Title
Ordinance to Approve the Eighth Amended Charter Agreement of the Hampton Roads Workforce Council
Purpose
PURPOSE/BACKGROUND:
In December 2019, all the Local Elected Officials (LEO’s) who serve on either the Greater Peninsula Workforce Board (Gloucester County, Hampton, James City County, Newport News, Poquoson, Williamsburg, and York County) and Hampton Roads Workforce Council (Chesapeake, Franklin, Isle of Wight County, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Southampton County, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach) were asked to support the reorganization and merger of the two workforce boards so that they could better serve the needs of both employers and job seekers in the greater Hampton Roads area. All fifteen LEO’s approved. Subsequently, the Governor of Virginia officially designated the Hampton Roads Workforce Development Area to include those 15 cities and counties. At the meeting held March 24, 2021, City Council approved the Seventh Amended Charter Agreement of the Hampton Roads Workforce Council, the primary purpose of which is to incorporate those localities formerly comprising the Greater Peninsula Workforce Board into the Hampton Roads Workforce Council (HRWC). The HRWC is now requesting the approval of the Eighth Amendment to the Charter Agreement.
Discussion:
“Workforce and Talent Development” is the most important issue that employers discuss and that potential employers express interest in before moving into our area. As both the Greater Peninsula Workforce Board and the HRWC have made great strides in partnership opportunities, strategic consolidation that adjusts the focus from what they can do together as allied organizations (negotiating back and forth) to a more structured and coherent single organizational approach that can address workforce development issues across the entire region, was inevitable, and has now come to fruition. Pursuant to the joint request of the 15 localities named above, the Governor of Virginia designated those localities as...
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