The meeting was called to order by the WIB Chair, J. Madden, and the Governing Board Chair, J. Reese, at 9:05 AM.

There was a quorum of both the WIB and the Governing Board: . Roster
 

There was not a quorum of the Governing Board, so only the WIB was asked to approve the minutes from this meeting.

A motion by B. Maffett, seconded by T. Cochran, for the approval of the minutes as mailed, passed the WIB unanimously.
 

A motion by T. Cochran, seconded by D. Beeson, for the approval of the agenda as mailed, passed the WIB unanimously.

A motion by G. Russell, seconded by B. Reiss, for the approval of the agenda as mailed, passed the Governing Board unanimously.
 

Joyce Zwanziger, Community Coordinator for Siskiyou County, said that they had completed their Ecosystem Management follow-up report, titled "Northern California Ecosystem Management Training Study." She said they were grateful to NoRTEC for helping fund this study. C. Brown apologized to Ms. Zwanziger for not allowing her time for a full presentation. He said they had tried at both the last meeting and this one, but both agendas had been too full.
 

There were five action items on the October 28, 1999, meeting:

1. Approval of Minutes from the July 29, 1999, meeting;
2. Approval of the Program Committee Report (no items of concern were noted).
3. Approval of the Finance Committee Report (no items of concern were noted).
4. Approval of staff submitting a proposal in the name of NCEN, in Partnership with the State and a number of other SDAs, for $80,000 to develop policies and procedures for individual training accounts and eligible training provider lists.
5. Approval of staff submitting an application for $5,000,000 for temporary job creation in response to the fires in the NoRTEC counties this past summer, including funding for Butte County.

A motion by B. Dennison, seconded by G. Russell, for the approval of the five action items from the October 28, 1999, meeting, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

WIB Nominations/Appointments

J. Reese asked when the appointments take affect and were there any negative consequences of taking this action prior to State designation of NoRTEC as a Workforce Investment Area or State acceptance of NoRTEC's request to establish the "alternative entity" form of the WIB. C. Brown said the appointments would be effective today. He said that with or without State direction, NoRTEC was compelled to act responsibly in the best interests of their area. Decisions had to be made, and the worst that would happen is that they would have to make some changes later. If the State denied NoRTEC's request for the alternative entity structure and/or decided NoRTEC had to establish a formal Youth Council, then they would deal with it then.

J. Reese asked B. Finley (Director, Butte PIC) why there wasn't a Governing Board representative from Butte and were the staff recommendations for WIB representatives for Butte going to be acceptable to Butte County? B. Finley said the Butte County Governing Board representative would be appointed mid-February. He said the three WIB nominations were present, and had come from the Butte PIC, which was appointed by the Butte County Board of Supervisors to represent Butte County for the job training programs.

J. Reese asked if there were any objections to the staff recommendations for WIB nominations or any other nominations the Governing Board wanted to present for their consideration. There were none.

A motion by B. Dennison, seconded by G. Russell, for the appointment to the NoRTEC WIB of the nominations recommended by staff, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

Michele Piller, Program Committee Chair, presented the Program Committee Report. In response to a question, T. Brown said there were no areas of concern.

 A motion by T. Cochran, seconded by D. Beeson, for the approval of the Program Committee Report, passed the WIB unanimously.

A motion by B. Dennison, seconded by B. Reiss, for the approval of the Program Committee Report, passed the Governing Board unanimously.
 

 

1. Standard NoRTEC Financial Reports

   B. Hamby, Finance Committee Chair, presented the Finance Committee report. He said the committee members had an e-mail meeting, which worked very well. They all got a chance to review and modify the report prior to the meeting, and they did it by e-mail instead of having to give up a day or so to drive to a meeting.

   B. Hamby said there was less money available this year compared to past years; $9,000,000 this year compared to $12,000,000,000 last year at this time. This was due to not getting as much discretionary money this year. The $5,000,000 requested for fire damage related temporary job creation did not materialize. He said staff said they were counting on even less discretionary funding next year due to priority changes by the new administration and staff at the State, and no natural disasters to respond to.

   In response to a question, M. Cross said there were no areas of concern.

   A motion by T. Cochran, seconded by D. Beeson, for the approval of the Finance Committee Report, passed the WIB unanimously.

   A motion by B. Dennison, seconded by J. Smith, for the approval of the Finance Committee Report, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

2. ACCEPTANCE OF PY 97/98 FINANCIAL STATEMENT AUDIT

   B. Hamby said the WIB Finance Committee has reviewed the PY 97/98 financial statement audit report and is recommending that WIB/GB accept it. There were no findings, questioned costs or recommendations in the report. Copies of the audit report are available for review by interested members.

   A motion by B. Maffett, seconded by S. LaBriere, for the approval of the FY 1997/1998 audit, passed the WIB unanimously.

   A motion by B. Reiss, seconded by B. Dennison, for the approval of the FY 1997/1998 audit, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

NoRTEC has two outstanding funding applications; one for $5,000,000 to provide temporary job creation in response to a number of fires and one for $80,000 for the development of policy and procedure for client training accounts and an eligible training provider list (etpl). C. Brown said there was no official word yet, but State staff said the fire project was not going to be funded. No word yet on the etpl proposal.

Jeff Lucas and Dan Obermeyer presented the report they had developed for NCEN: Regional Economic Development Strategy. They said the report was developed utilizing local and sub-regional plans already completed. It is a draft document now, and will be refined over time with input from the NoRTEC WIB and Governing Board, directly if they wanted, but most likely through the local Community Coordinators. A copy of the report is accessible from the "What's Happening?" link off the NoRTEC home page, or from the NCEN home page. Or, click here: Report (This is a big report, so may take a while to download.)

