06-Minutes from various boards, commissions, and committees

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Paris Economic Development Corporation Board Meeting Minutes August 14, 2009 Board Members Present: Dan Smith Pike Burkhart, Sr. Rick Poston Chad Brown John Wright Guests: Steve Harris Kay O'Dell Keruny Dority Staff Present: Shannon Barrentine Ex Officio Present: Dan Smith called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m. Kent McIlyar Jesse Freelen Pam Anglin Kevin Carruth Minutes from the August 3, 2009 meeting were reviewed. Pike Burkhart made a motion to approve the minutes with the following correction to the second paragraph on page two, "Dan Smith made a motion to separate the position, leave budget figures the same $50,000 . Motion died for lack of a second."; seconded by Rick Poston. Motion carried. Financials for July 2009 were reviewed. A motion to approve the financials as submitted was made by Pike Burkhart; seconded by Chad Brown. Motion carried. Kay O'Dell, Executive Director of Workforce Solutions of Northeast Texas introduced her Board Chairman, Steve Harris. Ms. O'Dell provided the scope of work for the North Texas Industrial Managers Group Diversity Training Project through Alchemy Systerns, LP. Viewing of this video would be a requirement before making application for employment. A number of hours have been invested in developing this program by a large majority of human resource personnel in local industry serving the Paris area. This progam will provide a record of the training, test scores and competency levels for each applicant. Ms. O'Dell informed the Board that Pete Kampfer had committed to half the cost of this pragram. It was originally estimated to cost $25,000. After the human resource people added their stipulations, suggestions, etc., the cost rose to $50,000. That has been negotiated down to $27,000. She had $11,000 budgeted for this program. Pike Burkhart stated that he was the newest Board member to serve on the Workforce Solutions Board. He felt this program was done in a very professional way that would benefit the applicant and show a commitment from our industries that we are working on the racial issues/problems in our community. Dan Smith asked if this program was proprietary. Ms. O'Dell told him that since it was tax payer funds that paid for it, it would be available to everyone and be administered through Workforce Solutions. Dan Smith made a motion to reimburse Workforce Solutions of Northeast Texas up to $16,500 towards this program, after an effart has been made to get funding dollars from local industries; seconded by Pike Burkhart. Motion carried. Ms. O'Dell proceeded to give an update on Turner Industries. She reported that Turner has 15,000 employees with sales of $1.7 billion dollars annually. They have four locations in Texas: Beaumont, Houston, Corpus Christi and Paris. The Diversity Training Program was developed with this industry in mind and how to defuse the racial issues from the past. She was hoping to have the program available by Thanksgiving, definitely by the end of December. August 14, 2009