Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning. I would like to call to order the economic development committee meeting of 02/24/2026. Clerk, please please call the roll. Vice chair Bushnell? Present. Council member Palmer? Here. Council member Scott? Here. Chair Diaz? Here. Welcome, everybody. We're gonna start today with public comment before we get into our presentations. Hopefully, you saw the clipboard at the front and signed in if you would like to speak today. If you do not did not or you missed it, please feel free to come back here, and check-in with Hannah.

She'll get you on the list. She's gonna set a timer for two minutes for folks who wanna speak either in the per in person or virtually, and I will have the clerk speak. For speaker and public comment, Friday's only agenda. Please sign up in front of the room if you've not done so already. For speaking virtually, please press the raise hand button near the bottom of your Zoom window. We're starting on the phone. Your name or the last four digits of your phone number will be called out unless you turn to speak. Thank you. So when you're called, please come up, state your name for the record. You'll have two minutes to make your remarks, and please be mindful of the time frame. Anna, will you go ahead and please call those who signed up to speak? Yes. We have eight in person.

When it is your time to speak to your person, maybe, like, the next three,

they come up and Do it on the side of the

tables right here up there in the hole because that's where the lights are. So the first theory I have are Mike Hall, Derek, and Kevin Thomas. So then after my service,

Then I will start the clock whenever he's.

Okay. Good morning, everybody. Appreciate the time that you guys give to us here. I spoke last week, and I just kinda wanted to I don't wanna rehash what I already spoke about. But what's important to me and what's important to the construction well, let me back up. My name is Mike Hall, one of. We're a contractor here in Tacoma, and we do public works for the city of Tacoma. What I want to talk about, though, here is just to make sure, and Linda knows this already, that you guys get a good perspective on what the CWA does and what it does to the industry and what it does

for how

it does things for the city itself. So what I expressed last week was, I think, enough to be able to explain that, and what I explained to Linda, I'll probably reach out to you too at a future date. So alright. Thank you. Good

morning. My name is Kevin Thomas. I'm a business representative with SMART Regional Council, Local sixty six. I wanna speak in support of community workforce agreements. I've heard concerns that CWAs could exclude small contractors, and I understand that concern. Small businesses is small businesses are important to our local community, but the reality is those concerns can be addressed directly in an agreement itself. A well written CWA can include provisions that require prompt payment to contractors and subcontractors, and it can address concerns about double payment benefits. These safeguards help ensure small contractors are protected paying on time and able to complete compete on a level playing field. For me, it isn't theoretical. It's personal.

It's my local. More of my members live in Tacoma and the surrounding areas than anywhere else in Western Washington, almost 1,300 members. Right now, I have an unemployment rate of about 18% for journeymen and 16% for apprentices. We don't have a labor shortage. That represents highly trained, qualified, skilled workers who wanna work, people who live here, raise their families here, spend their paychecks here.

I represent a small class of trained qualified workers in this area. These are individuals who have interest, invested years in training, certifications, and safety standards. When public projects move forward without a CWA, there's no guarantee that local workers will benefit. With the CWA in place, we can ensure these community members, our neighbors, have real access to these jobs. A community workforce agreement is not about exclusion. It's about accountability, opportunity, and making sure public investment create a little benefit. It's about putting Tacoma area residents to work. And with thoughtful language that protects small contractors, we

can do both. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, I'm not gonna tell about it. And then also Josh. But but I think Derek got. Oh, Derek's not. Yes. Great. Hi.

My name is Derek Upton. I'm from. Apprenticeship, pre apprenticeship. We help with all of the different trades, types of aspects. CWAs would be great for the tribe as well as everything else because we are clientele and database for qualified workers and supporting the community around here. One thing that we like to do is to share and be resourceful, and that would be pretty well accomplished to do that here. Thank you.

Yeah. Then, Joan.

Hi. I'm Angelica Duncan with High Green Dot Farm and Seal Co Inc. President and co owner. We are certified small business enterprise, women and minority owned business enterprise, and I am here to ask some questions. So I strongly believe that small businesses that are certified like MINAR should be exempt from PLA, CWA, then apprentice utilization requirements.

If we truly value equity, if we truly value inclusion, if we truly value diversity in contracting, then policy must reflect the operational realities of small certified businesses, not just large institutional structures. If certified if certified small businesses are already operating at a structural disadvantage, why are we layering additional requirements that larger firms can absorb but we cannot? If prevailing wage already includes a defined fringe rate, why should a certified small business be required to send those dollars into a union trust fund when our employees are not union members and will never access those benefits? How does requiring nonunion small businesses to pay into union benefit systems align with the state's commitment to supporting small and diverse contractors? Why should a small business be required to bench its own trained employees in order to comply with the PLA or CWA?

How does displacing loyal employees align with our city's commitment to workforce stability? If my employee had worked with me for years and built this company with me, why should policy require me to replace them on a public project? In regards to what was just spoken, there are also tarot agreements. We've had wonderful experiences with the tribes. I've worked with the Puyallup tribe of Indians. I've worked with the the tribe in Grays Harbor County. Well, they're quit the Quincy tribe. The tarot agreement allow it to work with native Americans on our crew, and it has been an amazing experience. It did not require CWA to be in place. So are we protecting workers, or are we protecting institutions?

And how many small businesses can absorb increased labor costs, administrative burdens, and workforce disruption without losing competitiveness? Because all the PCWAs do is increase costs, create more hardships, and make it harder for me to be successful on a job. Thank you so much for your time.

You. Anna,

can you do the

order again? I think we got lost. I just

got Josh and Jody for your personal note. Whatever. Yes. You were the first. Yep. Absolutely. Two, Josh, and then Joe.

Perfect. Good

to go.

Yeah.

Thank you for having us today.

My name is Chris Winters.

