the three goal areas. So I'm going to flip back and forth just to kind of be able to show you what's changed and what's new. So we had business development. So we've carried forward a lot of those efforts, building on the successes that you've had, attracting investments from new companies, attracting additional expansions from existing employers. One new item that has really come up is telling the story, the city's story as a business destination. So that's something new that we'll have some additional items around. And then another area that has really been expanded. So jumping to the previous framework, we had 1.3 was entrepreneurship. So we've actually taken the entrepreneurship, and it's still there, but it fits under a higher level innovation So that 1.2 is really looking at things like, I would say it's aligning the city and its partners with the direction that a lot of the entrepreneurship and innovation efforts, not just starting a company, but scaling up a company. So I think the change in strategy that Geekdom is doing to really focus on scaling up companies, that fits into this building on the growing status as UT San Antonio as a major research entity. as well as trying to attract more investment capital for startups and scale-ups. So that's something that's new and enhanced. And the small business strategy, we've tried to really take two major categories. So we're looking at, on the one hand, what are expanded opportunities for procurement, either with the city or with other entities, such as what SupplySA is looking to do and is doing. But then also being clear about what are some strategies for scaling up the business development and growth of small businesses just broader than only procurement. So those are kind of two additional new action items under that small business strategy. So moving into placemaking and real estate. In the previous framework, we had a lot under 2.1 where we focused a lot of the redevelopment and development strategies. So what we've actually done is we've split that one out into two kind of related but kind of different strategies. So on 2.1, the new version of 2.1, Focusing on place-based investment and redevelopment so that includes everything from downtown to community areas to corridors throughout the city and then 2.2 is focused more on creating those larger scale sites for manufacturers advanced manufacturers and those types of business parks So we have been working with our site selection partner, Global Location Strategies to identify. They did an analysis of 10 different sites throughout the city and looked at site readiness. And another change that we've added underneath 2.2 is Before, we had infrastructure as its own separate strategy. We fit most of that transportation and utilities infrastructure under that business site development, since that's where a lot of that falls, where we're talking about new electrical capacity, new water, wastewater capacity. South Texas Parkway is one example of new major transportation corridors to provide greater connectivity to and from some of those business parks. And then the tourism and culture area has been enhanced but retained as well. So focusing on history, community heritage, arts and culture, and tourism. So moving to talent and workforce, this is one where before Ready to Work was just kind of getting off the ground so it fit under a broader workforce development strategy. We have now elevated Ready to Work 2.0, the next iteration of that, as a high-level strategy. And within that is really identifying a sustainable funding and overall program model, focusing on the demand occupations and target populations that will continue to hopefully benefit from the next generation of the program. And congratulations on getting some IEDC awards for the Ready to Work program. So really seeing that progress, wanting to make sure that that's continued. another area that's really at a high level strategy that's new is especially given the growth that you've continued to have and will have with a lot of the economic development wins that you've been working collaboratively as a community to land we know that talent is going to be critical and the broader partnerships between the city between mentioned before, the various workforce and educational partners, but also with the employers themselves. So that talent ecosystem includes new recommendations for expanded sector partnerships, also includes taking a look at AI adoption and creating a forum for educational institutions and employers to collaboratively work on how do we get our workforce more ready for the disruptions that are already happening, but also the opportunities. And then a data component to that, really sharing and providing that talent intelligence across all the different partners. And one thing that I did want to also point out, so we have retained, we have not gotten rid of the wraparound support but is no longer a high-level strategy on its own, but it fits under a broader talent retention and attraction strategy, including focused strategies on military personnel, other key groups that are targeted for talent attraction, but also trying to acknowledge that there's a lot of different partners that support this and not trying to put so much emphasis on the city and the economic development program. Because that wraparound support still includes things like housing, transit, childcare, broadband, overall health. So then that capacity and resources, so before we had tools, partnerships, and new staffing recommendations for the Economic Development Department. So this one is a little bit different now where the tools includes still, of course, economic development incentives, financing. We've also taken a look at land banking and public-private development as more of a tool rather than putting that in with the placemaking and real estate. The partnerships are still there, but really enhanced focus with greater SATX on the overall economic development, business retention and attraction. Many other partners, external partners fit into this as well as other city departments. And then the new strategy here is really acknowledging the difficult funding situation that you are in as well as so many of our clients across the country is really coming up with new actions to pursue additional state and federal funding, but also additional private and philanthropic funding, and then adding grant writing expertise as an action to help address some of those opportunities for additional funding to support economic development, which then in turn supports the overall city and the services that it can deliver. so we are looking at providing a first draft of the updated framework to you all and to the full city council within the next week or two and looking to receive your feedback to be able to finalize the updated framework and have that ready in place for council consideration in a little over a month about a month and a half from now So that is the hopefully brief enough update, but welcome any questions or feedback you all have.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. This is an item for briefing only, so we do not need a motion, but I would love to hear from committee members. I will begin because I want y'all to know where I'm coming from, so if y'all want to debate or challenge or kind of just give me your feedback on how you see it differently. This has become very important because of the recent memos that have come out and because of our current budget conversation. So that is why I think Brenda and Alex and also I see Mike here, is there's gonna be a big ask before y'all come mid-September to kind of talk about things that we just thought we were going to have, and now there's conversation about there might not be an opportunity for that. But I'm confident that if we see the economic importance of a TERS, so TERS is one of them that is in that incentives that we are also discussing during the budget. And that is really important because it is part of our incentive package. So I would really like to see y'all enter in that. And then some of our contracts that we have with groups that were part of the, what, I'm gonna say it, my council colleague, Councilman Castillo called the quinceanera ask. There was Texas Biomed SA, which does a lot of the research and development arm. What would that cost if we as the city had to take that on? Do we even have the staff to do that and recruit for a biomed thing? So there are a lot of things that I think we need to look at that have been placed in memos or put in things that, Um, we, we thought we had, we knew it was gonna get tight, but what does that look as we create our economic framework? The other is San Antonio education partners and the scholarships there. And, um, so those are some things that I want you all to consider before you come back to come back in September. I think I really like the improvements that you've made. for this year. I think what we do need to do is look at on updated goal two, placemaking and real estate. If there is a way we could possibly look at the benefits we're getting from new developments within our public utility infrastructure and actually include broadband too. Because I know I have people coming in, companies coming in and developing, and then they offer in fiber because they have to bring it to their area now that it makes it available in some parts that didn't have that. The other is connecting some pipes that weren't connected before because of saws. And we live in an older area, so really want to see that considered. And then on the goal number two, where it's place-based investment and redevelopment, looking at the opportunity zones and then also really looking at the TURs and where we could possibly grow TURs or the other districts that I feel the state are gonna provide for us as we move forward, taking opportunity of that. The other thing I see as we look at this framework is the real benefits in housing and child care and health and taking a look at some of those school districts that are looking to do, I don't want to call it child care because they're really trying to do like a pre-K or a 3K education, early matters, and they're trying to include that into their program. a school district. And I think Harlandale in particular, South Sands, another that I know of, and my others might have that there. So I really want to see that looked into. The housing piece is another that we're looking and working with the school districts on. And then on the final, and that would be for slide goal number three, talent and workforce, is that wraparound service supports. the housing, child care or education, and then of course the health. If we bring in bigger companies, and I know Toyota is always going to be my example, but Toyota does have, you know, I think a nurse and possibly a doctor, but I know they have nurses on site. USAA used to have a nurse on site also, but one of those companies that have that opportunity for people to, you know, get their healthcare service there. And then the last, when we talk about capacity and resources, and this might be when we come in September, Brenda, for you and for the team, is really looking at our business retention and expansion, and really looking at our current headquarters that could have expanded here, but instead of expanding their headquarters, they decided to do a little satellite office somewhere else. I'm very concerned about that. I want our headquarters that are here, and I'm not sure if we can identify them, but again, I mentioned USAA is one where could we get USAA to expand here, or are they going to keep on moving somewhere in Colorado or Phoenix or do more remote work. And the same is with some of our stalwart ones that have been here for SWBC. Though it's not a traditional headquarters, when we talk about Army North and South, they relocated from here, but they still have a presence here at our bases. So really trying to look at that as we look at retention and seeing what is it that, we need to do here in the city of San Antonio to kind of edge out other locations for definitely retaining our headquarters, but actually getting them to expand here. And we just got the presentation last week from our aviation department in Jesus, and we know that flights... and transportation in and out of San Antonio is key. So that could be one of the aspects that we do. I really am excited about the changes. I look forward to the September 9th framework, but I think there's some things we need to do and consider as we put things on the conversation and really put a price tag on, in terms of research and development, some of those contracts we had on that list. I don't know that we... With cutting the budget and the staff that we have, I don't know that we have the capacity to focus on some of those industries that we've been wanting to focus on, especially when it comes to biomedical and IT security and things like that. That's why we have the contract. Thank you for the presentation. I look forward to it. I'm sure more things will come, but I really want to hear from my council colleagues and see what they'd like to see happen before September 9th. Who would like to go first? All right, Councilman Galvan.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation today. Really excited to look into more of this work. I guess on goal two is where my main questions were, thinking about... I appreciate this one a lot because I think a lot of our needs here in our city in terms of investment, especially in places... that have been under-invested in or have struggled with different economic development models here in our city. A lot of the redevelopment of place-based investment is what I'm interested in. But I guess I'm wondering, can you give us some examples of the enhancements that are being added to this compared to the previous strategy framework? Because it feels a little similar to the last one in different buckets.

