Benjamin Weber, District 6 city councilor and chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Labor, Workforce, and Economic Development, opened a Jan. 14 hearing on docket 0116, a message and order authorizing the City of Boston to accept and expend $920,169.70 in state funds for the 1-Stop Career Center.
The money is a state line item meant to supplement federal funding under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). Joseph Lay, chief of staff for the Worker Empowerment Cabinet, said the funds are regulated by the U.S. Department of Labor and are awarded to the state Department of Career Services, which issues allocations to regional workforce boards.
The grant will be administered by the city’s Office of Workforce Development, which serves as fiscal agent for the MassHire Boston workforce area. Katie Gall, deputy director and director of grants for workforce and policy development at the Office of Workforce Development, outlined services paid for or supported by the centers: career counseling, resume workshops, hiring events, connections to training and direct job placement assistance. Gall said the centers also provide on-site liaisons focused on veterans and ESOL learners and partner with community access points such as Charlestown Adult Education and Saint Francis House.
The city’s two MassHire career centers are managed by nonprofit operators: Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) will operate the Roxbury/MassHire Boston Career Center at 10 Malcolm X Boulevard, which staff said is in the final stages of opening, and Jewish Vocational Services (JVS) operates the MassHire Downtown Boston Career Center in the financial district. Neil Sullivan, executive director of the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC) and a MassHire Boston workforce board member, said PIC oversees chartering and oversight of the centers and that the mayor appoints the board.
Gall provided performance targets for fiscal 2025: the career centers aim to serve 14,000 job seekers and place 12,470 into jobs, including specific targets for 950 individuals with disabilities, 8,500 unemployment insurance claimants and 265 veterans. She said actual 2024 results were slightly higher, at just over 15,000 job seekers served and 13,675 job placements. Gall said training vouchers of up to $10,000 per individual are available for eligible programs that meet state quality standards.
Panelists described recent administrative changes: effective July 1, 2024 the city assumed fiscal-agent responsibilities previously held by EDIC, which changed the accept-and-expend process so the city now presents the state line items to the council. Sullivan said that change also meant the workforce board and its grants are more visible to the council.
Council members asked how the centers serve youth and people who speak languages other than English. Gall said JVS has a young-adult career center that focuses on 18-to-24-year-olds and that the Office of Workforce Development awarded JVS $330,000 last year to expand outreach and alternative career pathways. Sullivan said PIC places staff in Boston Public Schools and is piloting efforts to enroll non–college-going BPS seniors in career-center services before they graduate.
On language access, Sullivan said downtown and Roxbury career centers have strong capacity in Haitian Creole, Spanish and Cape Verdean Creole and that translation and linguistically appropriate services are a continuing focus.
Councilors discussed how to make internships and training more attractive compared with higher-paying retail or service jobs. Sullivan said some hospital partners raised wages to $16 an hour and that PIC used one-time stipends in prior years to improve participation; Gall said the centers emphasize job quality and aim for full-time employment with benefits and wages above the city’s living-wage threshold.
Panelists also described the funding structure: the city “braids” multiple federal and state WIOA-related line items, Commonwealth Corporation or competitive grants and private philanthropy into a career-center budget. Gall and Sullivan warned that WIOA has not been reauthorized recently and said they were tracking federal-level uncertainty that could affect future funding.
Councilor Weber said he will bring docket 0116 to the full council for a vote at the council meeting the following day. There was no public testimony at the hearing.
The hearing produced no formal vote on the grant; the council chair indicated a vote will be scheduled at the council meeting immediately following this hearing.
Ending: The committee requested that staff provide the council with a list of forthcoming WIOA and related state line items that will require accept-and-expend approvals so members can see how those awards “braid” together to fund career-center operations and training vouchers.