And for the record, I'm an enrolled citizen of the Scope Creek Nation, retiree of thirty five years from a skilled trades union, living in the city of Tacoma since I left the United States military after operation business for thirty five years, and in the cold city of Tacoma, my home. Sadly, in thirty five years, I only worked in the city of Tacoma one time. I spent two hours each direction driving to Seattle and farther north because there was no work that supported apprenticeship in the city of Tacoma at that time. Fast forward to today as a retiree failure, I currently work for the Tribe. It's where we have a tribal labor agreement that recognizes native, non native, union, and non union workers through a skilled work database.

We have over 3,700 clients with Puella tribal citizen, descendant, spouse, other natives, and everybody else. We serve the entire community. We support apprenticeship standards. We also support keeping a a mind's eye towards lessening our carbon footprint, Sitting two hours each direction on Interstate 5 to go get a living wage to bring it back to the city of Tacoma in over thirty five years didn't allow me a lot of time with my family, didn't allow me a lot of time to patronize these small businesses within the city of Tacoma, but yet I did it. You know, back in early two thousands, we did a study here in the city of Tacoma that for every dollar earned within the city of Tacoma, $7 returned to those small businesses, those restaurants, the fuel stations, so what have you.

So, you know, speaking pragmatically, not just for the Puyallup Tribe, but for a skilled workforce that is looking for work. Let's take a look at Highway 167 at that interchange. Two thirds of the people working on that are from the Ocala tribe payroll department. They're not all native, and two thirds of those are apprentices and they're women. So when we're talking about equity and inclusion and there is the ability to be at the table not on the menu as it relates to actually having a good community workforce agreement that includes all business. So thank you very much.

Labor's focus for Jody. Okay. Great. And that's. Don't think there's anybody else in the room. Online, I was a Shannon. Oh, I got two great hands online.

First, Shannon and then Tim. I will start the timer whenever you start speaking.

Did I have to unmute themselves? I yes.

I just gave you a new permission, though, Shannon.

Terrific. Thank you very much. Good excuse me. Good morning, chair Diaz and council members. Excuse me.

This is Shannon Boldeshar, and I'm here today behalf excuse me, on behalf of the All of Us Alliance. I spoke at our previous meeting. And as a refresh, we're a coalition of union and nonunion contractors, business associations, and community advocates united around one core goal, ensuring that public works investments expand opportunity rather than unintentionally restricting it. The All of Us Alliance supports high labor standards and quality jobs, but what we oppose are unnecessary barriers, especially barriers that occur as a result of unnecessary CWAs that prevent women and minority business enterprise firms from competing, growing, and hiring in the communities they serve, barriers that public policy never intended to create. CWAs were creative, as we know, with good intentions to do no harm, strengthen the workforce, and broaden access to opportunity.

But over time, they've grown increasingly complex and restrictive. For the small and women and minority business enterprise certified firms, the lower thresholds and added mandates have resulted in more barriers, not fewer, making it harder and more difficult for these businesses to participate in public works projects. It's essential that the city of Tacoma and this committee fully understand the exclusionary and discriminatory effects that CWAs can have on marginalized businesses, operators, and workers. We look forward to working and partnering with the council and this committee to ensure that your economic strategies leave no firm behind, that they create a true level playing field and strengthen the local contracting community that built your city. Thank you for your time.

Thanks, Shannon.

Alright. Sam?

Yeah. This is, Tim Ataburay. I'm with the Associated General Contractors of Washington and just wanted to provide history. So I was cochair of the CWA committee that the city put together in 2019. We spent twenty five hours in a room just like you're in, discussing this topic.

Every perspective was heard in the city. And at the end of that, committee's work, the the group voted nine to four to not move forward with CWAs. The primary reason was that is was that folks were convinced that women and minority owned small, contractors would be hurt, and there's no denying that. And so I I just I I I you know, and and the city council got a presentation from that committee back in 2019. The elected officials on that city council were were just as progressive as you.

They were they were smart, good people who ran for office in the city of Tacoma, and they decided to not support CWAs. So the I just want I just want everyone in the room to know that we've been here before. We talked about it for twenty five hours. Every perspective was offered that's been offered today, and the the the committee voted nine to four to not move forward. And then there was an elaborate presentation given to elected officials, and they decided to not move forward. Sometimes, the decisions of of of folks that were elected before you were good decisions, and I think this was one of them. Thank you.

Thanks, Kim. Okay. So got everybody in the room. Nobody else sent their pandas online, and, there was one written comment about that we would

Perfect. Thank you. Good last call. Okay.

I have a couple questions. Oh, sure. Got it. I'll make the statements.

For the record.

And I will sign it. Name is Jared Ross. I'm the executive director of building and construction trades council. I represent 18 construction unions, in five counties, about 10,000 employees 10,000 members. The questions that I have that I do not need to, but I would like everybody to think about, would the city of Tacoma implement a CWA or a PLA that excludes OMWBE certified firms?

That's question number one. The second one is, do any of the city of Tacoma public works contracts exclude certified firms? That's question number two. And number three is how many employers contracting with the city of Tacoma subcontract out to certified firms if it is not required in the contract document? Thank you very much.

Sure. Alright. That, I can declare the public comment period closed, and we'll move into today's presentation, which is a 2019 Community Workforce Advisory Committee report with recommendations and updates. So for that, I would like to call on Deborah tomorrow from our community and economic development department. Come on in.

And after that, we'll get a workforce for that subject.

Thanks, Deborah. Thank you. Good morning, chair Diaz, committee members, and attendees. As noted, my name is Deborah Gibaro. I work in community and economic development coordinating several of our workforce programs, including our local employment and apprenticeship training program.

LEAP. I'm providing an update on progress made toward the twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen Tacoma Community Workforce Advisory Committee final report recommendation, highlighting accomplishments to date and our plans for continued efforts to align our work with the priorities of economic growth and liberal wages. In 2018, with difficult economic conditions in Tacoma that impacted women, minorities, and others with social and economic disadvantages, opportunities for training and living wages were needed to improve the lives of our community members. Half of the households in the city were living on less than $52,000 a year, and 40% of the residents lacked affordable housing. The city was tasked with ensuring funds spent on public works provided contracts for small minority and women owned businesses, and ensured training and prevailing wage jobs to residents most in need.