Yeah, great question. So the large buckets still kind of are relevant. So we know that there are... regional centers, community areas, corridors, but the role of the city in supporting investment and making those investments in infrastructure, amenities, coordinating with planning and land use, to attract additional private sector investment into those areas. And in some cases that might go into the tools and resources, maybe the city acquiring or partnering to incentivize development in some of those areas or kind of like the Nelson Wolf Stadium reimagining, looking at that as an economic anchor and of course getting feedback from the community, but also looking at the marketplace and what kind of additional business growth could happen as a result of that. So kind of looking at the strategies that can be applied in each one of those, the major regional centers, different community areas and corridors. So some of the strategies and techniques will kind of be place specific, but some of them might be able to be used citywide as well.

Okay, got it. Will there be any specific recommendations on the kind of differences in markets throughout our city and like how to enhance those? We're thinking about places that of course have high market demand for investment, things like that. What strategies can be used to enhance that or maybe tailor it in a way that maybe fits best with whatever the community is looking for in that area versus a spot in our community that is typically not had that kind of investment in the area and is trying to figure out what that pathway looks forward in terms of the tools that we have. Are there different strategies that you're going to be presenting within this framework for those kind of options in our city, those kind of areas in our city?

Yeah, great question. So if I understand correctly, kind of the different types of strategies for places that have different levels of market viability or need additional support. Yes, that's something that we definitely want to incorporate.

Okay, great. On the Goal number three for the talent and workforce, I appreciate the higher education focus there. Did want to ask too, is there any look at the kind of K through 12 support there? I know when talking with different private entities, we talk a lot about the kind of fundamentals still being needed there and making sure that our folks are college ready as well. And so I'm wondering what that kind of, what that can look like, perspective will look like with K through 12 support too.

Yeah, I think that's something that could fit into a number of different areas, whether it's in partnership with the higher education, whether it's even on the AI adoption. One of our recent clients that's wrapping up their economic development plan, Gwinnett County, Georgia, in the metro Atlanta area, they had the first AI-themed high school in the country like four years ago. So they've been very intentional. So there's some models I think that we can look at. on that K through 12 alignment as well. I think that could fit in under the, the wraparound supports also. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

All right, Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Tom, John, and Alexis for the presentation. I'm looking forward to the final report in September. I appreciate that this updated draft focuses on all levels of support for just different residents with different educational backgrounds and different trades and just different skill sets rather. I was curious in terms of the AI adoption, right? This is something that, and I know you touched on it in terms of the presentation, but I just want to ensure that it's not going to run in conflict with some of our workforce training programs in that we are potentially shepherding in or a recommendation to shepherd in just essentially the elimination of specific job positions for the sake of efficiencies and or cost savings. So that's something I'm hoping to see. The question's already been asked in terms of like what are some of the contrasts between this draft and what we've seen with the last presentation or report rather. I was curious in terms of with this refresh re-envision incentives what I would like to see right and it's really hard for me to concentrate today when I have a large swath of constituents that have been without electricity for several days. All that to say when we talk about what investment could look like, focusing more on the infrastructure, right? I'm grateful to see that there are recommendations on how we can attract through incentives. But I think investing in the infrastructure to allow businesses to want to come to the district is going to be a direction that I would like to see within the report. I apologize. I'm looking at the map right now. It's just a lot. It's overwhelming. I'll conclude my comments and follow up with that.

Thank you. And we can come back around. Councilman Ivelisse-Maskindakis.

Thank you. And quickly want to acknowledge Councilmember Gustio for being here today. I know that your district is going through a lot over this weekend, so I appreciate you being here and giving your input because it is absolutely valued. Thank you. Thanks. Um, so I just have a few questions. Um, I promise you don't always cry in economic development committee meetings. Um, um, I have a couple of questions on the placemaking and real estate. Um, just specifically, you know, I think that's a balance too. And I think there's so much of a deep dive in each one of these buckets. And so I'm, I'm hoping that the next round of. I guess the next part of the report, at some point, comes with some actionable items that we can start to implement. And even on the infrastructure side, obviously considering the budget that we have right now, and it's limited, but are there any short-term or near-term projects that we can do on the infrastructure side versus just sitting and waiting for those long-term projects that most likely would happen either through a TERS or a bond? Um, so just kind of specifics around, um, any near term, uh, solutions that we can start to implement, uh, sooner than later, I think would be helpful in this climate. Um, yes. And then on the, I guess, is there a way to show which districts, I guess that's for us as a council, as a city, which districts are. are ready for this approach more so than others. Is that something that we do after this or is that something that we can get through that report now?

So part of what we've done on the, just looking at 2.2 there, the site prioritization and identification, we've looked at a lot of the business park sites that are close enough with the right investments in new infrastructure to be ready for attracting companies. So there's those fit in a number of different districts, but that's something that that same approach can be applied citywide And that's more for new employment sites, but the the place-based investment redevelopment There's that that can apply in every district There are there are existing areas that are seeing development or could see development but great questions for looking at how those investments can lead to short-term and long-term and economic development.

Yeah, and just making sure that we're balancing that, right? If, how else, how do we measure, other than the private sector investment, what other ways can we measure the success of that strategy? I guess I'm trying to better understand.

