SAN ANTONIO – With San Antonio facing a budget crunch, community and business leaders are urging City Council to protect funding for two workforce programs they say are key to helping residents move into better-paying careers.<\/p>\n
The push centers on keeping Project QUEST and Ready to Work in the city\u2019s next budget. Supporters want council members to leave Ready to Work funds intact as the city works to close budget shortfalls and weighs cuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe voted for jobs for the unemployed and underemployed. And a few leaders do not have the moral authority to change that,\u201d one speaker said.<\/p>\n
Project QUEST and Ready to Work connect people with education, training and credentials, with the goal of moving them into better-paying careers. As budget decisions loom, opponents of proposed changes said they are pushing back against shifting money away from the programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here to say that we express our collective opposition to the 4 million reallocation of the ready-to-work funds,\u201d another speaker said.<\/p>\n
Business leaders said more than 3,000 employees in Bexar County are continuing to build their skills through the programs. COPS\/Metro said it will not abandon the thousands of San Antonians currently enrolled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe budget is open for cuts at this time, and we just didn’t want to see any cuts to important programs like Ready-to Work and Project Quest,\u201d a speaker said.<\/p>\n
District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran said the programs have helped create opportunities for residents in her district.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not on the ballot right now because we\u2019re not sure if we continue with the ready to work option. But it has pivoted and it has continued to get people good paying jobs,\u201d Viagran said.<\/p>\n
Not everyone on the council agrees. In a statement, District 9 Councilwoman Misty Spears said she has no problem ending government programs that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions and fail to deliver the results they promised.<\/p>\n
City leaders are expected to vote Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO – With San Antonio facing a budget crunch, community and business leaders are urging City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-437669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437669","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=437669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}