The workforce advisory committee was established per Resolution four zero one two four. The priorities were clear, increased priority hire and apprenticeship and increased utilization of certified firms on city funded public work and improvement projects. The committee was diverse with representatives of labor unions, contractors, both union and non union, owners of minority and women owned businesses, minority business advocacy groups, open shop apprenticeship programs, Tacoma Housing Authority, and advocates from economically distressed communities. During this presentation, the Tacoma Community Advisory Committee will be referred to as the committee, minority and or women businesses, and small businesses certified by the Washington State Office of Minority and Women's Business Enterprises, also known as OMWBE, will be referred to as certified firms, and the economically disadvantaged areas or distressed areas related to the city's priority hire definition will be referred to as EDAs. For the resolution outlined, the directive to the city manager was to establish a committee to review utilization of disadvantaged workers and disadvantaged businesses and determine if the city was using public work and improvement funds in ways that would help these groups.

They were to review a draft priority hire ordinance or PHO and community workforce agreement or CWA that was to be prepared by city staff to meet a dual purpose goal of greater utilization of the residents from EDAs and of certified firms, union and nonunion. The committee was also to provide recommendations on whether a dual purpose PHO or CWA would meet the dual purpose goal, and they were to produce a final PHO and CWA for city council consideration. Oh, I already got you. I have a delay. Okay.

Thank you. Of the recommendations from the committee, progress has been made on 96 of these. 20 have been completed, four are partially completed, and one is remaining. The recommendations generally fall into three categories, items related to certified firms, items related to priority hiring and workforce development, and other. Two city programs the committee was to focus on related to workforce and businesses are the local employment and apprenticeship training Program or LEAP.

LEAP places 15% local and priority hire requirements on public work and improvement projects below $1,000,000 and LEAP adds an additional 15% apprentice requirement on projects above $1,000,000 Also, the equity and contracting program was considered EIC. EIC places requirements for utilization of certified firms on our projects, providing access and opportunity for growth at success. Next, each recommendation will be shown along with the action taken and the status of projects in progress in implementing each. We appreciate your attention as these are very detailed matters. So 10 of the recommendations of the committee were the same as those from the 2018 disparity study completed around the same time.

The first 14 of these would provide the most benefit to certified firms, providing training and supportive services, defined contracting opportunities, oversight of payments, and assurances that if they were named on a utilization plan for a project, that would be enforced. The first one is to ensure that the list that the city uses for certified firms matches the state list, and we now use the state certified OMWBE list. Second, the staff for EIC and lead programs has been increased as recommended from two to three FTEs to four. We were to provide more notice of upcoming opportunities, and we publish a project forecasting list for a two year period, and we fund supportive services for certified firms. EIC includes capacity building, workshops, and trainings for the small business community.

We use national procurement coding now, the North American Industry Classification System or NAICS codes on our projects. And for a small business reserve program, our finance department owns this work, they're planning to adopt a small works roster this year. Number seven, collecting payments. Include all minority and payment data. Sorry.

Include all minor Good on minority, prime, and subcontractors. So EIC collects the data on all public works that have EIC requirements. Finance has purview over the projects that do not have EIC requirements. We're to assign MWBE requirements or EIC requirements to private projects that have city benefits like land, tax incentives, infrastructure, or other items of value. So LEAP and EIC requirements are in the development agreements, but the city does not enforce developers to meet the requirements.

This is ongoing. It would take a broader conversation with other departments. Assigning aspirational goals as well as project goals, EIC assigns three separate MWB and SB utilization requirements on the projects, and the city will conduct a disparity study every five years. So investigating discrimination. Bidders who submit low or no proposed WMB utilization, they will be contacted and they the the firms they list, if they do list some, would be contacted and bids received from subs provided those and those who be selected.

We do have a process for investigating discrimination, and then there are potential penalties if there was no if there's forfeiture, if there are no utilization of these firms listed. I can provide more information on that if you'd like. Also, EIC insurance certified firms are assisted in growing strong businesses by enforcing inclusion and fair treatment on future projects. Tracking performance data and setting expectations with their bid, bidders must include an EIC utilization plan and list the contractors. At bid review, ESC staff calls the subcontractors to verify they know they're listed and they provided a bid.

For projects awarded and throughout the life of the project, their utilization is monitored. In order to update code to not allow bidders that offer 0% SBE hiring, formerly SBE now EIC, they were to be considered nonresponsive Per EIC utilization regulation, contractors must submit a plan of how they'll meet the EIC requirements or they are deemed nonresponsive. There are considerations for departments requesting a full or partial waiver of EIC requirements. For it to require prompt payment of subcontract certified subcontractors, prompt payment is a condition of RCW 39.786 and is monitored in our EIC tracking system. If they're not paid promptly, EIC notifies the city's project team, and a warning is issued if the prime contractor is found at fault and pen penalties may be applied if the issue is not properly resolved.

To date, prompt payment issues have stemmed only from subcontractors that fail to provide the proper documentation necessary for payment processing. And then promoting or funding small firm mentorship programs, we do this with the capacity building mentorship program, CBMP, through the National Minority Business Development Agency, Sound Transit, WatsDOT. With the following recommendations, numbers 15 through 22, supporting priority hiring, the term economically distressed areas, again, is abbreviated to EDAs. These recommendations would most benefit the local and economically distressed residents. But working with the education systems to promote construction, we do work with the Tomokoma Schools and jobs two five three program.

And with that program, there are credential opportunities for students with the a new construction program, electrical interim credential, plumbers and pipe printers, residential and commercial construction. Then the call was to amend the code requiring bidders to submit a plan for meeting primary hiring and utilization of certified firms. This is partially completed. EIC is a condition of being ESE plans, condition of being responsive bidder. The lead plan is not a condition of award, but it's due before the start of work.

