The Annual Regional Leaders’ Retreat in Overland Park gives local leaders the opportunity to sit down and discuss issues facing everyone in the region. Day one of this year’s retreat focused on workforce development and an update on Fort Riley from Fort Riley’s leadership team.

On workforce development the discussion focussed on the human resources side of things and what local businesses look for when it comes to recruiting employees. In order to have continued economic growth and attract more businesses and industries to the region, the region must first be able to provide a strong workforce. Developing the workforce can’t be left up to only the schools in the region, and the Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce Economic Development division is teaming up with the schools in Geary County, as well as, Fort Riley to provide another tool to for students and employers in Junction City and Geary County.

“The Chamber is working with partners in the community to become an ACT Work Ready Certified Community,” said Susan Jagerson, Economic Development Specialist with the JCACC. “ACT Work Certified is a way that we can designate that we understand our workforce by being able to issue certificates for doing assessments on learning and skill levels.”

Essentially by becoming a work ready certified community students in the community can take the assessments and receive a certificate that shows what skills they have.

“This is just something that a worker can use as a credential to be able to show an employer what level they’re at in looking for a job. So an employer can use it either as placement for somebody or it can also be used for current workers as retention to make sure they’ve got a person in the job that they’re going to be satisfied with.”

Representatives of the chamber and school district are still working to become a certified community, they are wrapping up their first of two years of training.

On the Fort Riley update Maj. Gen. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., Commanding General of Fort Riley went over his Camplan 2020, and Col. Andrew Cole, Fort Riley Garrison Commander gave an update Fort Riley’s infrastructure and projects currently underway on post. A key topic had to do with housing on Fort Riley.

Mick McCallister, Junction City Mayor has made it a priority in 2016 to work with Fort Riley to get its housing back to levels that were promised in 2006 and 2010. In 2010 the goal for Fort Riley was to only have 3,827 houses on post, as of right now the inventory of housing is sitting around 4,300.

Fort Riley officials have gone back and looked at those numbers and the plans made back in 2010 and a plan is in the works to begin reducing that number.

Col. Cole told the Leaders’ Retreat that they have reinstituted a demolition plan,”In which we will see about 160 plus units coming down in our Warner/Peterson area on the installation. Here in probably the next three to four months we’re going to start that process.”

A long-range plan is in the works to continue reducing the amount of housing on a type of glide path deemed suitable.

McCallister explained what getting back to the 3,827 inventory level will mean for the region.

“As we get closer to that number, the 3,827, that means there’s 600 more families that will live off the installation, which is in our communities. Whether it’s Manhattan, Junction City, Chapman, Abilene, it doesn’t matter. It puts those families back in our community, and that’s where we get our tax dollars, that’s where we need for them to be.”

The retreat continues Saturday morning with sessions focused on workforce solutions and an update on the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility currently under construction in Manhattan.