That the City Council:
A.  Approve and authorize the City Manager to execute the submission of a Request for Proposal for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Youth Program Services, RFP #012-2522804-JM; and,

B.  Approve and adopt RESOLUTION NO. CC 2024-__ ENTITLED:  A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF LA HABRA, CALIFORNIA, CERTIFYING THE APPROVAL OF THE SUBMITTAL OF A RESPONSE TO THE ORANGE COUNTY WORKFORCE INNOVATION AND OPPORTUNITY ACT (WIOA) YOUTH PROGRAM SERVICES RFP #012-2522804-JM FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023-2024.

The City of La Habra Employment & Training Division of the Community Services Department seeks Council approval to submit a response to the Request for Proposal (RFP) to continue operating the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA) funded career training program, entitled the Ready S.E.T. OC Program. The current WIOA youth and young adult employment program contract between the City and the County expires on June 30, 2024, as the last grant is completing its four-year funding cycle. The new grant award recipient will be offered a contract to provide countywide program services beginning July 1, 2024 for Fiscal Year 2024-2025, with an optional renewal available each year for the following three years, not to exceed a total of four years.

The City has operated an Orange County WIOA funded youth and young adult employment program since 1974, and the Ready S.E.T. OC Program for the past four years.  In 2020, after submitting a grant proposal and participating in a grant review process, the County not only approved La Habra's proposal to continue offering career training programs in north Orange County, but asked that the City accept responsibility to provide youth employment programs and services for qualified youth throughout the entire County of Orange. To better serve the County's youth, the County consolidated the main youth and adult offices in La Habra and Garden Grove to one large office in the City of Brea. Additional satellite offices are located in Santa Ana, Los Alamitos, Laguna Niguel, OC Probation, and the Orangewood Foundation. 

The intent of the County's program is to connect 600 youth and young adults each year to work readiness training, resume development, interview skills, paid work experience, occupational skills training, and job placements for eligible individuals in the foster care system, who under an Individualized Education Plan, who are experiencing homelessness, who are pregnant or parenting, or who are juvenile offenders. The La Habra operated Ready S.E.T. OC program is on target to meet all current contract goals in Fiscal Year 2023-2024, which is the last year of the current grant.

Submission of an RFP response to the County of Orange will allow the City to apply to continue operating the Ready S.E.T OC program to serve qualified youth and young adults by providing employment and training opportunities and support services to better equip participants to enter the workforce.

If the contract is awarded by the County to the City of La Habra to continue administering this program, all program costs would be covered through the grant award and related City support costs would funded through a ten percent Administrative Cost allowance that is provided as part of the grant agreement. If awarded, City staff does not anticipate any City General Fund resources being necessary to support this grant-funded program.