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- Sacramento launched a three-year, $8 million program for 550 justice-involved residents.
- The program trains residents for commercial driving, HVAC, and diesel careers.
- SETA says 11 Sacramento-area employers committed to interview graduates.
This story is part of “The Poverty Line,” a series examining how everyday people are working to find housing, buy food or get healthcare in California, which has the second-highest poverty rate in the nation.
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Sacramento’s workforce training agency is trying to build a jobs pipeline for recently released inmates from jails and prisons.
The Sacramento Employment and Training Agency, in a collaboration with Emerge Career, is leading a three-year, $8 million state-funded program to train at least 550 justice-involved Sacramento County residents with behavioral health needs. The hope is to get them into jobs, such as commercial driving and diesel technology roles.
Fewer than half of the 170,000 inmates released from California prisons between 2015 and 2019 found jobs, and many of those jobs were temporary, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Emerge works with employers to place graduates in jobs, while SETA can help participants pay for rent, food and utilities when financial difficulties threaten their ability to finish training. Emerge continues to provide employment support for 12 months after placement.
Perhaps most intriguing, Emerge gets paid for results.
Its payments are tied to three milestones: initial certification, an industry-recognized credential and verified job placement. If a participant doesn’t reach a milestone, taxpayers don’t pay Emerge for that stage.
That’s the kind of experimentation government should be willing to try, but here’s the bargain I’d make with SETA: If we’re willing to experiment with $8 million in public money, let the public watch the experiment.
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The good news is that SETA and Emerge already have much of the machinery to do that.
Emerge collects data from the moment someone enters its online system and has created a dashboard that tracks applicants through eligibility, online training, hands-on training, credential attainment, job placement, wages and retention. Emerge says it can feed that information into SETA’s existing public economic mobility dashboard.
Do it.
And don’t give us only the flattering numbers. Track everyone who enters the pipeline, including those who start online training but never formally enroll. Show completion and credential rates, the percentage placed in jobs, median wages, benefits and job retention at three, six and 12 months.
Eventually show housing stability and recidivism, and give us a number government rarely provides: cost per sustained job placement.
In its New York City program, Emerge reports a 95% graduation rate and 96% job-placement rate among enrolled participants. Sacramento’s contractual targets are at least 80% graduation and placement of at least 75% of program completers into full-time employment within 180 days.
If Emerge succeeds, SETA will know what to replicate. If it falls short, the agency will know what to fix. That’s what accountability should look like.
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