Dane County Executive Parisi Shares Development Insights

November 4, 2011
Published by the Sun Prairie Star
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Dane County Executive Joe Parisi and representatives from five other counties met with the Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin to share the Workforce Development’s annual reports. Pat Schramm, executive director of the board, said the other purpose of the meeting was hear about the needs the board can help the counties with as well as how the counties can assist one another.

Schramm pointed out a portion of the Oct. 28 meeting was to let the representatives from Columbia, Dodge, Jefferson, Marquette and Sauk counties share their experiences with Parisi as Dane County prepares to create its first economic development entity.

“In a way Dane County has been, or at least felt it’s been, a bit more insulated from national economic trends, statewide economic trends, largely due to our public sector employment base,” he said. According to the county executive, this has greatly changed in the past few years during the recession.

Parisi said the Dane County Office of Economic Development would allow the county to be more proactive. Meeting with his peers allowed him to learn about their practices and experiences regarding economic development. Additionally, it would allow the region to discover more ways to be involved.

“Everyone does economic development in their own municipality or their own county,” Parisi said. “That’s where we want to focus our efforts and sometimes people might come in to competition with businesses expanding or relocating but really, if we put those issues aside, there’s a lot of common ground.”

Andy Ross, District 21 supervisor of Columbia County, said during the years he has noticed when it comes to economic development, government has been viewed as the entity creating rules.

“In the past we’ve always been in there and done our job and said ‘OK, go develop your business or do whatever you want to do,’” said Ross, noting while it has been a successful practice in the past the governing bodies need to become more active partners.

Schramm said this was the reason economic development offices were becoming more critical; so companies do not take a lengthy time to get started. According to her, a one-year plan to launch a company is a long time. Once an entity decides to expand, it needs to do so in a short amount of time.

Schramm said many people are not aware that in the south central region the county, municipalities and school districts are among the largest employers. She said the requirements for counties to reduce budgets is having a regional affect.

Preparing the future work force

Parisi said one of the important facets to look at in economic development is the work force.

“Do they have the training our current businesses in operation need? Do they have the training our businesses are going to be needing two, three, four years down the road because technology manufacturing processes change so quickly,” the county executive said.

He said a comprehensive approach by the business community, education community and work force need to work jointly to ensure they are in sync with one another.

Howard Zellmer, chair of the Marquette County Board, suggested the manufacturers let workforce development or Madison College know what skills future employees will need. He also suggested school counselors need to be made aware of the different options students have for post-high school.

Schramm said the Workforce Development Board is looking to begin programs to introduce students, school faculty and parents to the various pathways be it a technical school, university or going directly into the workforce.

“[School staff] are not advising kids in to the manufacturing jobs for instance, that have really good wages,” she said.

Schramm added many parents are not aware of the modern manufacturing, which is different from past.

She mentioned workforce development is prototyping a program called ‘middle college program’ for high school juniors and seniors allowing them to take technical education courses at Madison College. When these students graduate high school, they already know what transition they want to make because they already identified a career path.

“So many people get to graduation in high school and they haven’t done any of that work,” she said.

Ross emphasized the need for youth to connect with the workforce development programs. However, he feels the education system needs to smooth the transition from K-12 education to post-high school endeavors. He indicated it has become more difficult to ‘feel out’ the transition to a career path, which is often falling on the parents.

Ross indicated there needed to more job training in schools to reflect the changes in technology. He said instructors need to be current on the most recent technology.

The county executive said work force training has become a lifelong process and it is critical for young people have the correct start.

Zellmer said in the last decade, more people are switching career paths multiple times in their life as opposed to when people stayed with one job until retirement. When employees change careers, they need to have the skills for the new employment.

Parisi pointed out the aging workforce in trades such as construction and agriculture will soon leave way for the younger generation. Schramm said retirement projections showing utilities, manufacturing and nursing fields, 45 to 50 percent of the work force will be retiring in the next five years.

“You can make livable wages in those jobs and they need to be done,” he said.

Parisi called economic development and workforce development are a dynamic process.

“That’s one of the reasons I think it’s vital that Dane County move forward with a economic development department and that’s why I proposed one in my budget because we have to stay on top of these issues,” he said. “We have to stay in front of the curve and make sure that again, we’re not caught by surprise … or else we’re going to start lagging behind.”