Progress payments can be withheld until a lead plan is submitted and approved by our program. And we are to increase pre apprenticeship training opportunities in city and partnership with local institutions. We do by partnering with local institutions for our intercom training and employment program or TTEP, and we've contracted for that with Clover Park Technical College that supported that may support the Palmer Pathways program, which is a state certified free internship program. Supporting and promoting apprenticeship and hiring of apprenticeship. We do both of these items through LEED and through a former contract with the Northwest Carpenters Institute, also funding the Brownfields job training program, the TTEC program, and via the Washington Home Builders Foundation and the BIEW for Construction Trades Academy.

The latter two programs target both employed and underemployed people, and we use strategies to make it easy for people to participate. Two of the graduates from the March 2025 program of the Construction Trades Academy and two graduates of the EPA program gained employment and apprenticeship programs. And we fund skills training for Tacoma residents through grants, through general fund, and through assessments. Programs include the Emerald Cities Collaborative, HVAC Academy, the Jobs two five three program, EPA Brownfields program, and Palmer Pathways as mentioned. Yeah.

Okay. We do participate in regional workforce development activities through the regional public owners group, regional pre apprenticeship collaboration, Workforce Central Construction Academy, work industry construction industry roundtable group among others, and adjust the code to ensure bidders are considered responsive only if they clearly demonstrate a plan or strategy to meet priority hire goals. I'm currently working with finance and legal to update the code on this and make the leap workforce utilization plan required at time of bid. If this is agreed to, failure to list how lease requirements will be met will result in bids being deemed non responsive and therefore void. And then include workforce development system as a partner in developing our strategies.

We actively engage with the workforce development system in this work. Lastly, we have fulfilled additional recommendations. Staff is embedded into our completed and full ingrained into normalized work and operationalized. For number 23, promote a strong education system and business friendly environment. We do this through our partnerships with Silver Park Technical College and Oklahoma Public Schools.

Clarify the interaction with any new WMBE goals and the EIC program, now EIC, Through any update and evolution of our programs, it's been communicated how the new program will be managed. And when there are program updates, we communicate that both internally at the city and with our external stakeholder. And clarifying the process contractors should use to to find certified firms. Contractors can reference the OMWB site to verify certified firms. There's also an online tool for, LEAP requirements.

They can check the tool and find if a employee will help them meet the local input requirement or the apprentice requirement, including priority hire. And then the last one, verification of registered apprentices. City staff does this through LNI's apprenticeship site where you can see exactly where apprentice is in their progress and their program. So common goals of priority hire programs are they consist of one or more group, local hires, apprentice hires, diversity hires, and hiring workers from economically disadvantaged areas. The latter, again, is LEAP's priority hire focus.

With contractor compliance and reporting, we know success of LEAP in local employment, employment of residents to the EDA, and hiring of apprentices, especially from Washington State. Also of note, noncompliance penalties are part of the LEAP program, and this committee helped with establishing a long overdue increase in rates, you may remember, In force contractor reporting and enforcement of requirements began in January 2025, and progress toward greater success in utilization is shown next. Little small at the bottom. So as noted, our targeted priority hire program is residents of economically distressed areas. First line and and tallest comment column is local hires.

So with LEAP, local hires include city residents and residents of the EPA. They can be journeymen or apprentices. So as you can see going across, local hires dropped a little bit in 2022 and has continued to escalate. City resident hires, the second column, over time has gone up and then down a little bit in 2025. The EDA or priority hires, third column, remains higher than city residents and has gone up the last few years.

Apprentices from the TPU service area. So LEAPS requirement for apprentices, they have to live in the TPU service area, and that's a little different from most other public agencies where they can live anywhere in the state. So when we track our numbers, it shows apprentices from the TPU service area are below the 15 ending up at 12% through annual increases. But from the state, it's begun to rise, and we're now at 16 of our premises anywhere in the state. And next for EIC, the city of Tacoma's twenty seventh Disparity Study, which analyzed contract data from 2017 to 2022, notes a 21% availability of minority and women owned businesses for city contracts.

This slide shows our year over year performance and progress in reaching that 21% target, highlighting where we have made improvements in removing disparities and where there's additional work ahead. As noted in the 2024 disparity study, again, with analysis of contracting data from the same year, through '22 for construction contracts, the EIC program has eliminated the disparities in the utilization Hispanic American, Native American, and white women owned businesses. The city's goal of 21% utilization of certified businesses is all spend, but we are only looking at public work improvements that have EIC requirements. A lot of information. Okay.

Do you have any questions? Great.

Thank you, Deborah. All of that any questions or all? Sure.

Right here. Just a couple of clarifying questions, I guess. I might have missed when you said that. So when you're talking about the the central stone, they aren't meeting the requirements, but we don't the city doesn't enforce those requirements. Who does? On the development agreements? Yes. They aren't enforced. And so is it just up to, like, people who are, like, employees kind of, like, making a report? And, like, if somebody's how do how do we rectify that somebody's not We rectify that by spending more staff time on it and and working with our code to ensure that we can be in charge of developers.

So if somebody's not sticking to requirements, we we don't know. It's like, I guess I'm just trying to understand, like, somebody is not taking the requirements. How do we find out about that? We would have to review their payrolls Okay. And track the payrolls. It is something that has not been focused on as we focus on other matters. And does that what triggers that? Is that, like, somebody who's on the worksite says, hey. I don't think this is things aren't being followed the right way. Is it just you do a random audit and find out It would be a random audit and city staff.

Okay. And then for the when it comes to requirements, you mentioned that people can apply for or, you know, develop should apply for a waiver. What are the things that would, like that they can say, like, this is the reason why I want this waiver? So the waivers are not on development projects. They're on the regular projects that have EIC requirement. Oh, yeah. In case you can speak with that.

I'll just add to the original the initial question. For development agreements, whether or not leave for equity and contracting applies is not under the preview of ERC relief at the moment. If that was a question of counsel, we would need to have additional conversations with people in the planning and development services department. So not not off the table, but it would, definitely require a conversation. And

my last question at the moment is so on the slide that showed the just

kind

of the hiring numbers, and it said, like, our city residents are low. And, I obviously, I see that we're trying to do, you know, partnering with education and things like that. Do we have any other understanding of why that number is

lower and why it's been kind of hard to have permission?

