Tammy Baney - The Most Important Organization You Never Heard Of

Tammy is the Executive Director of the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council; the region’s Council of Governments, referred to for simplicity as COIC. COIC provides services to the counties of  Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson, the cities of Bend, Culver, La Pine, Madras, Metolius, Prineville, Redmond and Sisters, as well as the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.  It has offices located throughout Central Oregon and employs about 100 people. 

Tammy spent many years in the hospitality and real estate industries prior to her time on the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners. During her time in elected office, Tammy emerged as a leading voice on healthcare reform and overall health system improvement. Her leadership has been recognized by organizations throughout Oregon and nationally. The Oregon Business Association recognized her as an Oregon Statesman of the Year for her work in this area.

If we took the time to list all of Tammy’s accomplishments and all the ways she works to participate to improve our community it would fill up all our time, so let’s just say that Tammy arguably knows more about Central Oregon and what’s working, and what’s not working, than any other single person in our region. So, you are in for a treat over the next few minutes as you learn from her about the important role that COIC plays across our region. 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:07

These are the students that are either already dropped out or on their way to dropping out and we would consider them to maybe be the hardest to reach and possibly the hardest to teach.

Narrator: 0:20

Welcome to cascade views a discussion with Central Oregon leaders. Your host is Michael SIPE, local business and community leader Best Selling Author of the Avada principle and candidate for Oregon State Representative for House District 53, which encompasses southern Redmond sisters, Tom Hello, and Northern Ben. The purpose of these discussions is to share the views and insights of local leaders from a variety of community sectors on a range of timely and important regional and state issues. With that, now here is your host, Michael SIPE.

Michael Sipe: 0:56

Thanks for joining us on cascade views. My name is Michael SIPE, and I'm here today with my guest Tammy Baney. Tammy is the Executive Director of the Central Oregon intergovernmental Council. The region's Council of Governments, referred to for simplicity as CIC. CIC provides services to the counties of disputes in Jefferson the cities of Bend Culver, the pine, Madras, Metolius Prineville, Redmond and sisters, as well as the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. It has offices located throughout Central Oregon, and employs about 100 people. Pam, he spent many years in the hospitality and real estate industries prior to her time on the chutes County Board of Commissioners. During her time in elected office, Tammy emerged as a leading voice on healthcare reform and overall health system improvement. Her leadership has been recognized by organizations throughout Oregon and nationally, the Oregon Business Association recognized her as an Oregon statesman of the year for her work in this area. If we took time to list all of Tami's accomplishments, and all the way she works to participate to improve our community, it would fill up all our time. So let me just say that what I know about Tammy is that she arguably knows more about Central Oregon, and what's working, and what's not working than any other single person in our region. So we're in for a treat over the next few minutes, as we all learn from her about the important role that CIC plays in our region. Tammy, welcome to the show.

Unknown: 2:26

Well, those are big shoes to fill. Thank you, Mike, for having me today. And really excited to be here and really appreciative of you putting this platform out so that individuals have an opportunity to learn about their community. And so super excited for us to get kicked off this morning. Thanks for having me.

Michael Sipe: 2:44

You bet you fill those shoes every day. And I'm grateful that you're here today. So just give us a little background on your career and how you came to be in your current position.

Unknown: 2:54

Sure. So I was raised here into chutes County and our family came to Oregon in 1863. And so we've been around for a little while. And I have always felt blessed to be able to stay in the chutes County and in the bend community in particular, the ebbs and flows of the economy, the housing market, being able to have access to higher education, being able to be able to secure a really good, you know, living wage job, that has always been sort of in flux for us in this area. And it was something of interest to me to be a participant in our community rather than sort of leaving and coming back. And so I have my career career really has been just one of service and have a background as being a casa and a foster parent and a lot of local nonprofit work. But I really feel like my heart has found a home in service to community through local government. And so after 12 years in elected office at the county, where I sort of focused in on transportation, health and human services, a perfect transition to CIC really sat well with my heart and, and with this remarkable, talented team that we have, and really allows me the opportunity to continue to serve our community through the programs and services that we provide. So I think if you were to encapsulate my career or even my life, it's been one of service. And I feel really fortunate to be doing that here in the Deschutes. County area.