Yeah, I think going back to those, the overarching, what does it mean to level up? You wanna create employment opportunities from entry level to higher wage, so the creation of jobs, the retention of jobs, the retention and growth of companies that exist already, small to large. Those are a couple other areas in addition to just the overall attraction of investment.

Okay, yeah, if that, I want to just make sure that's made explicitly clear in that to just make sure that those goals are helpful to what we're trying to create, but also what's already there, right? So it still promotes those small businesses and promotes the residents that have called that place home. And so I want to make sure it fits all those. Is my time up? Okay, and just quickly want to, I guess give a shout out to the biosciences, Biomed SA, which is right there on the border of District 8. It employs one in five residents. The economic impact is in the billions for this city. And so I want to make sure that it still is a priority for us as a city. And I couldn't agree more on sharing our story. Number six on slide two, I think That is what we need to do all day, every day. And even the story that we're telling right now as a community that's dealing with a major disaster that happened in parts of our communities that are more impacted than others, right? That is part of our story, but I think we do need to share what we are doing in this space. And when it comes to placemaking too, I just read, I represent the medical center And the Medical Alliance just put out their report, and the number one thing that came up for them was placemaking. And so when I saw it here on the slide, I was like, yep, I'm not surprised. And so making sure that we're tying that Medical Alliance report with what we're doing as a city I think is important as well. So thank you all so much.

Thank you. Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to try this again. On slide 12, can you talk a little bit about the enhanced partnerships and, like, for example, with Greater SATX where you see opportunity for enhancements?

Yes, definitely. So we recognize that the San Antonio story is... the city of San Antonio is at the center of it, but it is a larger regional opportunity for workforce, business, real estate, infrastructure, and that partnership of having the city and its outward facing promotional entity is critical. And the communities that do that well tend to get more success in economic development wins, both large and small. So we see that partnership needing to continue and really be further enhanced and supported.

And can you talk a bit more about the external partners and what you envision there or any examples?

Yeah, so there's a lot of other external partners from the various chambers of commerce, local business development organizations, from Sage to Prosper West to the entrepreneurship support from LaunchSA, Geekdom, Velocity. I'm going to miss a number of them, but we'll make sure that they're all captured and included. So every one of those is critical, whether they're a partner that the city is helping to fund or support, or whether they're doing their own thing, but in collaboration with the city.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And this question may be for staff, right? And thinking about the strategic housing implementation plan, for example, and I'm grateful that we're revisiting the conversation. in terms of the interviews with stakeholders, gauging where folks believe there's opportunity to enhance this strategic plan. And this may be a redundant question, right? But I'm thinking about, again, with the ship, like, is it helpful within committee with each of the recommendations that we have briefings on where we're tying dollars to parts of the plan to move it forward, right? Because when I see that it's been over, like, $650,000 in terms of us going back and revisiting the framework. And I know what ship we're doing, the ship refresh, right? But I'm curious of how we can move pieces along and how can council help shepherd that, right? I'm thinking again of ship, right? With PCDC, we're often getting briefings. We're tying dollars to components of the strategic plan, and it would just be copy-paste, right? But I just want to ensure that we continue to move these plans forward and refresh when we've hit metrics in which we're now addressing affordable housing, for example, at 30% AMI. So I'm just curious of how council can help move these plans forward once adopted in September.

That's a fantastic question. Again, Brenda Hicks Sorensen, Director for Economic Development Department. So historically, the Economic Development Department has brought forward kind of semiannual, biannual updates to EWDC for the strategic framework. It historically has not necessarily included those dollar amounts, so that's something we can look at. We've also, as we've been looking at our Dashboard 3.0, Again, we have a number of items currently on a dashboard. As we look at 3.0, we're looking at how do we really build out specifically on the recommendations for the strategies and how we're faring on those. And so that's another area we can certainly look at with tying specifically to dollar amounts as well.

Thank you, Brenda. I appreciate that because the parallel I'm drawing, like, for example, with the placemaking recommendations that we've seen within the last strategic plan and this one, right, I think about the facade improvement grants that were available and those facelift programs for small businesses. And what I always share with District 5 residents, right, it's not just homeowners and renters that are at risk of displacement. It's our small business owners as well that don't have the resources to fix their facade and be up to code, right? So I'm thinking more in terms of, like, individual briefings on those items that run parallel to the strategic plan. So that way council can strategically invest in those programs, right? Because I think it appears like, for example, when we get our briefing for economic development, I think tying it to the plan and how it's helping us meet the metrics in terms of placemaking, I think would be very valuable to hopefully get buy-in from council to say we should be like, yes, we're tightening our belt, but there is value in investing in placemaking within the strategic plan.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Brenda. Thank you. Those are my comments.

Thank you, Councilman. And that brings up a good point in terms of how everything is connected and the fact that if we want to keep our local businesses there. what sort of amendments are we putting forward that kind of hinder them to, if we're trying to get them on this placemaking and in these grants for facade improvements. So the other thing I'd like to, and this is gonna kind of lead into the next department, but you did bring it up on updated goal 1.1 is our global engagement. And I'm not sure if we can, again, connecting different departments together, In terms of our sister cities and our work we do globally, we understand that some of what we consider our local or have been a brand here in San Antonio are actually a subsidiary of a global parent company. And we need to start identifying that if we're going to, and we know Greater SATX has some of that information. But I think it's important that this new committee has some of that information, understanding where the global parent of some of these companies that are continually getting contracts or building with new developers that come in, where they're from and how is our relationship with them. Because I think if we're going to level up, the council members that take the mission trips to India or Mexico or London have that idea of where these companies are. And we brought up the chambers before. You brought up the chambers and other organizations. If the chamber is going to take some council members to Spain, that we understand which global companies in Spain are currently working in San Antonio. And this also goes nationally too if we head to Atlanta because CMG was in the news. And I know CMG owns a number of radio stations and TV stations here. So I think it's really important that we have that understanding as the Economic Development Committee as we move forward to get this done. So that's one when we talk about global engagement. If if you all could help with understanding that we do see a lot of what used to be a local home construction company has now become absorbed into a larger global company. It doesn't mean that family's not there and they're not running it and they're not coming to our events and sponsoring it. They still are, but they're part of a bigger... a bigger house now, and we need to identify that and make sure we do that. So that's the other thing I'd like to see. And so you've got the information, Alex, you've got the information. You know what we expect a lot on September 9th, but we do expect something that is going to move us forward. So thank you. If there isn't anybody else want a second round? All right, Councilman Galvan.

Thank you, Joe. Just really quick, also wanted to see within, I don't remember which slide it was, but around access to financing. I'm wondering if there's any kind of, or we could include some things around even the kind of residential and commercial access to credit and to capital. I know I think it probably fits in the private sector a little bit more, but I think that's a key part of also our current development foundation, right, is the access to capital that we have for residents to be able to start their small businesses, for the small businesses themselves to continue to move into procurement, everything of the sort, what those barriers are at the moment. I know there's been some previous studies done either by foundations as well as DHS here in the city on some of that work. But I think it would be interesting to see what that looks like and how that impacts certain areas of economic development here in our city and that kind of upward economic mobility ladder, which I think a lot of us are very focused on and invested in. Just would be interesting to see what that could look like within this framework too. The other thing I was going to say was supportive, of course, of making sure that our data is tied to some of those metrics and those specific dollars and programs. It reminds me a lot of the Educational Opportunities Committee, where we talk about all these different programs that do different educational support. And then you can tie them a bit together and say, oh, wait, there's a lot more here than just this one program that's only $500,000 or so that is expected to deliver on everything. There's a lot of partnership here that we are utilizing and can utilize more. The last thing I wanted to add to is I think a little bit more on the K through 12 piece was thinking about any kind of community benefits agreements that we can form with any of our major employers, any new employers as well who are coming to our city or trying to recruit to our city to see how can we not only tie in the workforce needs there, but also support the educational needs we have in our community that end up supporting a workforce development anyway. I don't know what those look like exactly, but I know in other cities, of course, I've seen different kind of partnerships that some private entities will do, whether it's on direct financing or supporting different programming or doing internship programs, any kind of direct workforce tying that they can do there to expose our students to what's possible as well as to help kind of the foundation of our educational system too. That's, of course, in great need here in our city and in our state, but in disaggregate areas in our city especially. I think those are all my comments. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Councilman Mesquite's office.

