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MIFFLINTOWN -- The Juniata County Commissioners conducted a meeting regarding county residents searching for employment on Tuesday during their regularly held meeting, in support of the guidelines of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
An agreement established with EQUUS Workforce Solutions and PA CareerLink in 2022 is blossoming and will now be more reachable for county residents in 2023 with the first outreach community access point in Juniata County. The access point was established in May 2022.
A new location is to be expanded while the other is centrally located in the Juniata County Library. There are plans for two or more Community Access points in Juniata County. To better serve Juniata County residents and residents in other rural pockets of the state in seeking occupational employment and education, training opportunities will be provided in community access points and a mobile service center which will be in operation soon.
Representatives Missy Solorio and Paul Henderson attended the meeting on behalf of Equus and PA CareerLink.
"One of the things we've been doing is integrating our systems with PA CareerLink to collaborate with our resource partners and increase our community access point system," Equus Program Specialist Paul Henderson said. "We want to make sure that no person is more than 15 minutes away from a PA CareerLink representative. We want to share the resources, technology and vision of this program with Juniata County. We have a one on one individual approach to provide services through our system. We will have Chromebook laptops, mobile wifi hotspots and printers, and also information regarding childcare. We want to identify upfront areas that are barriers to people securing occupational employment. We will be operating our mobile services as an extension of our brick-and-mortar locations."
"I really appreciate the update," Commissioner Mark Partner said. "I remember when PA Careerlink was first rolled out. The program was initially much more effective in suburban and urban areas as the model was built on a suburban, urban model. The model that the Department of Labor originally put out was based on people going to a central location. The problem is in rural Pennsylvania it was a tremendous hardship on people to get to these locations; most suburban and urban areas have public transportation. As the department secured more and more brick-and-mortar locations, they then began to consolidate them. People then had to travel to even more central locations, often further away for most people. However, we are in a rural area and people need comprehensible help."
According to the U.S. Census Data, Juniata County is also growing in Hispanic population.
Commissioner Alice Gray asked Henderson, "We have a growing Hispanic population. This is critical and they may need language support assistance and we really want to pull them into our community. What are you doing to help our Hispanic population with resources?"
"We have two bilingual staff members and we want to help all county residents and we absolutely create diverse means of helping all community members but first finding what roadblocks have been in their way," Henderson said.
Gray also stated, "We are a farming community and a lot of the student population would like to stay right here in Juniata County, what resources are you providing for individuals to grow a career here in agriculture?"
"We are pulling together our resource partners to create opportunities for employment and roadmapping for county residents," Henderson said.
Gray also stated, "There is also a strong need here for diesel mechanics for our trucking industry."
"We are creating a richer system to connect skilled and unskilled workers into these fields where the need is greatest," Henderson said. He elaborated that the community access point system "is a seamless and barrier-less way to connect with more individuals in need. The conversation is about bringing resources that can now be redeployed into these rural areas."
Juniata County residents can get more information by calling Aubri Aldeman at the Equus regional headquarters at 717-243-4431. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was signed into law on July 22, 2014 as enacted law created to help individuals seeking employment, education, occupation training and support services to succeed in the labor market and to connect employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy.
The commissioners also announced the ratification of an amendment that stated the county has completed the requirements stated in the contract with MCM consulting in meeting the requirements of Covid-19 related legislation.
In other news highlighted on Tuesday, Jim Bahorik Juniata County Administrator informed the commissioners of Pennsylvania adopting the International Building Codes Standard for commercial building projects in which Juniata County is in compliance with regarding the ongoing renovation at the county jail. April also being "Pennsylvania Call Before You Dig" month, the Commissioners shared the importance of contractors and residents calling 811 to help protect county and state infrastructure as Spring quickly approached.
In other business conducted on Tuesday, the Commissioners approved the following:
• Listened to a presentation by Amy Reed of Equus Workforce Solutions regarding the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) program.
• Approved the "Next Generation 911 Professional Services" agreement with Mission Critical Partners, LLC as recommended by Allen Weaver, Emergency Management Director. Services will be performed at an hourly rate and will not exceed a total sum of $25,000.00. The agreement costs will be covered by 911 grant funding.
• Ratified "Amendment #1" to the "Professional Services Agreement" between Juniata County and MCM Consulting Group, Inc. for services associated with the Emergency Preparedness Training Program as recommended by the SEDA-Council of Governments (SEDA-COG).
• Approve payment between Juniata County Government and QA+, Inc. for required quality assurance testing pertaining to the "Emergency Operations Center" renovation project. Total cost shall not exceed $57,683.20.
• Approval of the "Purchase of Service Agreements" between Juniata County Youth and Services, the Juniata County Probation Department and the entities listed. The term of each contract is July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024 unless otherwise noted.
-- Families United Network, Inc.
-- Professional Family Care Services, Inc.
• Approved the payment of the following check lists:
-- #67488-#67542 in the amount of $415,946.43.
-- #67543-#67606 in the amount of $81,604.09.