San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Jobs program going beyond S.A.
City opening tax-funded training to folks tied to military, including Bexar residents
As San Antonio’s tax-funded job training program struggles to attract trainees, the city is taking a new approach — opening it to Bexar County’s large military community.
Even if they don’t live inside city limits.
Starting in May, county residents who fall under the umbrella of “military service-connected individuals” will be able to apply for Ready to Work. That includes veterans, reservists, active-duty service members transitioning to the civilian workforce, National Guard members, and their spouses and dependents.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who has made workforce development a hallmark of his City Hall tenure, said the expansion — a one-year pilot program — lines up with the program’s goal of increasing workers’ skills and their prospects for good-paying jobs in a region marked by poverty.
“As the mayor of San Antonio, I believe it is a sacred obligation
for us as a community to care for our service members and their families, especially our returning veterans,” Nirenberg said.
Both he and Workforce Development Executive Director Mike Ramsey point to the high unemployment rate among military spouses. At 22 percent nationwide, it’s more than six times the U.S. unemployment rate of 3.5 percent. They say helping spouses secure higherpaying jobs is a key factor in whether military families decide to stay in the San Antonio area after leaving the service.
However, this expansion of Ready to Work goes beyond the program that Nirenberg pitched and ultimately sold to voters more than two years ago.
The ballot measure, which received 77 percent support in the November 2020 election, was framed as a way to improve the employment prospects of San Antonio residents. When the program opened last May, it was limited to those living in
side city limits who were 18 and older, eligible to work in the United States and earning 250 percent of the federal poverty level, which is currently about $36,500 for an individual.
The city’s Economic Development Department initially estimated that Ready to Work would serve “up to 10,000 residents” annually over the four years it was guaranteed funding through city sales tax. But that was an overestimation, largely driven by the region’s recordhigh unemployment rate, which hit 12.5 percent in the months leading up to the 2020 election — part of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
As joblessness has dropped to pre-pandemic levels, it has been harder to find people interested in the program. In December, the city’s unemployment rate was 3.2 percent.
“Unemployment is crazy low right now, so that’s very few people that are in the marketplace looking for work,” Ramsey said. “Wage rates have increased over time, so many people are not necessarily looking to go back to school or go into an education or career training program.”
The city lowered its anticipated enrollment to about 5,800 people in Ready to Work’s first year, which ends June 30. That target may be reduced further to “make it more realistic,” Ramsey said.
As of Wednesday, 1,581 residents had enrolled, 66 of whom have finished their training and been placed in a job paying a median $18 hourly wage, according to city data.
“This is one way of building those numbers up in the total program, is offering it up to
folks outside of the city — which was not in the initial proposals when this program first came about,” said District 10 Councilman Clayton Perry. The retired Air Force civil engineer is the only council member who opposed Nirenberg’s workforce development plan.
“Don’t get me wrong, I fully support the military,” Perry said. However, he added, “This certainly can increase the total numbers, which they can’t seem to get the numbers that they initially set out in the program.”
Veterans currently can find employment help through the Texas Veterans Commission, while the Fort Sam Houston, Lackland and Randolph bases “provide a range of services for families, including access to … spousal employment services,” notes a Center for New American Security report published in November.
The Texas Workforce Commission and Workforce Solutions Alamo also have programs aimed at helping veterans and military spouses find work.
Ramsey said Ready to Work can add to those efforts. Its case managers can connect participants with child care, transportation or even substance abuse treatment — resources that contribute to someone’s chances of completing the program.
‘Resources available’
Nirenberg and Ramsey maintain that opening up Ready to Work to select Bexar County residents isn’t an effort to boost lagging enrollment. Yet unfilled spots and unused funds make it possible to expand the program to people who otherwise wouldn’t qualify under the initial rules.
“We have the resources available because the numbers are lower, but this strategy isn’t an attempt to increase the numbers
of enrollment,” Ramsey said. “I don’t see the level of response from the military service community doing that.
“The premise behind this is to do right by those military service-connected individuals and those veterans who are looking for support as they transition out of the military and seek to stay in the San Antonio area,” he said.
About 4,300 personnel across Joint Base San Antonio — which includes Fort Sam Houston and Randolph and Lackland AFBs — leave the military annually, according to the city.
Figures on the number of veterans living in Bexar County vary. Census data from 2021 showed 73,180 veterans aged 18 to 64 in the county’s labor force, out of which 6.7 percent were unemployed. That rate was nearly on par with the unemployment rate for nonveterans.
Local figures for unemployment among military spouses are not available.
Ramsey estimates that up to 250 people might enroll in Ready to Work under the expanded eligibility criteria during the pilot program.
In addition to waiving the San Antonio residency requirement for transitioning service members, veterans and their families, the program will lift the income cap for those who have left the military within the last 12 months, as well as their spouses or dependents.
The goal is for everyone who goes through Ready to Work to find a job in San Antonio, but that’s not a hard-and-fast rule. If service members going through the program find a job in Austin or out of the state, they would not need to pay back the costs of their training or education, Ramsey said.
Ready to Work has already enrolled 184 “military-involved”
individuals since May, according to program data. Almost two-thirds of those — 113 — are veterans, while nearly another quarter are either military spouses or dependents.
Still San Antonians
The mayor believes this pilot is in line with what he presented to voters in 2020.
“I would say that the vision for Ready to Work, which was overwhelmingly approved by San Antonio voters, is reaffirmed when more people within our community are accessing education and skills training that allows for economic mobility and lifelong careers,” Nirenberg said.
The measure redirected the 1/8-cent sales tax that voters had long approved using to fund aquifer protection and linear parks to workforce development.
Come January 2026, that sales tax will be used to support public transportation, including VIA Metropolitan Transit bus service. VIA had initially wanted that sales tax revenue sooner, but it struck a compromise with Nirenberg.
District 8 Councilman Manny Peláez, who chairs City Council’s Economic and Workforce Development Committee, supports the pilot program for the military.
“People who live in the county and the unincorporated parts of San Antonio, I consider them to be San Antonians,” Peláez said. “Even though they’re not within the city limits, these are people whose kids go to our schools, they worship at our churches, they contribute to the economy, and so the border of the city is kind of a legal fiction.”
He’d also support expanding Ready to Work to any Bexar County resident who meets the income criteria. “If there’s people
out there who want a job and they are considered San Antonians, then I’m all for it,” he said.
Such an expansion — or at least opening eligibility to additional groups of county residents looking for jobs in San Antonio — isn’t out of the question, Ramsey said.
The 1/8-cent sales tax is estimated to net $200 million from December 2021 to December 2025, and, according to the ballot language, must be used “for the purpose of financing authorized programs related to job training and the awarding of scholarships.”
Any unspent money can’t go back to the city for other programs or services, Ramsey said, meaning the city will more than likely have funds to spend on workforce development into 2026 and beyond.
“We’re going to continue to try to serve as many people as we can, as quickly as we can, but the dollars are committed to this Ready to Work initiative and there is no expiration date of when they need to be spent by,” Ramsey said.
The pilot program for the military isn’t the first tweak made to the initial eligibility rules.
In December, the city lifted the requirement that participants could not be enrolled in college or a postsecondary course at the time of intake.
Nirenberg sees these changes as part of undertaking a mission that hasn’t been tried before — in San Antonio or in any other major U.S. city.
“As we begin to see this program really gain momentum, it was understood that we would make adjustments along the way to ensure its success,” Nirenberg said.