Commerce Fellows Training Package
The North Carolina Department of Commerce has recently announced the availability of Commerce Fellows / Building Community through Capacity and Knowledge grant funds, created with de-obligated Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, to support professional development for local government professionals. The UNC School of Government is one of two universities partnering on this project. The School has designed a Commerce Fellows Training Package that is composed of sought-after School courses that address the breadth and depth of issues related to community development. Commerce Fellows grantees will have the flexibility to build the skills of the many employees involved in North Carolina’s community development efforts. The School’s training package is only available to recipients of the Commerce Fellows grants.
GRANT APPLICATION DETAILS
The School of Government’s training package is available for all municipal and county governments outside of CDBG Entitlement counties that do not receive CDBG Entitlement Funds. (See below for a list of these jurisdictions.) Partnership is required: All municipal applicants must partner with their respective county, identifying officials from the county government and potentially municipal governments within the county to participate in the training series. All county applicants must partner with municipalities in the county, identifying officials from municipal governments within the county to participate in the training series. (See partnership rationale below.)
All applications must be submitted to the NC Department of Commerce. Applications must be received by 5:00 p.m. on June 15, 2016. No application or relevant submission materials will be accepted after the deadline date and time; all relevant signatures must be in place when application is submitted. To download an application, visit https://www.nccommerce.com/rd. For questions about the grant application, contact Iris C. Payne at NC Department of Commerce, at ipayne@nccommerce.com or 919.715.0517.
Applicants must complete a form in the grant application indicating who will attend each of the 5 courses in the School’s training package. Registrations for the courses in the package are transferable within the applying county (to include municipalities). Registrations are not refundable. Please see the course descriptions below for information about the target audience for each course. Once funding decisions are made by the NC Department of Commerce, the School of Government will register these individuals for their respective courses.
TRAINING PACKAGE DETAILS
The $25,000 training package includes 8 seats in 5 in-person courses (see below for details), for a combined total of 381 classroom contact hours. Overnight accommodations for the 8 seats are included in the price of the training package. The package also includes 4 online training series (composed of 21 webinars/modules); the online offerings provide another 26 hours of training. Grant recipients can send different employees or elected officials to the offerings in the package. Webinars and modules can be viewed locally in a classroom setting, allowing numerous officials officials from the county and its municipalities to benefit from these resources. If you have specific questions about the School of Government’s training package, please contact Sue Millager, program manager, at suemillager@sog.unc.edu or 919.843.9439.
School of Government Courses
School of Government | March 14-16, 2017 and April 11-13, 2017 | 2 seats (42 contact hours person)
This intensive 6‐day course is for appointed and elected public officials and other professionals engaged in local community development and revitalization. Course topics include community development finance, CDBG and related grant programs, affordable housing, environmental finance, visioning and citizen participation, group decision-making, purchasing and contracting, and grants management.
School of Government | September 21-22, 2016 | 2 seats (14 contact hours per person)
This 2-day course is for appointed and elected public officials as well as community development professionals. Participants will learn the basics of development finance tools used by local governments to achieve community and economic development goals. Course topics include federal financing programs and tax credit financing, capital financing, tax increment financing (TIF) and synthetic TIF, business improvement districts, and incentive programs for Main Street businesses.
MUNICIPAL AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATION
School of Government | September 2016 – May 2017 | 1 seat (175 contact hours over 8 months)
NOTE: participants must apply to this course by July 15, 2016
This program is designed for city and county managers, department heads, and employees with management responsibilities that require an understanding of functions beyond their areas of specialization. Elected officials are not admitted into Municipal and County Administration, as their statutory roles are significantly different. The primary subject areas focus on local government law, organizational and management, finance and budgeting requirements and practices, public employment law, and planning and regulation of development (includes community and economic development).
School of Government | July 25-28, 2016 | 1 seat (28 contact hours)
This 4-day introductory course is designed for economic development professionals employed by public, civic, or private development agencies as well as other public officials seeking a deeper understanding of the practice. This comprehensive course integrates theoretical and practical perspectives and provides participants with tools to organize, plan, and implement economic development activities.
EFFECTIVE SUPERVISORY MANAGEMENT
Multiple Locations across NC | July 11-15, 2016; August 15-19, 2016; November 14-18, 2016 | 2 seats (30 contact hours per person)
This program provides newly promoted and veteran local government supervisors and front-line managers with the opportunity to better understand and practice basic supervision skills. Attendees will have the opportunity to understand their management style and make it more effective; diagnose problems and analyze difficult interpersonal situations; build problem-solving skills; and appreciate what is means to work in the public sector and make a contribution to the community.
On-Demand Modules and Webinars (single viewing with unlimited participants)
PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT REGULATION MODULES | (4.5 contact hours per person)
This library of 10 self-paced training modules can be accessed at employees’ convenience with 20-30-minute web-based sessions, each on a particular topic of development regulation. Modules address land use decisions, ordinances, evidentiary hearings, exactions, quasi-judicial decisions, special and conditional use permits, spot and contract zoning, variances, and vested rights.
HUMAN CAPITAL MATTERS WEBINAR SERIES | (7.5 contact hours per person)
The five webinars in this series cover the range of human capital management issues relevant to local government. Webinars address succession planning, effective disciplinary procedures, value-based customer service, diversity and inclusion, and performance evaluation.
OPEN MEETINGS LAW WEBINAR SERIES | (4.5 contact hours per person)
This three-webinar series covers North Carolina's Open Meetings Law, which requires official meetings of public bodies to be open to the public. Participants will get answers to questions such as the following: What's a "public body"? What's an "official meeting"? What kind of notice is required? When can a public body meet in closed session, and what are the requirements for minutes and general accounts of meetings?
PUBLIC RECORDS LAW WEBINAR SERIES | (9.5 contact hours per person)
This five-webinar series covers public records laws, which affect all local government officials and employees. The first webinar offers an overview of public records laws that will be important to all local government officials and employees regardless of job title or responsibilities. The remaining four webinars focus on retention; personnel records; tax, finance, economic development and contracting; and attorney communications.
Non-Eligible Jurisdictions
The following local governments are not eligible to apply: NC Entitlement Counties (Cumberland, Mecklenburg, and Wake) and all municipalities within these counties, and Entitlement Cities (Asheville, Burlington, Cary, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Concord, Durham, Fayetteville, Gastonia, Goldsboro, Greensboro, Greenville, Hickory, High Point, Jacksonville, Kannapolis, Lenoir, Morganton, New Bern, Raleigh, Rocky Mount, Salisbury, Wilmington, and Winston-Salem).
Partnership Rationale
The School's training package is designed to increase capacity for the range of actors involved in community development. Partnership among cities and counties ensures that this range of actors participate in the training and allows for flexiblity should a registrant have a conflict and his or her slot need to be filled with another grantee representative. Requiring that municipalities partner with their county facilitates coordination--the county contact will immediately know if multiple municipalities within one county are applying for the funding.