Thank you. On slide six under the existing and emerging innovation districts, do we have, does that map exist, the innovation districts?

There's not a perfect definition of that, but it would include places like what's happening downtown with UT San Antonio. It would include certainly the medical center in Northwest side. It would include Port San Antonio. It would include Brooks, Velocity. There's other areas that are kind of building up some innovation assets or have them already that could be further scaled up.

But we don't have like a, or do we?

So the city of San Antonio actually has some innovation areas, but they've been tied more to smart cities and not what is considered the same as an innovation district kind of in economic development terms. And so we're certainly going to be taking a look at how those overlap and what opportunities that prior work does. But specific to this and this kind of category, we'll be looking at more of those what I would, I hate to say it, the traditional kind of economic development definition of an innovation district. That's more comparable to how other cities have also defined it, even though, as John mentioned, it's a very broad kind of definition. But we are going to be taking a look at that overlap of the two opportunities.

And then the expanded opportunities for procurement under the small business, that's new. It wasn't there the last time, right? Is that what you're saying by new?

Yeah, it's really kind of a new category and way of describing it. So we had a SPADA program. We had looked at what the city's procurement efforts are. But I think looking at what SupplySA has done. That's what I was going to ask.

SupplySA would fit in that?

Yes.

Okay. And that's obviously a priority program for this framework. Something like that would be a priority. to continue according to what this framework is saying?

Mr.

Yes. Ms. Okay. Okay, that was it. And also on the, where is it? Nine, I think it's nine. On ready to work, what's the difference between ready to work and training under workforce development?

So that was just looking at training efforts broadly. So we're taking just a much deeper dive on what is the Ready to Work program look like and the training within it and then the demand occupations and then which populations it's targeting.

And I guess the investments that we make as a city outside of Ready to Work those would still, I was looking at the slide before, but the investments we're making in workforce development outside of ready to work, those move over to maybe the talent ecosystem?

Yeah, I think that's where they would fit. And if they're more in that kind of broader wraparound or talent attraction retention, they'd fit into that one as well.

Okay, thank you so much.

All right, if there's no further discussion, we'll move on to the next item. Thank you.

Thank you.

Item number five is an update to the council consideration request by council member Aldereta Gavita, District 7, on the reporting city funds going to local businesses. I'm sorry, can I call up the Councilwoman now or her office to give speaking points or after the presentation? I should do it now, right? So it's not, yeah. Okay, before the presentation, the Councilwoman did provide a letter that we all got. Does one of her staff wanna come up and just share? I know she intended to be here, but if you'd like to come up and just share a couple of thoughts or what you wanna highlight. Or you could read the letter if you wanted. But we all read it, right? Okay, just introduce yourself and then you can start reading the letter.

Dear Chair Villagran and members of the economic and workforce. Small procedure. Introduce yourself and your title.

Thank you for the record.

First time. My name is Latika. I am Councilwoman Alderete Gavitos, Chief of Staff. Thank you for allowing us to present on her behalf today because she had a conflicting event, but she really did want to be here. So... Dear Chair Villagran and members of the Economic and Workforce Development Committee, thank you for your consideration on item five on today's agenda, which is a CCR Councilwoman filed requesting that the city report on funds going to local businesses. She filed the CCR as a call for improved transparency and accountability on how city funds are spent locally. And the hope is that this data will better help align our spending with the city's commitment to supporting local businesses while also offering insight into where there are gaps in our local economy and how we are able to fill those gaps. We know that local spending improves the economy and helps create jobs. This is proven when 68% of the dollars spent at local businesses stays within the community. We also know that supporting local businesses is something that every recent iteration of this council has supported. That said, It's important to know whether we're putting our money where our mouth is, and if not, learning why that is. Since the city currently has no streamlined way of reporting and tracking local spending and using multiple definitions of local, Councilman has requested that city staff create a streamlined process of tracking and reporting local spending, identify a consistent definition of local, and use data collected to identify gaps to better support workforce development initiatives. First, we need to figure out where and how much we are spending locally, and then we need to look where our local economy is not meeting the city's procurement needs and how we can address that through workforce development and other initiatives. We all want to see our homegrown businesses thrive, and we want to see local dollars staying local. But as city leaders charged with stewarding taxpayer dollars and investing in economic development, it's important that we don't just talk the talk, but also walk the walk. So thank you again. And Councilman is appreciative of her colleagues for your consideration of this item. And she asked that you please support moving this proposal forward to help strengthen our local economy. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Now we will have the presentation.

Good morning chair members of the committee. My name is Victoria Rader. I work in the finance department as a deputy finance director. This presentation is a follow up to the CCR requesting reporting of city funds going to local businesses. As mentioned in March of this year, Councilwoman Adieta Cavito did file the CCR, and she had five requests. First, to create a uniform definition of local. Also, to present the percentages and total amounts of city dollars going to local businesses, which include grants, prime contractors, subcontractors, and other expenditures. Also to have it establish a practice by which departments report local spending data whenever they present to council, have a citywide local spending report issued yearly, and then to use this information, identify potential gaps in local services and sectors. Regarding the first request, the local definition, create a uniform definition of local for reporting purposes. We recommend that we align this definition with our local preference program. So our local preference program will stay intact. But as a reminder, it's a business that's headquartered within the San Antonio city limits for at least a year, or a place of business that's in San Antonio city limits for a year with 100 or more employees or 20% of their employees regularly base. So for reporting purposes of vendor payments and for contract awards, local will be defined as a vendor's remit address within the San Antonio city limits. The next request was to report the percentages and total amounts of city dollars going to local businesses that include grants, prime contractors, subcontractors, and other expenditures. Using the local definition that we identified in the previous slide, we recommend that we report the amount of payments going to vendors using their remitted address to determine whether they're within San Antonio city limits or not. For local payments, we're able to do that, but what we cannot do right now is for subcontractors. While we can maybe identify the contract award, what we're not able to do with our current system is any sort of local payments going to subcontractors. Now this is something that we're gonna look at when we do our SAP upgrade. We're gonna see if the new system can configure this and be able to track this for y'all and be able to report back to you all. Third request was for departments to report local spending data whenever they present data specific to spending to council. We recommend the departments report their local spending data in the briefing memos that go to you all for council consideration. Again, that they use that definition of within the San Antonio city limits. The fourth request was report citywide expenditures to local businesses. So we recommend that we're able to report the awarded amount and the spent amount based on the remitted address. So we can show you all what's locally been awarded and what's locally been spent. And we recommend that we do this on a yearly basis during the annual procurement forecast. So here's an example of what it would look like. Of the 1.5 billion awarded last year, 799 million went to locally. And of the 2.2 billion spent, 905 million went to a business with a local address. And the last request was to use this data and identify service and sector gaps to inform workforce development initiatives. So on the amount that's been spent, that's a little difficult right now to do in our current ERP system. We don't have it totally tracked about, we don't have it tracked that has it by the different service industries. As we're looking at our new SAP and our new upgrade, we're gonna look to see if we can configure the new system to be able to do this to track how much is spent by the industry. And you can track it by how much is awarded, but not by how much has been spent. So overall, conclusion, this slide recaps what we can do right now and what we're gonna look to do. So currently, we can define local for reporting purposes. We can report for payment and contract amounts, excuse me, contract awards, and we can utilize the vendor local remit address, and we're gonna say it's within the San Antonio city limits. We can report local spending data and council briefing memos, and we can also report annually during the procurement forecast how much was spent and how much was awarded. For future reporting opportunities, we're going to look at be able to see if our new SAP system will be able to report city dollars going to subcontractors, report city expenditures by service and sector industry, and then be able to provide a more meaningful insight to you all on any sort of workforce gaps. That concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, here to answer them.