Like, The city residents? Mhmm. The city residents one, we look at the overall local hires, and that's been so successful that we haven't looked at, you know, why is the city number less than the economically distressed area number. And so more focused on the economic distress area for priority hire.

And I can add, economically distressed areas are not necessarily within the Tacoma City limits. Mhmm. So the geography of an economically distressed areas are that of the city of Tacoma.

Thank you.

Still digesting a lot of the information. It's okay. So if you have questions Okay.

I guess I'll do. Okay.

Thank you for this patient. I I think I'm I am interested in seeing there were some of the numbers up there, but I guess or interested in seeing, more. Okay. And so with, like, the EIC and the capacity building and training support, because I'm wondering, like, what that actually looks like, like, many folks participate in those types of programs. And then as far as, like, the numbers that are being shown, what is that compared to as far as, like, what what are their projections as far as, like, what we would like to hit or, like, goals, that we're trying to hit that, know, get us to where we wanna be in, like, our comprehensive plan, that sort of thing.

So how do those percentages compare to where we would like to be?

Okay. For LEAP, the where we would like to be is the 15%. Okay. So for the local local hires, it's 15% utilization. And then for projects that are an estimated over a million dollars, additional entity utilization, 15%. And why

what was the process of getting to that number as the goal?

As the goal? I think it was in alignment with the the local community and other, state requirements that hadn't applied towards cities thoroughly,

but

it was something that city of Tacoma took on. The state has since, in 2024, brought down a ruling that there must be an apprenticeship requirement on municipalities required or public working improvements. And

in 2024,

it started at 2,000,000, but our requirement was already at

1,000,000. And so we're under that. So when I'm looking at these numbers, if it's below 50% or behind and if it's above, we're doing okay. Is that what I'm Yes. Okay. And I guess I have questions about not not being, like, required to be compliant, so I'd love to continue that conversation. Okay.

Yep. I think that's what I have for now. Thank you. Great. Thank you.

Councilman Palmer, did your question get answered regarding EIC capacity or the? No. That will be covered in the next presentation, but

I'm happy to provide quick response. I'll wait. Okay. Perfect.

I do got one thing now.

It's fine.

You. I appreciate that. I have some time to think about it. One one of the goals you had earlier in the completion, I forget which number it was. That was in regards to prompt payments. Mhmm. And you'd mentioned that at at the contractor level, the it's being done, but it's the challenge is not the subcontractor level. Could you talk a little bit more about that and what's going on there? Because at the end of the day, when folks are getting paid, that's that's the problem.

So what the EIC program staff has shared with me is that when subcontractors show or say, you know, we're not getting prompt payment or the EIC staff sees in their system that that's not happening, then when they investigate, usually, it's that the right documentation hasn't been provided to allow for prompt payment that shows in our system.

Okay. So it's more of a so people are getting paid and we're just not getting ordered properly because of the paperwork? Or

It's it's a little bit of both. Okay. I speak forward to that. Yeah.

It's a little bit of both. So in terms of submitting payment, the prime contractor will confirm they paid the subcontractor, then the subcontractor will confirm that they received the accurate payment, not just confirming they received the correct amount. In terms of the city, the city's relationship was with the prime directly, so then the prime is responsible for being the subcontractor. If there's an issue with the subcontractor receiving their payment on time, which is within ten days for our study, then to Deborah's comment, that's typically the issue in that ten day window is typically if documentation is missing or not submitted on time. And so one way that we're looking to hopefully remove that barrier is by offering capacity building training workshops to inform people on what the payment process is at the city and how they could better understand what the difference between payment time the subconduct.

Okay.

I so there at least just initially, there appears to be a gap where the sub is actually paying the people that are doing the work. It it so where's is there is there accountability on the sub to to be yeah. They might have received, and they might provide the documentation. They've got paid. Are we confirming that the sub is also distributed? It's

if the subcontractor has tiers of additional subcontractors, that also needs to be verified within our system. So

Okay. And then where does the accountability lie if if folks are not getting paid at the end of the day?

It depends on where within that scale. So if it's from the prime leading to pizza, then the conversation we'll have is with the prime. If it's the sub not being their second tier subs, then it's with the first tier sub. So it really depends on and we can see all this in our system.

Yeah.

But it depends on

Thinking about the.

Yeah. At the end of the day, who's who's gonna be left home in the back is the folks that have done work. Right. Right? And so, obviously, wanna make sure everybody's getting paid fairly and doing after they've done what they've done. So in my opinion, that's a thievery. So Of course. Yeah. So I thank you for that. Yeah. Maybe we can have an offline talk, kinda dive in that.

And I'll add, people that run small businesses can't afford to wait to be paid. Yeah. Prime contractors can't afford to wait to be paid. And so as staff, we take compliance very seriously and making sure that people are getting paid to best.

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody. Y'all asked a lot of good questions I had and a bunch I didn't, so thank you. There's a lot of information here. I think what I wanted to make sure I highlight for folks, particularly committee members, but I think everybody in the room is this committee has seen a lot of pieces of these 15 recommendations, come before the committee as updates say we get our annual equity contracting updates. We get updates on LEAP.

We have never looked at it from this lens of the rep all of the recommendations from 2019 to now. So it's a really helpful lens, I know, for me to have been looking at it. Sort of, like, the essentially, the birth of these programs of, like, why are they here at the annual update? So this has been really helpful for me to help connect the dots. So I wanted to lay that groundwork and really thank you guys for the the CED department for all the work you did to get this presentation together.

I know it was a lot of work and some really great move for us to be sort of looking at it in this way. I had a couple of questions myself around the prompt payment piece. I will keep them high level, and then I think maybe might dive in another time as well. But you mentioned that there are penalties, that can be, given. I'm wondering how often the penalties happen if we have a handle. Is that, like, once or twice? Is it common?