C. Brown said State staff was going to recommend approval to the State WIB for their proposed merger with Butte. He said he was disappointed that State staff did not consider the merger to be automatic, but he did not foresee any problems with getting the State WIB to recommend approval to the Governor. As far as he could tell, nobody was opposed. B. Dennison asked if their funding was in jeopardy if the merger was not approved. C. Brown said not likely, as they would simply re-apply as two separate entities (Butte and NoRTEC) each of which is protected by the law for automatic designation on their own merits..

C. Brown said that the memorandum of understanding (mou) was in two sections to accommodate the NoRTEC multi-county structure; the NoRTEC umbrella mou and the local mou. The umbrella provides the NoRTEC policy and general expectations, and the local mou's provide the agreements among the local partners for operating the One Stops in each county. He said he would like the local MOUs returned to NoRTEC by the middle of March, in time for another NoRTEC meeting needed to approve the five year plan.

J. Reese said he thought the new requirement for a memorandum of understanding between NoRTEC and the local partners was a good idea.

R. Camilliere asked if the MOU could be modified. He said EDD was ok with the NoRTEC MOU coverage of Governance and Partner Identity, but the MOU did not address the CalJobs system, and EDD would not sign without it.

C. Brown said he thought that agreements regarding specific systems and procedures to be used by the local partners ought to be part of the local mou agreements, and not dictated by NoRTEC.

G. Corderman (Director AFWD) said he agreed that something as specific as the CalJobs system ought to be a local decision. He said he did not think there was enough time to get the agreements in place prior to the middle of March. He said he was concerned that there was too much information being requested from the local level, and that some of the NoRTEC required partners would be reluctant to participate.

T. Cochran said he believed in local control, but that didn't mean the local programs could tell them (WIB and Governing Board) what to do or what to put in the MOU.

G. Russell asked how much time was needed. J. Smith commented that it didn't matter since the MOUs were supposed to accompany the five year plan, which was due at the end of March.

B. Finley (Butte PIC Director) said that the NoRTEC MOU pretty much mirrored federal legislation, so there wasn't much benefit to stalling it or trying to revise it. L. Wright said the document appeared to be in compliance with the legislative requirements, and it provided a flexible format for local agreements. She said the partners in Trinity County had begun their planning a number of months ago in anticipation of needing this agreement.

S. LaBriere suggested that the NoRTEC MOU is a working document and can always be renegotiated if it is not working for the partners.

Consensus: The decision was to allow any of the required One Stop partners until March 15, 2000, to request NoRTEC staff (C. Brown) to make changes to the MOU. NoRTEC staff would either make the changes or not. Those requested changes not made by NoRTEC staff would be brought back to the NoRTEC WIB and Governing Board for resolution at the March 24, 2000 meeting.

A motion by T. Cochran, seconded by D. Beeson, for the approval of the NoRTEC MOU, subject to the agreement for modification, passed the WIB unanimously.

A motion by B. Dennison, seconded by J. Smith, , for the approval of the NoRTEC MOU, subject to the agreement for modification, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

There was a brief discussion of the timelines and contents for the Youth RFP. T. Brown said to be consistent and of value, the process needed to be completed and the youth providers selected by the end of March; in time for reference in the five year plan.

A motion by T. Cochran, seconded by D. Beeson, for the approval of NoRTEC staff letting an RFP for the provision of Youth Programs in one or more of the NoRTEC member counties, and to select the youth service providers at the March 24, 2000 meeting, passed the WIB unanimously.

A motion by J. Smith, seconded by B. Dennison, for the approval of NoRTEC staff letting an RFP for the provision of Youth Programs in one or more of the NoRTEC member counties, and to select the youth service providers at the March 24, 2000 meeting, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

A motion by T. Cochran, seconded by D. Beeson, to table this item until the March 24, 2000, meeting, passed the WIB unanimously.

A motion by B. Dennison, seconded by B. Reiss, to table this item until the March 24, 2000, meeting, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

There was a brief discussion of the five year plan. It was noted that the plan would be posted on the NoRTEC and NCEN Web sites, available in a One Stop in each member county, and advertised in a local newspaper in each member county.

A motion by M. Williams, seconded by S. LaBriere, to make plan approval an action item for the March 24, 2000 meeting, passed the WIB unanimously.

A motion by B. Dennison, seconded by B. Reiss, to make plan approval an action item for the March 24, 2000 meeting, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

There was a brief discussion of the NoRTEC JTPA closeout plan. T. Brown apologized to the members for bringing this item before them. She said their approval was required by the State.

A motion by B. Maffett, seconded by T. Cochran, to approve the NoRTEC JTPA closeout plan, passed the WIB unanimously.

A motion by J. Smith, seconded by B. Reiss, to approve the NoRTEC JTPA closeout plan, passed the Governing Board unanimously.

No Old Business items were brought up for discussion.
 

Consensus: The WIB and Governing Board members agreed that the March 24 meeting would be considered a full WIB/Governing Board meeting if there was a quorum of the WIB, and a WIA Transition Committee meeting if there was not a quorum of the WIB.

Upcoming Meeting Schedule  

1. WIB and Governing Board or WIA Transition Committee - March 24, 2000
2. WIB and Governing Board - April 27, 2000