All right, I want to thank Councilman for bringing this up. I did sign on to this CCR, I think a couple of us did. I think it's important that we do that. Again, the definition of local, I understand. I don't know if we need to do a definition of metro local to include the people of Bexar County. I would like to see that also or regional. So I don't know if we can. Yes, local is city of San Antonio and address in city of San Antonio. However, we know in terms of Bexar County and our neighbors in and around, some groups are headquartered there. So I don't know if we could do a local definition and then we could do a regional local definition. And I know sometimes the team does present that and say, well, they weren't based here, but they were out in Pleasanton or they were out in Floresville. And we understand Floresville and Pleasanton come into San Antonio to spend money. So that is where I think we may need to do that before we put anything out on the public. I don't know that I don't want to put anything out in the public either. I know that was one of her requests. I don't want to do a dashboard for this. I would much rather have the reporting come annually in the procurement and maybe an idea at six plus six what we have spending and what we assume is going to be spent locally. So I guess my question to you and do y'all need any help from this committee in oversight so I can find a volunteer to help with the next steps before we take this to full council? No? No, I don't think so. Okay. So I've given my recommendations, which is a regional, local, or, you know, local A, local B. I don't know how y'all are going to do it, but if y'all could find what... That is what I'd like to see, and what I would like to see is I appreciate the procurement... And and if you could give us a list Kind of an update of what what you did in terms of definitions a one-pager I love the slideshow and that was only nine but if we could get a one-pager so I could send it out to them that we could we could have it for the members that did sign this committee, but They may all be sitting here. So those are my comments does any of my committee members like to chime in on this I Yes, Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation. I would also like to commend Councilman Adela Tejubito for this initiative. I wanted to express similar comments in terms of local, right, and what that means and the definition. And I guess if there's opportunity to coordinate with Cebeda and use that avenue in terms of tracking local contractors. Again, right, I'm thinking about an RFP that we had for a fund in which it was a local nonprofit, but their PO box was in Austin, right? So I think, again, relying on that Sabeta infrastructure would be helpful with this initiative. And just understanding that, like, for example, if a vendor is a major national corporation that happens to have a remit address, right? So like, how would that qualify as local? And how would that play out in terms of tracking? So I don't know or rather I would encourage again right using that same subeta Process in terms of tracking. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you Councilman Galvan future.

Yeah, I go my colleagues sentiments on Definition of local. I yeah, I would I think lean on the subeta work that's been done It's gonna help with some of that I am worried about if it's too broad that we're I agree with the chair's point about some of the things in the county and the area that makes a lot of sense, but I think it's too broad to the point that it's not... I feel like the intent of this is to get to small businesses in some form, to locally family-owned as much as possible, versus... large entities that are pretty capable, have a pretty large portfolio in some way. And so trying to figure out how can we get this to the folks who maybe aren't typically supported by the city or anything of the sort. That's at least my thought on the definition of local. How do we get to folks who are typically left out of this process versus folks who are already within this or who have very significant assets to maybe not need as much support from the city. I don't know how exactly we get that definition perfectly. there. I don't know if it's only by using the address alone. At least for reporting purposes, I understand for sure. Kind of saying, here's how the money's going. I feel pretty comfortable about trying to make it as accessible as possible in terms of open data. I think about that generally for our city. I think beyond the specific focus, but I would need to get some more details on what that could look like. I know some other cities do that. in some forms where they kind of showcase, here's every live item and the budget goes to, and here's kind of the different program that exists within that. Here's kind of how it meets the metrics there. I know we are starting to do that in some form with our own budget process that's outside of this specific focus, but I would like to be able to see us get us there. How pretty that looks, different issue, versus maybe just a spreadsheet that showcases, like, here's where this money for the economic development incentive fund went to, and I know the dashboards kind of do that in some way. So I think I would like to see a bit more of how it can all be in one place for folks to easily access here at the State of San Antonio, whether it's a resident, a business, or a council member can easily go to this one page that has all the kind of data aggregated to one spot, versus going to multiple departments to figure out where that information, or where that money's going out towards. Those are all my comments for now. Thank you.

Councilman Mes-Gonzalez.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you to the council member for bringing this CCR forward and I agree with the comments that my council colleagues have stated on the, for me it's on slide three, just the aligning the definition with our local program. I'm not sure if read to address and local are aligned and so trying to better understand that.

So we were just saying we like aligning with our preference program just also has a couple more requirements, right? That you have to have been here at least one year and then you also have to, regarding the employees and not every contract award goes through the LP, the local preference program. So what this means, we're just saying in general, any vendor payments and contract awards that they're local, they have a remitted address within San Antonio city limits, that that will be considered local.

Okay, and does this work also align with the work that we're already doing with SupplySA? Or how does it align, I guess I would say? That's my question.

Well, the work, we did reach out to them regarding this, and it is working with them when you mean like how their outreach for local?

Yeah, so they're doing outreach, we're reporting it. Do those meet up at some point? Or should they? or they're gonna be siloed.

Good morning, Troy Elliott. We are working with both the small business office and SupplySA. Our hope is that sometime in the future that they will become in alignment. Right now, based on how our system's configured, based on the data we have, this is kind of the first step in that process. And ultimately, as we progress, we should all be in sync. The way I view it is this is the first step.

Okay, there's a goal there, though. Yes, ma'am. To align. Okay, cool, thank you. To my questions.

All right, if there isn't any other discussion, this was also for briefing only. Please reach out to us if you have any clarifying questions for the council. I think one thing we're seeing is that local definition, we need options there. Okay. If y'all could work on that and then bring that, even if it's by memo, just giving us an idea of options and we could look at agendizing that here before we take it to the full council. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Next item. Item number six is a briefing on the city's contract and procurement practices related to the resolution supporting evaluation of strategies to protect all San Antonians. Is there a staff presentation?

Yes, ma'am.

All right. The floor is yours.

