MCALLEN, Texas - An official with the Texas Workforce Commission says the Rio Grande Valley is not getting its fair share of funding from the agency and the main reason is RGV businesses are not applying.
Nestor Lopez is regional business liaison in the Outreach & Employer Initiatives Division of TWC. He recently spoke at an event hosted by McAllen Economic Development Corporation. It was held to encourage businesses to take advantage of TWC programs, particularly the agency's biggest - the Skills Development Fund.
However, in a powerpoint presentation, Lopez showed two slides that confirmed that the local workforce bodies in the upper and lower Rio Grande Valley were not getting their fair share of funds. Lopez acknowledged as much in his remarks. "I am not very happy (with what this slide shows). I do think we should be getting more of these funds," Lopez said.
Lopez showed two slides that he felt were troubling. The first showed the disbursement of funds for all TWC programs. The second was specific to the Skills Development Fund. Both showed the Valley receiving a small amount of money, as compared to other areas of the state.
“I am not very happy with that,” Lopez said, pointing to the first slide. “I do think we should be getting more of these funds, but for many, many reasons, that's not happening. So, I think this is really important, events like these… where we are trying to show businesses, hey, there's funds available.”
“We need to be able to tap into that (funding),” Lopez said. “But, as you can see, the whole of the money is going up north, and we're really, together with Workforce Solutions here… we’re really trying to get the word out.”
Lopez pointed to the slide again to show Workforce Solutions Cameron was also not getting very much funding from TWC.
“Further down there, you see Cameron, same thing (not much funding).”
Lopez continued: “What I'm trying to really show here is that we… I don't think we're getting the fair share of the funds that we deserve down here. We have the population, we have the businesses, we have the people.”
A member of the audience asked why the Valley was not getting its fair share. “People are just not applying for them. This (the Sills Development Fund) is entirely contingent on applications.”
Lopez contrasted the situation with other parts of the state.
“Obviously, the Greater Dallas area, they're killing it. They're really going after these grants. But, yes, this is not dispersed by any criteria other than qualifying applications.”
After the meeting concluded, Lopez gave an exclusive interview to RGG Business Journal. In the interview he gave his analysis on why the Valley is not tapping into TWC funds enough. He also praised McAllen EDC for hosting the event.
Here is the interview:
And here are some of Lopez’s remarks from his presentation:
Workforce Solutions Upper Valley CEO Francisco 'Frank' Almaraz
Francisco “Frank” Almaraz, CEO of Workforce Solutions Upper Valley, said the situation is improving.
“Regarding the Skills Development Fund (SDF) grants, Workforce Solutions was awarded $262,944 grant this fiscal year for upskilling the banking/finance industry sector. We also have four SDFs in progress for a total of $2,810,000 in the healthcare and manufacturing industry sectors,” Almaraz said.
“We have been working with our economic development corporations and individual businesses to promote the benefits of skilling and upskilling grants and increase the amount of funds coming to the Rio Grande Valley. It looks like it’s paying off.”
