SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Nearly four years after enrollment launched for Ready to Work, the city\u2019s workforce training program is less than a third of the way toward accomplishing its biggest goal.<\/p>\n
Still, city officials say they should be able to place 15,600 people in \u201capproved\u201d jobs by 2030 while also spending the rest of the nearly $236 million collected in sales tax.<\/p>\n
Voters approved the 1\/8 cent sales tax funding the program in November 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a way to provide free job training.<\/p>\n
Estimates for the program<\/a> ahead of the election focused on 10,000 people getting training every year of the four-year program, for a total of \u201cup to 40,000\u2033 people served.<\/p>\n But after voters had approved the plan, the city presented a different picture: 39,000 people interviewed, 28,000 enrolled in approved training, and 15,600 placed in quality jobs.<\/p>\n The city announced the opening of enrollment in May 2022<\/a>. According to numbers on the program\u2019s dashboard<\/a>, about 25,600 people have finished the intake process. Of that number, about 15,600 had been enrolled in a training course, and 6,600 had finished it.<\/p>\n However, only about 4,600 had gotten an \u201capproved\u201d job \u2014 one that pays at least $15 an hour in a target field, with access to benefits.<\/p>\n In a Wednesday briefing, though, Workforce Development Office Executive Director Mike Ramsey told council members they expected to hit the 15,600 job placement target by the spring of 2030. <\/p>\n City staff have also advised council members to begin strategic conversations about what should exist after that.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, the plan is to scale the program down to sunset the program when the funding runs out in 2030,\u201d Assistant City Manager Alex Lopez told KSAT after Wednesday\u2019s meeting. \u201cBut we need to know what\u2019s the new role of the city going to be in this space. There\u2019s a lot interest in continuing this kind investment, but it\u2019s important that we understand how and where that will be most meaningful for us.\u201d<\/p>\n The program was funded with a 1\/8 cent sales tax that collected nearly $236 million before expiring in December. <\/p>\n According to budget documents, the city has not yet spent even half that, but Ramsey told council members it would be \u201cfully expensed\u201d by the 2030 fiscal year.<\/p>\n There have been success stories, too.<\/p>\n Sebastian Oberg graduated Texas A&M University in late 2024 with a computer science degree. Despite months of searching, he was unable to land a job. <\/p>\n After undertaking a three-month training through Ready to Work, he came away with some IT-related certifications and landed a \u201cgreat\u201d job as a system administrator for a bank.<\/p>\n Oberg said he believes the program is \u201cvery reliant\u201d on participants\u2019 own motivation to get them through.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I had no intention of going to school and I didn\u2019t have the drive to get that job, I think it would have been really hard,\u201d he said. \u201cBut ultimately I think the person that is applying to it, that\u2019s using the resources, it\u2019s their job to make sure that they complete the program.”<\/p>\n Read also:<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Nearly four years after enrollment launched for Ready to Work, the city\u2019s workforce training program…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3084,19483,82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-251998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-city-hall","9":"tag-ready-to-work","10":"tag-san-antonio","11":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","12":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}