Both Jasper County and the City of Newton are only 80 people away from becoming two of the largest Skilled Iowa Communities in the state of Iowa.
Craig Immerfall, of Iowa Workforce Development, presented this information the Jasper County Board of Supervisors during Tuesday’s meeting, with the board later approving a resolution to participate in the program.
There are currently nine Skilled Iowa Communities present in the state.
“What the Skilled Community is, is one piece of a larger initiative called Skilled Iowa. Skilled Iowa is an economic development initiative for the state of Iowa as a whole,” Immerfall said.
The purposed of Skilled Iowa is to solve the lack of middle skill workers available in the workforce. One way of combating this is offering up the free National Career Readiness Assessment test. The test would then give a certification of bronze, silver, gold and platinum, which can show potential employers a person’s qualifications for a position.
The City of Newton has been attempting the gain a Skilled Iowa designation since Gov. Terry Branstad allocated funding toward the program in 2012, and every high school in Jasper County has its students take the test.
In addition, Immerfall said the Greater Newton Area Chamber of Commerce, Newton Development Corporation, the Jasper County Economic Development Corporation, Skiff Medical Center and a number of other entities within the county support the initiative.
“Let’s go for it,” said board member Dennis Carpenter.
Jasper County Human Resources Director Dennis Simon said that having future applicants that have already completed the NCRC test will help the county better determine what type of positions those employees could fill.
Immerfall added that it is of no-cost for the county to participate and that when it garners the designation, it will be a great marketing tool to attract businesses.
NDC is partnering with DMACC to hold a NCRC testing opportunity for citizens on Sept. 15, 16 and 17 at Newton’s DMACC campus computer lab. Testing times range from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and participants can chose to take all three one-hour tests at once or break them up over days or hours.
Register to take the test at: https://go.dmacc.edu/newton/Pages/ncrc.aspx
In other business:
• Nick Aldrich is the newest deputy for the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office. He will begin work on at Sept. 2 at a hire-in pay rate of $23.83 per hours. With this addition, the sheriff’s office only has one vacant deputy position.
• The board approved vacating a section of a Level B road along South 112th Ave West at the request of adjacent landowners. No public comment was made on the matter and the road’s location was described as west of Monroe and north of Highway F70.
Contact Senior Staff Writer Ty Rushing at (641) 792-3121 ext. 6532 or at trushing@newtondailynews.com.