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During a forum Monday looking at how to better match students with jobs, Community Development Division Director Andrew K. Herlihy pointed to an unexpected problem.
Herlihy, who also represents the city on the MassHire Merrimack Valley Workforce Board, said there’s plenty of money, but some of it is being returned unused.
“This is not a problem of resources,” he said. “The issue here is not to go after the mayor or delegation for more money. Our local workforce system, which includes MassHire, is a $14.3 million system. Last year’s budget for the workforce board was over $14.3 million. They only spent two thirds of it. They were able to roll much of it, but there’s some real systemic issues here with how they do outreach and how we bring people into the center.”
He told members of the Haverhill City Council’s Planning and Development Committee “the bureaucracy and the regulations are definitely the problem.”
He praised, however, Whittier Regional Vocational Technical School’s after-hours training, calling the results and wage rates “phenomenal” and a “tremendous program supporting our employers.”
“We need to continue to promote, as expensive as it is, putting money into training people in the tech school after dark still pays tremendous dividends,” he said. “We need to do a better job at making sure our Haverhill youth-serving agencies can get access to some of this money out there. The answer isn’t coming out of the city budget or more money out of the state, I would say there’s plenty of money in our workforce system, we’ve got to figure out how to get it on to the ground where we can serve these types of agencies.”
Northern Essex Community College Vice President of Institutional Advancement Allison Dolan-Wilson agreed additional marketing should be done, but clarified that some agencies prohibit funding for marketing.
“I say that we need a ‘Got Milk’ campaign for manufacturing,” she said, adding, “If you talk to a lot of other funding agencies, they will not allow you to use any of the money on marketing.”
Planning and Development Committee Chairperson John A. Michitson said his goal is to “tighten up the relationships to find where the cracks are” and “make some headway.”