And good morning again, Troy Elliott, Chief Financial Officer. And this is really a continuation of our conversation with the full council and with the committee on, you know, as the chair mentioned, supporting evaluation of strategies to protect all San Antonio's with a focus on kind of our contracting and procurement processes as we deal with ICE and the vendors or contractors or suppliers that may do business with those organizations that provide coordination or support. Just kind of as a high-level overview, I mentioned we've had a lot of conversations at the council level between February and April 9th. Ultimately, the city manager recommended that we come to this committee on specifically five items, and those be forwarded to this committee for discussion, evaluation, and next steps. We did have an introduction on the topic on May 26th. We went through all the five items and I'll go through those briefly here in a minute and kind of gave you our recommendation and really they fall into two buckets and we'll go a refresher and talk about that more in depth. From a procurement standpoint, kind of dividing between our statutory procurements and non-statutory procurements. As I mentioned, these are the five items. The first item is council policy to not do business with entity providing support to ICE. You have non-contracting policies. I won't go through all the verbiage. Our procurement standards and value-based criteria. Can our existing policies be strengthened? And vendor accountability and disclosure. And really all these items and those top three items really all hinge on our ability for vendor accountability and disclosure because you have to know are they doing business with organizations that support ICE? And so that's really the first step and where a lot of our conversation will take place today and took place at the last committee meeting as well. We also talked about insurance liability and risk exposure. When it comes to insurance liability and risk exposure, there really wasn't a lot of opportunity, a lot of information to provide feedback back to the council and the committee. So we'll continue to look at that, but limited opportunities there. Specifically, as I talked about, two areas when it comes to procurement, non-statutory. When it comes to non-statutory procurements, when I talk about non-statutory, I'm talking about really those areas that are discretionary, requests for proposals, have dealing with professional consulting services, leases of city-owned property, concession agreements, other revenue-generating contracts. But when it comes to non-statutory, the city and the city council may apply vendor accountability measures, non-contracting policies or value-based criteria only to these type of contracts, as I mentioned. When it comes to statutory, statutory procurements are gonna be exactly that. All of our procurements are covered by state statute. Invitation for bids, request for competitive seal proposals, typically applicable to construction and A&E. Those have statutory parameters and there's limited ability to do anything in terms of applying accountability measures to those areas. So at the May 2016 EWDC committee, we went through our presentation, went through our recommendations. There were two asks of the staff and to come back to this committee. One was findings from outreach to peer cities on policies and practices. The others was to provide examples of disclosure forms for other peer cities or other mechanisms used to support vendor transparency. other contracting considerations for both statutory and non-statutory procurements and I think the team handed out in front of you kind of a list of areas that based on our research that we identified from other peer cities and national cities and I can go through those here in a second in more depth. But first as we did our research when it came to Texas cities Every city that we talked to, every city we looked through procurements, based on state laws that really mandate local governments to cooperate with ICE, not so much support, but to cooperate, there was no Texas city that we found that had specific procurement policies restricting business with entities supporting ICE. We can continue to look, but based on looking at all those, we did not find anything. However, when you flip to other cities across the nation, and I think someone may have mentioned that last time we met, specifically with California, they had their California Values Act, which restricts state and local enforcement agencies from using agency resources to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons for federal civil immigration enforcement purposes. Out of that act, there's a number of policies that have been adopted by some of these cities, specifically Oakland, California. And I think in your packet, there is a disclosure agreement for Oakland, Berkeley, California. Then for Los Angeles, there was a policy in your package that describes what they do from a city perspective. We did find also City of Richmond. It's in your packet, but not on the slide. They also had disclosure policy when they conduct their procurements that vendors must sign off on before they can enter into a contract with the city. In terms of Pennsylvania, there's no state code. It's handled independently by a state agency or municipality. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, they have an ordinance proving contracts with entities that do business with ICE and violations may result up to a five-year contracting ban. In addition to that, we also looked at Syracuse, New York, looking at their procurements. We did not find a policy or an ordinance, but actually in their RFPs, they have specific questions that they ask in terms of data brokering with companies or ICE, and also several prohibitions there as well. Then lastly, here recently, the mayor of Chicago just signed an executive order that had a number of items in there. It's also in your package in terms of contracting with ICE and prohibitions that may result as well. So as I mentioned, in terms of asking our vendors, in terms of disclosing their relationship with ICE or contracts that they have with ICE for the non-statutory, We can ask vendors to disclose contracts with our federal, state, or local government entities as part of their experience and qualifications. In terms of non-statutory, that is allowable. When it comes to statutory, we can ask, but there's really not a whole lot we can do with that because of the statutory prohibitions. And I'll go into a little more on both these on the next couple of slides in more detail. So as I mentioned, for statutory, you can obtain disclosure forms. For contracts from recommended bidders, information can be reported to city council. Disclosure form may include but not limited to. There's a lot of things that we can ask here. An ordinance or city's policy prohibiting doing business with entities supported by ICE. Some of the key elements may be disclose those contracts and our affirmation they're not doing business with ICE or detention facilities. Vendors to notify city of any contracts doing business with ICE during the term of that contract. A vendor's attestation and signature. One of the challenge with the statutory procurements is we can't force them to answer the questions. It would almost be voluntary to a certain respect because of the statutory nature. So information can be requested, but cannot be used to affect the responsiveness on the vendor. Again, when it comes to statutory, it's typically gonna be bid and specifications. That's what we have to do in our election and our recommendation to council. City council can elect not to award to our recommended responsible low bidder, but we would have to start the procurement over because that is the responsible bidder in terms of price and specifications. When we talk about disclosure for non-statutory, there are more opportunities there. I think, unfortunately, though, based on the nature of the contracts, your statutory contracts are going to probably be more in the neighborhood of those that actually may actually have a relationship with an ICE or a detention facility, custodial, landscaping, meals, things of that nature. When we talk about disclosure as non-statutory or discretionary contracts, it's a little broader in terms of more professional services, leases and things of that nature. So when it comes to non-statutory, vendors can disclose contracts of federal and state or local government entities as part of the experience and qualifications as well. Similar types of disclosures that may be included. One of the big differences here at City Council, you do have the ultimate authority to award new contracts and contract renewals and extensions for these type of contracts. You can also not award the contract at the point we bring it to you all for consideration, and we can move to the next bidder. So a little more flexibility here. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, I don't know how much In this area, we would have contracts or considerations to actually do business with ICE or detention facilities. So that's really it in terms of the summary. You really have those two options. As I mentioned in your packet, you have kind of some of those options to kind of peruse through in terms of what these other cities are doing. But with that, Chair, I'd be asking for your feedback and the next steps that you'd like us as staff to pursue.

All right, so Troy, voluntary or nonvoluntary, whether they self-identify, if they choose not to answer the questions, it would be very suspect to me. So I think, for me, this point is we need to look at both your forms, have the questions available, whether they choose not to answer them or answer them, THE CITY CAN GO THROUGH THE PROCESS AS THEY WANT. ULTIMATELY IT WILL COME TO COUNCIL DECISION ON RECOMMENDING THE LOW BIDDER. THE ONLY THING, AND IT'S BECAUSE I SIT IN AUDIT, Y'ALL, AND WE KNOW, WE MAY NEED TO LOOK AT actually having some contracts not get awarded for low bidder if these questions are not answered or if something questionable happens. For me, at the end of the day, this is about keeping the city of San Antonio safe. And if we are doing business with people that do business that attribute to a whole bunch of crimes and mistreatment, We are not keeping San Antonio safe. So that's where I'm at. I think so we need to look at whether the questions are there, whether they answer it or not, go through the process. It's ultimately council's decision to weigh if answering or not answering these questions was because they are doing business with ICE, and then seeing where we move forward to them and deciding on there. I do appreciate what you sent regarding Chicago, but I think if they are not doing business with ICE, they would be more forthcoming to tell us they're not doing business with ICE. So that's my feedback on that. The next steps is I would like to see us go into more conversation with council regarding this, bringing to us, back to us or to a B session, questions we add to the contract procedures, fully understanding we cannot require them to answer these questions. Who would like to go next? Councilwoman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Troy, for the presentation. Ultimately, I think this conversation we're having today that we as a body are responsible stewards of public dollars. And what that looks like to me is ensuring that we're shepherding public funds to businesses that are not causing harm within our communities and disrupting the livelihood of our shared constituency. So I'm grateful for this conversation. I did have a question, rather, regarding both statutory and non-statutory. statutory, I think there would be value if the bidders for both do not submit a disclosure that they're deemed non-responsive. Is that something that we can consider?

