2020 Vision Summit hears about Fayette economic growth
Mark Hofmann | Herald-Standard
Ben Moyer, president of the former AC Moyer Co., testifies about the need for federal money to quickly reach small companies awarded bids on projects. Moyer said project expenses can be difficult for smaller companies to bear while waiting to receive reimbursements.
Mark Hofmann | Herald-Standard
A few local Members of the House Majority Policy Committee (from left) Rep. Matthew Dowling, R-Uniontown, Rep. Bud Cook, R-Coal Center, and Rep. Ryan Warner, R-Perryopolis, listen to testimony during a policy hearing for the 2020 Vision Summit.
Mark Hofmann | Herald-Standard
John Andursky, acting president of Highlands Hospital, spoke on how reimbursement increase freezes have hurt independent community hospitals like Highlands.
Mark Hofmann | Herald-Standard
Muriel Nuttall (right), executive director of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, testifies before members of the state House Majority Policy Committee about the need for workers for available jobs in the county.
Mark Hofmann | Herald-Standard
Testifying for a policy hearing for the 2020 Vision Summit were (from left) Steve Hranec and Mark Anthony with Hranec Corp. and Ben Moyer with the former AC Moyer Co.
Some members of the State House Majority Policy Committee learned about the struggles of local businesses in Fayette County on Thursday as part of a multi-committee summit.
The 2020 Vision Summit is an event that brings committee members to western Pennsylvania to show what the area has to offer, with Thursday’s event in Uniontown focusing on economic growth.
“Today is part of a larger event,” said Rep. Matthew Dowling, R-Uniontown. “We’re really looking at what we need to do in the course of the next two years for a successful and prosperous 2020.”
Dowling said the way state budgets are set up, legislators don’t have the ability to place a large amount of money into business projects, but the biggest thing they can do is reform regulations so it can cost less for business people to do business.
Muriel Nuttall, the executive director of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, testified before the committee by saying the biggest issues with the chamber’s membership and rising on a daily basis is workforce development.
She said that the biggest challenge business owners said they have when surveyed six years ago was finding, hiring and keeping qualified, skilled employees.
“The need was dire,” Nuttall said, adding that need gave birth to the Fayette Business Education Partnership, an arm of the chamber that focuses on programing that enables students and residents to obtain family-sustaining employment in Fayette County.
While Nuttall said programs like the federal Every Student Succeeds Act and Chapter 339 as well as business/education partnership grants have acted as a great launching pad, businesses still struggle to fill positions.
“Those businesses need human capital,” Nuttall said, adding that all of Pennsylvania has a workforce need, but western Pennsylvania is in a workforce crisis. “It’s the difference between success and failure for a business.”
Nuttall suggested that more emphasis and more dollars should be put into the workforce crisis as well as figuring out how to reach parents and the business community to become more involved.
John Andursky, the Acting President of Highlands Hospital in Connellsville, said they face a major challenge much like the other independent community hospitals that are dwindling in numbers as they have trouble sustaining themselves because of a freeze on the reimbursement rates in 2008.
“It needs changed,” Andursky said.
A subject raised and repeated during the hearing was the need of having employees with a basic work ethic and pride in a job as employers have found many younger people entering the workforce often not staying after the first day or after the first paycheck.
Nuttall said employers are finding that employees nationwide are lacking in soft skills, which is basically worth ethic, teamwork and communication skills.
“We’re working in schools to try to rebuild some of that thought process so they understand the importance of the work ethic,” Nuttall said, adding that more children are growing up now in homes where the parents don’t work, so that role model for having pride in having a job isn’t there. “We want to change that conversation and put those role models in place.”
Ben Moyer, the president of the former AC Moyer, said Fayette County residents do have that work ethic as he said he would put his 10 or 12 employees up against anybody.
Moyer said he always sought input from his employees, which would give them a feeling that they had a bigger investment in the company.
Moyer said his company would receive money that came down from the federal government when they were awarded municipal contracts for asphalt work, but the problem was the federal money was so slow getting to him, he always had to consider if his company could afford to place a bid on such contract work as the bigger companies could absorb the costs until they were paid, but smaller companies cannot do that.
Steve Hranec and Mark Anthony with Hranec Corp., a mechanical-contracting company out of Uniontown, also testified on Thursday with Anthony saying a good morale boosting exercise for his employees is as simple as having pizza for everyone once a week.
The summit will conclude Friday with the state House Transportation Committee being a part of a round-table discussion concerning green streets and scenic byway programs followed by a tour of Ohiopyle.