The penalties, at least for the equity and contracting program, have not been applied, in particular due to the timing of payment and due due due to the timing of excuse, of when we're looking at compliance reporting. So as of 2024, we've implemented a different compliance process to look at projects. We look at projects on a weekly and monthly basis, but also doing an additional monitoring or tracking at 20% project completion, 50% project completion, 70% project completion. And the reason we're doing that is based off of the way the code is written. We can't necessarily, withhold payment if you don't catch any issues until the end of the project.

And so making sure we're happy we're having additional touch points throughout the project. But to directly answer your question, it's far between currently, but with new process processes.

Great. I think that's just helpful to know if people are seeing penalties all the time or if they're not. It's just, you know, context. The other question I had around here or just, I guess, clarification, just in a micro screen, me being early in the morning. But I want to clarify that everything that we do on number 13 around penalties, around some of the questions that deputy mayor Bushnell had, all the prompt payment requirements for contractors and subcontractors and subcontractors.

Those are all specific to program or to RFPs or I don't know what the right word for it is. Projects that the city puts out. It's not that these Casey, your teams, Ed's teams are not policing all for all all construction projects that are happening in the city. It is just for projects that are being paid by the city. Correct? Yeah. Because everything that is not a city project is then subject to state laws and not city in relation to terms of payments to contractors and subcontracts. We're not tracking any of that.

Right? Right. Because the case that we're not the project or city is

not the project owner. Correct. I just wanted to clarify that in case there was confusion. I know it was I felt like it was an important thing to highlight. Perfect. I think those are all my questions. I may ask if anything else pop up? Nope. That's great, Erica. Thank you. With that, we will move on to Kizzy for workforce programs update.

Good morning, Chair Diaz, Vice Chair of Bushnell, and members of the Economic Development Committee. My name is Kasey Woods, Business and Economic Development Manager, and today I'll be sharing updates on CED's current investments in strengthening our workforce ecosystem. I want to start with a story that illustrates why this work matters. A janitor at Clover Park Technical College wanted to move beyond an entry level job. Through our partnership with Emerald City's Collaborative, he was able to access HVAC training and tuition waivers he didn't know existed.

Today, he's on a path to a living wage career. This is what our workforce workforce programs do, remove barriers and create opportunity for people in our community. Building on the story we started with, our workforce programs are the tools that turn barriers into opportunities. Each program plays a unique role in Tacoma's workforce ecosystem. Equity in contracting or EIC has traditionally focused on helping small minority and women owned businesses compete for city contracts.

When those businesses win, they often hire locally, creating jobs and strengthening our economy. Moving forward, we're expanding the way we communicate about EIC beyond contracting access to include business services and development. We ensure city projects open doors for local talent and apprentices, building pathways into skilled trades and livable wage careers. TTEC connects residents to training and certifications that lead directly to employment in high demand sectors, and the EPA Brownfields job training program provides free training for environmental careers, supporting Tacoma's green economy and climate resilience goals. Together, these programs reflect Tacoma twenty thirty five values of access, opportunity, and belonging.

On the last slide, we talked about the programs that turn barriers into opportunities. Now let's look at what that impact looks like in real life. These images tell the story of Tacoma's workforce ecosystem in action. The top left, we have a picture of staff attending a networking event. This photo shows our staff at a contracting networking event.

These events are more than just meet and greets. They're about building relationships that lead to jobs. Every contract awarded to a local firm means more local hiring and apprenticeships. On the top right, we have a picture representing LEAP. Here, we have local workers working on a city project, connecting public investment to local talent.

In the bottom two pictures, we have graduates of our EPA and TTEC programs. These graduates represent the success of our training programs. Each graduate is a story of access and opportunity realized. Our approach is rooted in Tacoma twenty thirty five's values. We leverage our partnership with Workforce Central to align programs with key industry sectors and connect learning with livable wage jobs.

We promote inclusive hiring and contracting practices to ensure our workforce represents the communities we serve. Inclusive contracting grows local businesses, which in turn creates jobs and apprenticeships. We engage anchor institutions to invest in Tacoma's future workforce. This isn't just about jobs. It's about supporting a system and creating an environment where every resident can thrive.

As we move through the presentation, it's important to note that workforce development thrives through collaboration, not isolation. We intentionally cultivate strong partnerships with Tacoma Public Utilities to strengthen the entire workforce ecosystem. While CED programs focus on experience and career, reaching high school and postsecondary audiences, Tacoma Public Utilities supports the full talent cycle. Here's why each stage matters. Education or k through five, early exposure to STEM and career concepts builds curiosity and confidence.

This foundation helps close opportunity gaps and prepare students for future learning. Relationship or sixth through eighth grade. Middle school is critical for identity and aspiration. Programs here foster mentorship and awareness, ensuring students see themselves in future careers. The experience stage serving ninth through twelfth grade, hands on internships, and job training give high school students real world skills and a sense of belonging in Tacoma's economy.

These experiences turn interest into readiness. And lastly, for the career stage or postsecondary, connecting graduates to apprenticeships, certifications, and livable wage jobs ensures long term economic mobility and strengthens Tacoma's workforce ecosystem. Together with Tacoma Public Utilities, we're building talent pipelines from elementary school to career. On this slide, you'll be able to see a flow chart which illustrates workforce development and how programs align across different stages of the talent pipeline. We wanted to take a technical time to show which initiatives go with each state.

You'll see that on the slide. The next slide will detail what we measure to see the greatest community impact. And the programs represented on the slide are inclusive of the intellectual utilities and CED or general government. Our key metrics at a glance are organized by our focus areas within the newly updated CED strategic plan. Within the strategic plan, our metrics are organized in areas we own, areas we influence, and areas we monitor.

The metrics represented today are specific to focus area three, career pathways and workforce readiness. Focus area two, small business and entrepreneurship, and focus area one, business retention, expansion, and attraction, and are related to the workforce programs presented today. Our impact and action are stories behind the numbers and communicating back to the metrics that we track. In 2025, our programs made a real difference. For equity and contracting, we saw 60 awards to certified firms, generating local employment opportunities and nearly 9,300,000.0 invested with 2,600,000.0 to small minority and women owned businesses in Pierce County.

