Hubbell listened and asked questions as leaders from the city of Fort Dodge, as well as county leaders, college officials and candidates for local office told them about their concerns about the local workforce and how they believe they can be fixed.

Fort Dodge Mayor Matt Bemrich said the issue is that there are plenty of opportunities for workers to learn in the city, but they don’t stay in the city and move elsewhere.

“We’ve got a great place for educating our workforce, but we’re still struggling with putting those workers into roles within our region,” Bemrich said. “We lose them to the metro areas, we lose them to big cities out of state. Really, keeping that rurally-trained workforce in our market is something we struggle for.”

The most frequently-asked question by larger employers, he added, is if they can provide the business with a workforce.

-Messenger photo by Peter Kaspari
Fred Hubbell, center, Democratic nominee for governor, speaks with Fort Dodge Mayor Matt Bemrich, left, and Iowa Central Community College President Dr. Dan Kinney Thursday following a roundtable discussion on workforce and education at the college.

Those present suggested that perhaps the best opportunity to keep the workforce local is expanding the Iowa Industrial New Jobs Training program, known as 260E.

That program provides bonds for training employees in new positions that work in jobs such as manufacturing, processing, assembly and warehousing.

Training is provided through community colleges such as Iowa Central.

Bemrich called 260E “critical to our major industry employees and Iowa Central” providing the tools needed for training.

“What we’re hearing is, ‘but for the credit, the employee couldn’t have been obtained and they couldn’t have been trained,'” he said. “So that means that that is a critical part to putting that employer/employee relationship together.”

Several in the group suggested the program be expanded to the health care industry.

“I could see expansion and the opportunity to create better health care training with those same types of credits,” Bemrich said. “And being able to provide CNAs, nurses, other medical professionals that are desperately needed and getting them trained.”

John O’Brien, the Democratic challenger to State Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge, said mental health professionals could be included in the credits.

He was recently talking to representatives from local area education agencies and said they were talking about the issues surrounding mental health.

“It all comes down to a lack of employees,” O’Brien said. “Skilled employees.”

Megan Srinivas, the Democratic candidate for state House District 9, agreed on including mental health in a possible expansion of 260E.

She said studies have shown that a doctor is actually not necessary to provide mental health treatment in rural areas.

“We’ve seen studies from around the world, as well as in the United States, that community health workers are really the most effective and cost-effective at treating patients with things that really need to be taken care of,” she said.

Bemrich added that agencies such as fire departments could be included in a possible expansion.

He went on to say that 260E doesn’t just benefit large employers. As a small business employee himself, Bemrich said his business has hired employees through the program.

“Even as a small employer, I’ve worked with some of their kids coming through the electrical program as an electrical contractor,” he said. “We’ll give time and talent to career fairs, all kinds of different things they’re doing on a small employee level. From the largest to the smallest, their success is our success because we need the workers they’re training.”

“And their success is our success because we trained them,” Iowa Central President Dan Kinney added.

A suggestion was offering incentives to employees in the 260E program to keep them in the state, such as saying they have to stay in the state for a certain amount of time, or they’d have to reimburse the program.

Another suggestion offered was providing training that explains that, while traveling to other states may pay more money, the cost of living is more.

Hubbell said what he was told Thursday is not unique to Fort Dodge.

“Like a lot of communities, there’s a challenge with filling jobs,” Hubbell said. “We have a lot of people here, graduating from our community colleges and our four-year colleges. We need to find better ways to keep them working in Iowa.”