Definitely on those that are not covered by statute, U.S. Council can deem them not responsive. Matter of fact, we can go through a procurement process, they don't disclose, that can be a minimum requirement, and we don't even bring it to council for consideration. Unfortunately, on the statutory side, that's not an option. We can... bring you the results of the procurement, but based on state statute, low bid based on spec, I would still need to bring that forward for y'all's consideration at that point in time that I bring that contract forward for consideration. I would also provide you with the supplementary information as far as they either signed the affirmation or they did not disclose or what they disclosed.

Okay. So it will be tracked if they did or did not. Okay. That's helpful. And, and, and those convert those, um, uh, applicants that would go to audit. or what would be the process, the procurement process?

We would probably bring it through in some form of the actual council briefing memos to y'all. There'd be two different processes. Those that go to council, we would disclose to you, statutory or non-statutory, kind of the specifics related to that actual award or recommended award. Did they sign the disclosure? Did they do business with a company supporting ICE? We would also do the same thing for those that go through the city manager's delegation as well. So the information would be there as my point.

Okay. And that's, that's helpful. I think where, uh, where we have the authority that we should deem them non-responsive and then appreciate you walking me through the process and what that would look like in terms of who is being responsive and not, and how council can make the determination, whether to move forward with the contract or not. These are great recommendations, appreciate the example. I don't know, you're just laying out examples throughout the US where folks have taken a similar initiative and I would be remiss if I didn't highlight that Mayor Brandon Johnson is one of our greatest mayors in modern US history with his work and leadership. So grateful that he's championed that initiative. But those are my comments and just appreciate this briefing. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilman Galvan.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Troy, for the presentation. Support of my colleagues' feedback thus far on making sure that we're doing everything we can with even within the voluntary forms all the way above. I think kind of goes back to the last one, too, talking about being as transparent as possible with our city dollars is really critical to me. And if there's a way that we can still report, not report, showcase even publicly on whether websites, what kind of procurement strategies we're doing, who we're working with, who we're contracting with, and showcasing who signed this form or not, or filled it out or not during these conversations would be really good, just so that there's public information for residents to utilize and see. I think beyond that, with the renewals or the non-renewals, I guess, of contracts, what's that process like within the statutory framework? to run the whole process of contracts?

We would ask them, either statutory or non-statutory, for either renewal or an amendment, we'd ask them to basically update all their disclosure forms. So we have a decision point at that point in time whether to move forward or not.

Got it. OK. That's good to know. I don't think I have any other questions. I mean, I think just generally I wanted I think right now at the state level we're seeing, and it's a certain timing right now too, about different contracts that even the state has been working with, revisiting them based on their values in some way or the community's pushback in some way. I think it's perfectly reasonable and fine for our city to do the same thing, whether it's on this issue or another issue in the future. But I think ultimately, right, the same point earlier about making it as transparent as possible about how we're utilizing these resources, how we're utilizing our money, the public's money on this kind of work is really critical for our residents to see that physically as new things pop up, as concerns about how different entities are contracting other entities here in our government or in our larger federal government. All that I think is fair game for these conversations. So thank you, Troy, for this work, and I hope that feedback's helpful. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Councilwoman Gomez-Gonzalez. Sure, thank you. Thank you for the presentation and all the examples that you've provided. Couple of questions on the disclosure. Does that include like subcontractors and Like how far do we go?

I mean we can as far disclosures. I mean that's kind of up to the council We can include subcontractors all the way through So when we're actually going to I'm going through the procurement process The we could actually have the prime Basically disclose any relationship to have through their contract but also require them to disclose any relationships with the subcontractors to them and

on the side of those doing business with, like if they're working with a subcontractor that's doing business with ICE. So we're saying the same, okay.

Yeah, we're saying the exact same thing. We can have the subcontractors disclose as well.

I guess, well, I don't know if that's a good thing or if that's how far, I guess how far can we or should we take that disclosure?

I mean, if we're into a contract and the goal of council is to understand the people we're entering into a contract with and what relationships they have, that I think we'd wanna explore all the way from the prime through the sub.

Okay, and then just to clarify, I think you mentioned if it does not get awarded to the lowest bidder, it goes back?

It'd have to go back out.

It doesn't go to the second lowest?

Not under a statutory procurement because a responsible bidder under state statute's gonna be, do they meet specification and are they the lowest price?

Okay, I think there was on slide nine, I guess the distinction between the disclosure cannot affect responsiveness but can affect the award vote. Where is that? Yeah, the information can be requested but not to be used to affect responsiveness. What does that mean?

Exactly what I just mentioned. So a responsible bidder is going to be someone who met the specifications and they're the lowest price. And so based on that, we would recommend award to the council because under state statute, they're a responsible bidder. But you cannot consider the other factors in determining a responsible bidder. Are they doing business with ICE? We can ask for information, but it cannot be used to determine responsiveness.

Okay. And the city attorneys checked off on that distinction.

They did. We've had, we've had, they've been, we've been locked at the hip with them.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Um, those are all my questions for now. Um, I'm, this is going to a B session. Is that correct?

Um, based on the feedback, um, from this committee, then we would move it to a B session for full consideration. And I think we, at a B session, we would probably, um, put more meat on the bones in terms of the requirements. and potentially even explore maybe even a policy.

Okay. Yeah, I think if anything, I'm thinking of just all the types of contracts that come into play with this. So it's on food, janitorial, construction, and so are we looking at every bit of that?

Everything that we enter a contract with.

That you would...

everything that runs through procurement, then we would ask these questions.

Okay.

It would be similar to heat illness or the non-responsible bidder, things like that.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Troy. And I think one of the things is, again, the timeline in terms of with, with the low bids is what that's gonna look like if people won't disclose. We just want people to get into the habit of disclosing that information or not applying for, not putting their name up in the bid. And I think this in conjunction with what we just talked about in terms of the local, identifying the local, will work together as we try and build up the businesses here locally to expand and to move into some of those regional industries that were maybe doing the work but are also doing the work for the federal government and now in terms of ICE. And I do think about janitorial services. That's an industry we could expand here And get more organized here. I think about security services too because you know we do need They will not be hiring They will not all be immigration Officers at that and I think that's where a lot of the troubles come also and and the food services the idea of us having someone cater at our at our event that also provides food services at a detention center just makes me sick to my stomach. So that's why I think it's important that we ask these questions. But thank you for that. I look forward to seeing that come forward. So we'll move on, this item was for discussion only. Item seven is a briefing and an update on the procurement process review, and I believe there's another staff presentation. You guys are popular today.