Every dollar invested through EIC have the ripple effect. Businesses hire, train, and retain local workers. When we help businesses compete and win, we're not just awarding contracts, we're creating employment opportunities for Tacoma residents. Equity in contracting means equity in hiring. Supporting diverse business owners expands job opportunities for communities that have faced systemic barriers.

And lastly, every increase in small business participation is an increase in local jobs. Procurement equity is a workforce strategy. For the local employment and apprenticeship training program or LEAP, LEAP connects public investment to local talent. In 2025, we saw over a 148,000 worked by local employees and apprentices with almost 9,000,000 total wages paid to Tacoma's workforce. These hours translate into wages paid to local workers and apprentices, building skills, and high demand trades.

This program doesn't just meet compliance. It creates pathways to livable wage careers and strengthens our local workforce. The next slide will communicate our impact and action for the EPA Brownfields job training program and the Tacoma Training and Employment Program. For TTEC, we saw over 50 participants gaining credentials and jobs in high demand sectors. They gained different certifications to include confined space, boom lift, scaffolding, OSHA 30, CPR, forklift, flagging, and comp TIA.

For Tacoma training and employment program, the focus for the last year was in construction trades and information technology or help desk technician. Job placements with hourly wages weight range, excuse me, from $17 to $40. For the EPA Brownfield's job training program, we had 48 people trained, 293 certifications earned with careers in environmental cleanup and construction. And similarly, job placements with hourly wages ranged from $18.50 an hour to $41.39 an hour. These aren't just numbers.

They represent families getting stability and futures being built. The road ahead and our strategic priorities for 2026. Looking ahead, our priorities are clear and aligned with our newly updated strategic plan as well as with Tacoma 2035 focused area of jobs and economy. We will align workforce development with key industry sectors with quality job principles. Additionally, we will expand equitable access to workforce programs, promote inclusive hiring and contracting practices, and transparent talent pipelines.

The third bullet is specific to equity and contracting in league. We will additionally integrate green economic development into workforce planning, and lastly, enhance system coordination and transparency. Through these strategies, we're ensuring Tacoma's workforce ecosystem works for everyone. Connecting people to opportunity, strengthening neighborhoods, and creating a city where access, belonging, and economic mobility are part of everyday life. This concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

JC? Don't what to try. Don't remember. She's gonna ask questions that are. Okay. You wanna go first? Hey,

So I appreciate the numbers that you presented and answered. Part of my question, I guess, the other part is, so you you listed out the the number of folks that kinda went through the program and then said, like, the salaries that they're getting, which is great. I'm curious as far as, like, the percentage of folks that go through the program that go that get job placement or, how successful that is. And and then overall, just the goals again. Like, it's great to see these numbers after, you know, couple million is is impressive.

But what is the big picture, you know, as far as, like, what are our areas of opportunity as well. So Thank you for the question, customer Palmer. Specific to the percent that go into employment from any workforce program, we do track that for an entire year. We So work with our contracted partners to track, three month intervals, six month intervals, nine, and then twelve month intervals, to see if they're remaining employed, and to also track the progression of their wages to see if they're getting wage increases. And so at this point in time, because the programs have just finished, we don't have the the full picture of what that looks like, but I'm happy to provide an update in the next couple of months when we have that information.

And then specific to goals, for equity and contracting, it's a little bit less specific as to LEAP, which has 15%. For equity and contracting, it's going to be more so removing disparities in the areas that we know we have from the last disparity study. So as presented earlier, we know there's from the 2017 to '22 2022 period, excuse me, we know there's no longer a disparity in construction contracts that does not include services or goods or A and E. There's not a disparity amongst Hispanic Americans, white women, or, native American groups. So for equity and contracting, we will continue to track numbers, but the greatest need is going to be among African American firms and Asian American firms in construction.

And then another thing I was happy to see, on that last slide that we're incorporating the the green economy plan, or I forget exactly what it's called, into the because did I catch that, like, most of our planning is kinda what helps us determine what these pro what programs we have is determined kinda through, like, workforce central. Is that an RV place we're looking for? So I'd be care yeah. I'm curious to see how how those how that changes the programs that we we offer. And then also if it's like, you know, Tacoma has this issue now versus, you know, looking through the for the future and seeing, what areas are going to be hot in the future that Tacoma could take advantage of.

Thank you.

And we do work intentionally with Workforce Central, to align the industry sectors within any request of proposals for the Tacoma training and employment program to ensure those industry sectors are aligned with what Workforce Central is noting as the key industry sectors specific to the the green economy. We have a current contract in place with Emerald City's Collaborative. They recently finished work for an econtractor academy, which supports minority women owned businesses and getting into the green sector. So you can think clean buildings, retrofitting, that type of thing. And then they recently started a cohort with Clover Park Technical College out of the Eastside Training Center for HVAC training and, also potentially adding refrigeration to that.

And so the people that graduate from that program will also graduate with an associates, with some credits worth their associates.

Perfect. Great work. Thank you.

Really good numbers.

Excellent. Thank you. If there are any questions either, just thank you again, Casey, for all your work and all the presentation. We hear from you a lot, and so it's always always helpful. I I learn something from you every time, so I greatly appreciate it all the work you're doing. For both of you, thank you for all the work you did to get the information together, conversation together. It's really robust. There's a lot of information. I don't my understanding is the slides might have come in after the twenty four hour mark, so I don't know if the clerk has them online yet. So I just wanted to clarify for folks in the room, folks online that are interested in seeing the slides, and they're not up, please let me know.

I'm happy to forward them. Free. I know the folks are gonna get there as soon as she can, but if someone's, like, itching for it, feel free to let me know. I just wanted to highlight that because because there's a lot of important information in there. I think there's also some other information that staff has requested that wasn't in there.

