City looks to distribute funds for 200 temp jobs

Members of Springfield City Council were asked to consider accepting more than $1.3 million in Missouri disaster relief grants to create roughly 200 temporary jobs to improve flood-damaged areas in Christian, Stone, Polk, Taney and Webster counties at the Aug. 8 council meeting.

Workforce Development Director Bill Dowling said he hoped that the work experience gained through these temporary positions would lead to full-time employment for the workers involved.

He said nearly $1 million would be distributed to employment agency Penmac Personnel Services Inc. to handle the hiring and payment distribution to keep the city from being liable for workers' compensation claims as an employer. Dowling said because the city is the hub of the seven-county Ozarks region, it is responsible for distributing the money made available through Missouri Disaster Recovery Jobs Program Grant, which is funded through a U.S. Department of Labor National Emergency Grant.

If council approves the measure at its Aug. 22 meeting, the temporary workers would be employed for roughly 1,000 hours each and be paid between $10.50 and $13.50 per hour, meeting prevailing wage requirements for cleanup work and restoration projects in flood damaged areas.

In addition to supporting the temporary positions, the money would allow the city's Department of Workforce Development to hire one full-time employee and one contract employee, an issue that drew questions from Councilman Nick Ibarra, who wondered why administrative positions would need to be created for temporary jobs.

Dowling said the new staff would work to help find permanent homes for the temporary workers, many of whom are expected to come from the hard-hit construction industry.

Mayor Jim O’Neal said he supported the program and asked that Dowling provide a brief report that amounts to a “30,000-foot view” of how it operates for council’s consideration before the Aug. 22 vote.

“The vast majority of that money goes to those people working in the field. This is not a social program that never ends,” O’Neal said.

Dowling said the city has received similar grant funds in the past and distributed them to the counties themselves, but that led to the workers being eligible for unemployment benefits, which in turn costs those counties money. That was why he said Penmac was chosen to be the employer of record for these funds.

Paula Adams, president of Penmac, did not return a call for comment by deadline.

For more City Council coverage, look to the the Aug. 15 Springfield Business Journal print edition.[[In-content Ad]]