Workforce board reports improved relations with city

Andrea Sitzes: Workforce board is looking to provide services in each of its seven counties.

Bob Dixon: The situation between the board and the city had to change.

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The relationship between the city of Springfield and the Ozark Region Workforce Development Board was in a perilous position in February 2025.

That’s when the board voted to recommend limiting all contracts with the city to a month-to-month basis.

The move included the agreements for the city to host and operate the Missouri Job Center one-stop shop and to serve as the board’s fiscal agent.

In a little less than a year, board Chair Andrea Sitzes said, the relationship between the city and the board has largely been repaired.

“Things are going great,” she said in a Jan. 5 interview.

At the time of the board vote to go month-to-month with its contracts with the city, Springfield Business Journal reported on a history of discord between the board and city administration.

That relationship hit a low point when the city decided to move the location of the Missouri Job Center without first consulting the board. Sitzes appeared at the City Council meeting when legislation to move the center was introduced and said she and the board had heard about the move only a week before.

Also rewritten as monthly contracts were an administrative agreement and a youth services program agreement. The automatically renewing contracts allowed either party to sever the arrangement with 120 days’ notice.

The workforce board administers federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funds for Greene, Christian, Dallas, Polk, Stone, Taney and Webster counties, according to a description of it on the website of the Springfield Department of Workforce and Economic Vitality. The board works through its Missouri Job Center offices in Springfield and Branson to deliver services for businesses and job seekers, it says.

‘Toxic culture’ reversed
The board is overseen by the seven-county Council of Local Elected Officials, chaired by Greene County Presiding Commissioner Bob Dixon. In February 2025, Dixon described a pattern of what he called poor communication and character assassination by city officials.

“The entire mess seems to stem from a toxic culture of silos, fear and self-preservation, which does not serve the taxpayers, job-seekers or employers at the highest and best standard, which we all expect,” he said at the time, adding that he hoped the relationship could be repaired.

Reached Jan. 5, Dixon, too, said things are now going very well between the board and the city.

“I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback with the enhanced dialogue with the leadership at the city and the city manager’s office,” he said.

David Cameron became Springfield’s city manager in July 2025, replacing Jason Gage, who held the job for six years.

Dixon said a meeting was held shortly after Cameron’s arrival, and it included Cameron, Dixon, Sitzes and some other workforce board members.

The purpose, he said, was to talk through how the relationship between the city and the board had reached a tipping point and to arrive at a way to straighten things out.

“David did something that was refreshing to everybody in the room: He actually listened with an open mind, and that was totally different than what they had all been experiencing with the prior leadership,” he said.

Dixon added that no one on the board had a desire to start over with new agreements. A breakup between the board and the city would have led to an upheaval, he said.

“CLEO and the board were looking at all of those options, and none of them were good,” he said. “None of them were the most effective thing for the people we serve – the potential employees and employers in a seven-county region. To go to the expense and time it takes to create an upstart organization – nobody wanted to do it.”

However, Dixon said, it was also clear to CLEO and the board that the situation had to change.

“We also couldn’t continue along the paths we were being forced to tread,” he said. “We really hoped it would work.”

Shared objectives
Sitzes said the board and the staff are looking at ways to improve communication and are setting goals together.

 She said that topping the list of strategic priorities is regularly taking services to each of the seven counties the board serves.

“The staff is actively speaking to the commissioners for the other counties and the partner organizations in those counties about ways we can occupy a recurring date or day of the week in each of those areas,” she said.

As an example, a team could plan to offer job services at a location like the Table Rock Lake Chamber of Commerce on regular Tuesdays to enroll people in unemployment and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act services, she said.

“We’re trying to nail that down by the end of the year,” she said.

Sitzes, too, commended Cameron for his collaborative tone.

“I can just say from a board perspective and in terms of shared goals, alignment is not something that we felt previously, and it is something that we feel now,” she said.

Communication key
Cameron told SBJ communication is critical to overcoming difficulties.

“I am a person that goes out and connects,” he said. “I read it in the Business Journal that there was a disconnect from a distance. I’m like, ‘What is that?’ I didn’t have any preconceived ideas; I just went and talked to those people and said, ‘Give me the chance to do my job and let me come in and show leadership and direct staff and lead staff versus just ignoring the issues.’”

Cameron said unsettledness from the federal government and uncertainty of funding is alarming, and that’s something to keep an eye on.

“As for the workforce board, that’s a stellar group of people,” he said. “The only way you get past problems is you get in a room and you collaborate.”

He added that it’s important to move forward and to reach conclusions that benefit the workforce.

“We have a workforce shortage, in the country and this area,” he said. “The objective here is are we increasing our workforce with those funds, yes or no? And we have to have those tough conversations.”

Dixon said the agreements with the city remain on a month-to-month basis for now, but the workforce board is interested in revisiting the issue in the future.