And if that is the case or there's other things that we need to follow-up on, we will just for sort of public awareness, we're gonna, try to get that collected. And if if there's things that come in, we'll put them in a future, a future EDC packet, TBE, for transparency of information. Lastly, I wanted to go ahead and I wasn't expecting everyone to stay for all the presentations. Oh, we have such a good captive audience here. I can't tell who's online because the Zoom is too small, but I'm wondering if anyone can indicate if they would like a second chance at public comment if you already spoke or there's a lot of information presented today, so I wanted to open that up in case we we have a little time.

Yes. Please. Okay. Great. Come on up, Angelica.

Just introduce yourself again for the record. We'll open up public comment here briefly again, because I think there was a lot of good information.

So

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody.

Right. Hi. I'm Hilica Duncan with High Grade Alcohol and Fuel Co. Inc. So first, I wanted to make an apology. Earlier, I said, Quincy, I meant to say Quinault Tribe. I would not sleep at night knowing that I'd made that mistake. Of course. And then secondly, I I just I have question to a question. So earlier it was said exclude small firms.

I think we need to be very careful because when you use the term exclude, are you suggesting certified small businesses would be legally prohibited from bidding? Or are they proposing that small businesses wouldn't be required or expected to comply with union agreements so long as they still pay prevailing wage rates according to county and bid due dates and are paying everybody as they are expected to. Right? So I just wanna be very careful because we do a lot of business for the city of Tacoma. I love working in the city of Tacoma. I graduated in Tacoma. I live in Tacoma. I want to continue working in Tacoma. Please don't exclude small businesses like mine from being able to participate on public works projects. Thank you so much.

Everybody else? Can't say that. Wanna say that? Please. Come on. We'll we'll do the same thing again.

Just

Just know, one

of the public office. Mayor Bushnell made, and that was in the the bleed down, basically, of payments. Being on the construction side and knowing what it takes to to pay subcontractors and employees and all that and with requirements that RCW is so long that they're there to make it so that payment does push down. Actually, one of the biggest issues is getting payment from the agency itself. Mhmm.

That is often delayed for paperwork issues for a multitude of things that are nonrelated to the work being completed. But in public agency work, for the most part, and there are exceptions, most of your employees, if not all of your employees, are getting paid at the end of the day. And it's you know, it it it is the responsibility of that general contractor. Even though it's not written or there's anything done about it, we still are responsible to make sure that those payments are filtering down to where they need to be filtered down because it's our objective to make sure that we have subcontractors that are capable of working for us. And one of the requirements that we look at, the unfortunate nature of what we do with public agency work is low bid is king.

Right? If we're not low bidder, we don't get to work, and we don't get to hire these subcontractors to work. So we need to make sure as general contractors that our subcontractors, our material suppliers, both people are paid in accordance to how they're supposed to be paid and that they are paying their employees. And when we look at hiring subcontractors, we're looking at the reliability of subcontractors. As much as we know we need to be a little bitter, we also have to make sure that we have reliable subcontractors. So I

just kinda wanted to branch off on that a

little bit. I don't know that it happens. It absolutely happens. A subcontractor will go A prime contractor will go broke, and there is a problem with the payment of those employees underneath of them. But it's it's within public agency work, it's less common than

it is on a private side. So I just wanted to reiterate that real quick. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. Michael two chances.

Yes. It's fine.

No worries.

I got you.

Sure. Call us, Kim. Sure. Kim, and

then Jared. My name is Thank you. Kip Burns. Just wanna speak real quickly. As an architect, I've worked on large prompt public projects, large in schools. And so we've always had good payment application. In the presentation, I there's so much I don't have any comments. I'm kinda like, already a star.

What?

But I would say, I didn't hear, and maybe I wasn't listening to what Bates mentioned. And the other thing, what I look at trying to understand things is what's the universe look like? And, basically, I'm saying, what does a local universe look like? How many people graduate from, Tacoma Public Schools on a annual basis? How many unions do we have in the city of Tacoma?

And let's look what city of Tacoma looks like, and how many people can help support these programs and make those relationships and make them stronger? And I've been to a couple of county city council meetings where the carpenter's unions come and say, hey. We've got their subcontractors out, you know, working without paying their people or paying, their wages. So but I would like a little bit more granularity to get a better idea of what Beaconhurst is just a bit. And I think the last thing I would say is it'd be good to know what's going on in Pierce County because the concern I always had is my projects have these requirements, to varying degrees.

Do we have enough of a resource to actually that we're not crippling the contractors? You know? So I'd I'd like to see a little bit broader presentation, but I'm not criticizing this at all. I was like, I'm more educated than probably the next person down the road, I hope. Anyway, thank you very much.

Thanks, Dan. Jared?

Again, Jared Ross with the South Sound Building Trades. It's kind of a more of a statement question, two part. So to bid on a project as a certified minority women business entity enterprise, you have to be certified. Correct? So to bid on that portion of the project, you have to be certified and be even considered for that portion of the project. But you don't have to be a certified training agent to bid on a project that has a production utilization requirements. That's a question. Kinda statement kind of question. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else want a first or a second, buddy? We don't normally open it up again. There was just so much information that I thought someone might have reactions, and turns out. Great. With that said, thank you to the team from CED. I know it took probably the whole team, not just the folks we saw here today. Very grateful. With that, we'll move on to topics for upcoming meetings with some of the

liaison analysts. Yes. March has five. We're meeting three five in March. On March 10, partnership with providing an update on the residency programs on March 24. Business improvement area. We would share a result of stock on the business. And we're. Then on March 31, we'll have.

Great. Thank you. Committee members, are there any other items of interest that folks have on prem?

No. I I just wanna say thank you to everybody who chimed in today and just

gave us a lot of a

lot to consider on the community side and but also, like,

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. With that, I will entertain the final motion.

Move to adjourn.

Second. All those in favor, speak by saying aye.

Aye.

Anybody opposed? Nope. We are adjourned. Okay. Everybody, standing in record signing. Good job.