Okay, good morning again. Victoria Rader, I work in the finance department as deputy finance director, and I'm here to give you a procurement process update, review update. As a reminder, back in August of this last year, the mayor released the council committee members, and EWDC was to focus on the procurement process, an area that the prior committee had already been actively addressing. We had two main areas to work on. EDD, they were going to collaborate with our stakeholders in the business community, and then the finance department was asked to look at the procurement process. In December of 2025, our CFO did present to city council, letting them know where we're at and what are some things we still like to do with the procurement process. And in this past February, again, we briefed you all on two key focus areas. Anna Bradshaw from Economic Development went over capacity building and supplier engagement. And I went over the procurement process recommendations, one of them being to align feedback from our stakeholders with our new ERP system, the SAP upgrade. And we're going to work with the vendors and contractors during the design phase to get their feedback. Let us know what pain points that they see during the procurement process and what they need from a technology standpoint to make the procurement process easier. And that's what we're going to focus on on this presentation. So the SAP upgrades, a major upgrade, this divided into three parts. This is the big part, the COSA Connect part. And we're gonna do two things at once with this. We're gonna seek input from our stakeholders and we're gonna find out what types of barriers are existing. And we're gonna continue to work with them, get their feedback during implementation and to see where the procurement workflow, how we can enhance the procurement workflows and enhance our system efficiency. As a reminder, we do go live next year. So before we go exactly into how we're reaching out to the stakeholders, kind of give you a big overview of COSA Connect Finance. As you see, it is made up of six work streams. The one that we're going to concentrate on is the procurement process, which is from source to pay, and it's the procurement process from beginning to end. Okay, so the external stakeholder participation, how we got here. So first, we're gonna send out a survey to about 1600 vendors and suppliers, and we wanna capture their feedback. We wanna know what's working for them, what doesn't work, and then we're gonna take that information and we're gonna help it during our design phase. Additionally, from that group of 1,600, we did a random sample. We have about 200 vendors and suppliers, along with COSA partners and advocacy groups, and you have that list in your packet of all of those identified participants. We're going to bring them in, and we're going to have in-person meetings with them. We're going to engage with them. First, we're going to educate them. We're going to let them know what the goals and objectives are of the SAP upgrade, have a timeline, and then, of course, ask for their feedback. This summer, so kind of going over the timeline, this summer we focused on three things. We focused on developing our stakeholder approach. We came up with our stakeholder repository and then we completed the communication planning process. In September and October, we're gonna send out an external stakeholder survey. We're gonna have in-person meetings with these stakeholders and we're gonna get their feedback and provide feedback to you all. So in conclusion, we want to get the committee's input on the external stakeholder participation. We're going to continue to have discussion and engagement with the vendors and suppliers in SAP upgrade. And then we're going to share their input and their insights with you all, with this committee, and of course continue briefing you all on our procurement process updates. This concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, I'm here along with the change management team that I forgot to mention would be leading those in-person meetings. They're here that we talked about.

All right, do we have any council, Councilman Ms. Gonzalez?

Hi, thank you so much for the presentation. Just some quick, couple of quick questions. Sure. What's the total project cost for this and the funding source?

The total SAP upgrade cost is going to be approximately $70 million. We're going to go back and confirm that. How many?

$70. $70. And the funding source?

Funding source is coming from our debt management plan, specifically COs. And when we talk about the SAP, portions of it are already live. So the finance and procurement is one piece. And we also have our HR piece. And then we have the budgetary piece as well.

And is it in the 2027 adopted budget?

It is. It's also in prior adopted budgets as well because we've been funding it for a couple years now.

Just making sure to make the cut on this one.

Well, it'd be hard to stop the train right now.

Okay. Okay. And then will the existing vendor registrations, do they migrate to the new system automatically, or do they have to re-enroll or resubmit their banking information?

Well, two things. We're going to make sure the data is clean, and then we're going to migrate the existing data over to the new system.

Okay.

And then like we talked about kind of on the local, we're also gonna be looking for areas to actually supplement our vendor data for data that we want to have, but we don't currently have.

Okay. All right. Those are all my questions. Thank you. Any other council members?

Councilman Kessler. Thank you, Chair, and thank you again for the presentation. I had a couple of general questions in terms of the external state quota participation. Would there be opportunity for a team to receive a breakdown of those that were selected? Like, for example, the vendors and suppliers, like who those are that are being engaged, as well as like specifics in terms of the advocacy groups beyond what's listed. So that way we can provide recommendations if there's folks that may not be engaged.

Yes, I do apologize. Maybe I said that too fast. There is a handout that has the list of those participations of all the vendors and suppliers, partners, and the advocacy groups that we're bringing in.

Was the list included in the agenda memo? No, ma'am. I think it's a handout that you have. I apologize. It's a separate handout. I'm sorry. No, thank you for that. I appreciate it. I'll review that. And then my second question was, are you all, or can you all engage with SBAC if that's not already part of the plan?

Oh yes, we can engage with them. I don't think it's specifically on the plan yet, but we can add them.

Great, and then again, I'll review the list, but just in case it's not holistic, I'd encourage ensuring that stakeholders all throughout the city are included in terms of stakeholder feedback.

All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Councilman Galvan.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Victoria, for the presentations today. I think just picking up where Council Member Castillo left off on the advocacy groups, do we have any general update on the Trades Advisory Council or Board?

Yeah. We need to gather a subcommittee of them first. Okay. Who are my volunteers from this committee that we're going to help? Councilman Castillo. So Councilman Castillo, IBW, and another are going to start forming. So they're going to get with Troy on that.

Okay. Got it. Cool.

I've got a subcommittee for that. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Chair. I think that's helpful when we talk about advocacy groups here, making sure that that board is formed as quickly as possible so we can make sure that things like this can go through it once, of course, everything's formed. Otherwise, I appreciate all the information here. Very exciting things. I know it's procurement, but still exciting to me. To see how we can make sure that folks are able to utilize our procurement process as easily as possible in a streamlined way. Folks are able to review it as well. I'm thinking a little bit about I mean, I guess that's the theme of the day, right? Making sure that we can still be transparent in some of this work. I think on the tabulation awards page with the procurement website, finding ways to make it as easy as possible for people to see the awards directly. I mean, I think it looks really good. The only thing I would say is that having to click through each one by their link on the bid and the contract makes it a little difficult to calculate fully about, like, Okay, how much are we spending on this particular contract? How long we've been utilizing it? What's the total cost in the long run? So I think that's a smaller fix. But I think overall, I think with this one, the other presentations too, going more in that direction so we can easily see we, being health members along with the public, easily see without having to go through each one how much we're spending on this particular contract as well as what the outcomes may be with that. And that way some more analysis can be done By our teams and everything of the sort there. I think those are all my comments on this one. Thank you so much.

Thank you. So sitting on the audit also with Councilman, Councilman Mesa Gonzalez, we know that the SAP upgrades are something we need because that's, I feel a lot of when we get audits, if we had that SAP upgrade, we wouldn't see some of the findings that we do see. So I'm looking forward to that. It's been a long time coming. I'm glad you're communicating with the stakeholders and just we will continue to work on getting the briefing scheduled. So thank you for that. If there isn't anything else, The time is now 1220 and the meeting is now.

Ma'am, we did have an executive session item. Did you want to still do that?

Which, oh, I'm sorry. The time, all right, the time is now 1221 and we will be entering into executive session.

Thank you for reminding me.

The time is now 12.32 and we've returned from executive session. No action was taken. And we resume with our regular session. The time is now 12.32 and the meeting is now adjourned.