The City of San Antonio’s ambitious, taxpayer-funded workforce development program’s newly expanded network of partners will soon include the city’s electric utility, CPS Energy, and its public transportation agency, VIA Metropolitan Transit, city officials announced Monday.
During the event, several mayors and workforce developers from across the nation applauded the city’s Ready to Work program, which seeks to place historically disadvantaged residents into high-demand jobs.
In a show of good faith, Mayor Ron Nirenberg co-signed a document memorializing San Antonio’s commitment to the “Good Jobs Principles” — a set of guidelines formalized by the U.S. Department of Labor aimed at ensuring that jobs contribute positively to the well-being of workers and society at large — alongside Wendy Chun-Hoon, director of the federal agency’s Women’s Bureau.
“I’m pleased to announce that the City of San Antonio is taking a very important step toward reaffirming our commitment to building a more equitable and sustainable future for our residents and for our workforce,” Nirenberg said.
The event was a far cry from the criticism the Ready to Work program has seen over the past few years for not showing results faster. In 2020, local voters approved collecting a 1/8-cent of city sales tax from December 2021 to December 2025 to be put toward “authorized programs related to job training and the awarding of scholarships,” resulting in the creation of the program.
Through 2025, the program is expected to collect almost $240 million in taxes. In 2022, the city signed contracts with four providers worth up to $183 million.
Through those first four providers — Project Quest, Alamo Colleges District, Workforce Solutions Alamo and ReStore Education — the program has spent about $51 million so far. They have successfully placed 1,643 participants to date, according to the Ready to Work online dashboard. Another 9,541 people are enrolled in training programs that span from certificate to degree programs.
Those figures fall short of the program’s goals, which were revised down from helping “up to 40,000 people,” during the campaign to get voters’ support. By the time the council approved the four contracts in early 2022, the goals were to “intake” up to 39,000 applicants, enroll up to 28,000 in training or degree programs, and ultimately place 15,600 in jobs.
However, in October Nirenberg said the results of a recent Project Quest study showed “evidence of the transformative impact” of “sustained, evidence-based workforce development.”
“This study and its outcomes point to the success we can expect to see from … Ready to Work,” he said. Alluding to the criticism leveled at that program, Nirenberg repeated one of his common refrains. “We are not counting widgets. We are changing lives here in San Antonio.”
In November, Ready to Work announced it would be spending $32.5 million to expand its network of training providers to include the University of Texas at San Antonio, Goodwill, Hallmark University and Galen College of Nursing.
At that time, Mike Ramsey, executive director of the city’s Workforce Development Office, said Ready to Work is poised to launch a robust marketing campaign in 2025 to bring more people in the door.
The partnerships with CPS Energy and VIA Metropolitan Transit “will help bridge the gap between job seekers and their careers, strengthening their families and their roots within our community,” Nirenberg said.
John Gary Herrera, the incoming president and CEO for VIA, said the partnership helps the transit agency recover its own workforce. CPS Energy President and CEO Rudy Garza said the partnership is as beneficial to the utility as it is to the city.
“We’ve got 800 employees that we’ve hired over the last three years,” Garza said. “We’ve got another 40% of our workforce — probably another 1,000 to 1,200 employees we’re going to be replacing as they retire over the next few years — so Mayor, if you will get them ready to work, I will put them to work.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect amount spent by Ready to Work. It should be $51 million. The number of participants in the program and job placements have also been updated.
