Welfare reform may leave county in need of 1,300 jobs

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

March 27, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Beltrami County could be facing a shortage of 1,300 jobs come July 1 when welfare reform legislation takes effect, says Dave Hengle, economic development director for the Headwaters Regional Development Commission.

To combat the problem, the HRDC, area private businesses and governmental institutions have joined forces to form the Workforce Development Partnership.

The purpose of the partnership is to develop strategies to effectively deal with workforce-related issues such as welfare-to-work legislation requirements, worker shortages, worker day-care concerns and transportation concerns, Hengle said.

The HRDC decided to get involved in the workforce issue last summer when it was bombarded with calls from the area's major employers, which said there were not enough qualified workers in the three-county area of Beltrami, Hubbard and Clearwater.

At the same time, Hengle said, the counties' social services staffs were worried about the availability of jobs for those who would be cut off this summer from Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

"For example, how are we going to find 1,300 jobs (in Beltrami County) for people on AFDC in the next five years?" he asked. "Especially the 400 who need jobs this year?"

The partnership has banded together to answer some of those questions, Hengle said, and it is growing continuously. Local companies such as Telnet Systems Inc., Nortech Systems Inc., Johanneson's Inc. and Itasca-Bemidji Inc., all of Bemidji; Straight River Engineering and Lamb-Weston/RDO Frozen Inc. of Park Rapids; and Product Research and Development of Bagely, have joined the partnership.

One of the key strategies the HRDC is hoping will pay dividends is surveying the available workforce receiving AFDC and those employers who have positions open. By determining what the major barrier to finding a job for AFDC recipients is and the major obstacle in finding workers for employers, Hengle said he hopes a link can be established between the two.

"Essentially, we are surveying Bagley, Bemidji, Park Rapids and Blackduck because, in a sense, it's one job market," he said. "Plus it's the three counties in our service region with the highest unemployment rates."

In addition to the surveys, HRDC is also studying case studies from other parts of the country to see what type of welfare-to-work programs have worked and what has not.

Hengle said they plan to have the information assembled by May 1 so strategy planning sessions can begin and a plan can be implemented before the July 1 welfare deadline.

"The businesses need people to work for them, and people need jobs. But it's not just that simple. We need to make that marriage work for both of them," he said. "If the number of people knocking on (the businesses) doors doesn't increase, and if we can't get people into work, we've failed."