By Kathy Amoroso
June 29, 2009

A capacity crowd filled the Naragansett Ballroom for the Mayors and Workforce Development Directors Breakfast: Creating and Managing Effective Summer Jobs Programs at the 77th Annual Conference of Mayors in Providence, as mayors and their job training administrators came together to discuss the many benefits of putting teens and young adults to work during the summer.

Presided over by Conference President Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, the session focused on effective implementation of the $1.2 billion investment in youth employment for a Summer Jobs program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

"For more than three decades, the federal Summer Jobs program served as a gateway to early work experience for youth who had limited access to the labor market," said Diaz. "This program provided that experience for over a half million low-income youth each year until it came to an end nearly a decade ago."

"The Conference has made reenactment of the federal Summer Jobs program one of its top priorities. Successful implementation of the stimulus funds will be the ultimate test to prove that the workforce system is effective and that this program should be permanently renewed," he continued.

"Even though this is the first year in over a decade that the federal government is getting back in the Summer Jobs business — in Boston we never stopped," Boston Mayor Tom Menino said in his remarks. "Last summer we put 10,000 young people to work using state and local funds, including over 3,000 private sector hires."

Menino cautioned that the youth funding came with strings attached. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the extra funding, but there is too much red tape attached and too many requirements that I believe may keep away some of the very young people we're trying to help. First, we are all going to spend too much on adult salaries to process the income eligibility paperwork, and that money could be going to youth wages. Second, to have a program that doesn't match the income eligibility to any other program means low income families have to once again put together a lot of financial information. It would have been far easier to use an existing income standard, such as free or reduced school lunch eligibility," he said.

"My first summer job was washing cars," Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory told the group in his presentation. "It was hard work, and taught me a lot about what I DIDN'T want to do with the rest of my life," he said.

This year, Cincinnati will spend $1 million on youth employment programs, including $420,000 on five different programs that will employ 220 people aged 16 to 21 as mural artists, recreation center counselors and parks employees. The jobs are part of the City's Summer Youth Employment Initiative that the mayor and city council have included in the last three city budgets. Next year, the mayor has proposed doubling the city's youth-employment spending to $2 million.

Mallory described the overwhelming turnout for his Fourth Annual Mayor's Youth Job Fair. This year at the Job Fair, there were also a series of workshops to teach teens how to dress for job interviews, how to conduct themselves in a job interview and how to prepare their resumes.

"We put this money aside specifically for young people, 16 to 24, to give them employment opportunities because we understand from a city standpoint it's extremely important for us to be providing opportunities for young people so that they're not getting themselves into other activities," he said.

Waco (TX) Mayor Virginia Dupuy was the final speaker on the panel, and provided some insight from the other side — the workforce investment side. Dupuy served on the Heart of Texas Workforce Development Board from 2001–2005; and Chair from 2003–2005.

In her remarks, she focused on how mayors can effectively work with their local and state workforce investment boards. "By law in Texas, workforce boards are over 50 percent business employers, with the remainder representing the community. As former Chair of the Workforce Board, I found the structure to be a credible model for community planning for youth preparedness and access to employment."

The objectives of the Waco Summer Jobs program are to provide youth with exposure and options in the world of work; to link them to ongoing training and education beyond the summer months, leading to credential attainment; to provide employment worksites in priority industries, with special emphasis on health care; and to prepare participants for productive careers.

U.S. Conference of Mayors Workforce Development Council (WDC) President, KentuckianaWorks Executive Director Michael Gritton, briefly welcomed the mayors and workforce development directors to the breakfast. "Members of the WDC are the ones responsible for responding to the staggering unemployment trends in all of your cities,' he said. "In order to be successful with stimulus bill implementation, we need the support of all our mayors."