CLEO ratifies month-to-month agreements between city, workforce board

The Council of Local Elected Officials on Thursday OK’d month-to-month agreements between the Ozark Region Workforce Development Board and the city of Springfield, as recommended by the board at a special meeting Feb. 21.

The CLEO, which is composed of the presiding commissioners of the seven counties in the region, is the decision-making body for the Workforce Development Board.

Bob Dixon, who heads the Greene County Commission and the CLEO, told Springfield Business Journal that the county officials, who were present together at a training session, renewed all four agreements between the WDB and the city on a month-to-month basis. The agreements can be rescinded at any time with 120 days’ notice, he said.

The agreements included one for Springfield Finance Department officials to perform fiscal agent duties, the source of recent conflict between the WDB and the city. A request for payment of a WDB consultant out of federal Workforce Innovation and Innovation Act funds was rejected by the city for its failure to adhere to city procurement processes that the board has agreed to follow. The WDB failed in six of 16 requirements for payment, according to an outside review by Forvis Mazars LLP.

Other agreements now automatically renewing each month, following the CLEO vote, are the one-stop shop agreement, which is for the city to run the regional office of the Missouri Job Center, and for administrative and youth services.

A previous disagreement between the city and the board occurred over a move of the Missouri Job Center from Sunshine Street to Boonville Avenue, a situation for which the board said it had insufficient notice .

Since that time, the four agreements between the city and WDB have been renewed on truncated, 120-day bases, rather than annual ones.

Dixon said in a text message that the Greene County Commission is considering a loan to the WDB to pay the remaining $23,700 owed to the consultant, New Orleans-based Dadco Consulting Services Inc. Dadco was originally contracted for services to be completed in four phases totaling $82,500. If the loan is approved, the board would repay it by the end of 2025 through a fund held at Community Foundation of the Ozarks Inc. for private pledges, Dixon said.

Dixon said the commission tabled consideration of the loan for further review, which remains underway.

Dixon is out of town at a National Association of Counties Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., and he said he did not think the measure would be voted upon before his return on March 6.

“We want to wait on a full review at our end,” he said.

He added that he told the commission he intended to step up on his own to help pay the bill for the consultant’s services.

“I intend to write a personal check to the board fund at CFO to help pay their bill and complete the independent review of best practices,” he said.