Michael Sipe: 4:27

Well, I'm super excited about this opportunity for our listeners and for me to learn about CIC. I didn't know much about it at all until we had coffee the other day, and I suspect others might be the same way. You and CIC might be the most important best kept secret in Central Oregon. So give us a little overview of the organization.

Unknown: 4:48

Sure. So we are the largest local government that you will not see on your tax bill, and we're pretty proud of that. So we were established in 1972 and We are considered we're established under a an Oregon revised statute called an Oregon, Rs 190. And that allows local government to come together to provide services on their behalf. And so that's the structure in which we operate. We're considered a council of governments. And so there are councils of governments all across the United States. And you will find that they don't look alike. And so some are providing senior services. Some are providing transit such as us. And that's by design, a Council of Governments is meant to serve the region or the area in which they represent to fill gaps and needs for that particular area. And so for us, we have a 17 member board, we represent all the cities and counties in crypto chutes and Jefferson, and in 2018, we welcome to formal partnership with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. And so when the city of lupine became a city back in 2006, they were afforded a seat on to the CIC board. So that's our structure, we have five appointed members, they represent five different areas of influence. And that would be tourism, and recreation, timber and wood products, unemployed and underemployed, business and industry in agribusiness, agriculture. And so some of those are a little bit of a holdover from the 70s, speaking mainly to timber and wood products. But if we look at natural resources, and our community and what that means. So those members influence the board and help to give those insights into those areas as well. And then I know we're going to get into the actual components of the business lines that we have. But I think it's important to note that we do have, we have 120 employees, and we are entirely grant and contract funded. And so we do not have a tax base that we operate off. And that goes back to our original establishment of an organization, which is that we really are in close partnership with the community with the region in which our, with our partners and members, the cities, counties, and then tribes, being able to provide services on their behalf. And we do that through grants and contracts.

Michael Sipe: 7:13

Well, let's take a look at some of those main areas of focus. And and first of all, talk to us about your involvement in regional planning. Sure.

Unknown: 7:23

So that is under our community and economic development department. And we do a tremendous amount of of convening and facilitation around regional needs. And so the first that I would note as regional planning is it well first, I would say, if we don't have a plan for it, we likely will not be able to be competitive to seek the funding when there are funding allocations to be had. And at times, if that regional planning is not done, we're not eligible to apply for some funding, primarily in the federal realm. But so the importance isn't of just the goodwill of bringing partners together is making sure that that planning is done so that you are eligible to bring dollars into the region. And so a few examples would be that right now we are doing a broadband needs assessment. And so we are collecting the data and working with our communities across the region to identify what the broadband needs are. We also are working with our partners on identifying what regional scale infrastructure projects are of interest. When we have competitive funding from the federal infrastructure bill that is put on the street, we want to make sure that our region is really coalesced in a way of knowing what our priorities are, that will help us as a region but also as a state to be competitive in bringing those dollars in. Another opportunity for us is as you know, we have drought conditions. And so we are convening a group called the Deschutes Basin Water collaborative, where we are bringing the environmental groups, the irrigation districts and interested parties together and talking about on farm mitigation piping, ways in which we can use our natural resources to the best of our ability and be able to seek funding or any other sorts of supports or policy changes together to address some of those needs. Lastly, on regional planning, I would note that in this looking into the economic development, possibly in just a moment, but we also convened recently a COVID economic recovery plan. And so pulling together again, partners to identify what are the existing needs, and all of that planning goes to things like housing, childcare, workforce, transportation, what are the needs for us as a region to recover from the pandemic?

Michael Sipe: 10:00

such needed work. Yes, the plan what a good plan. So I understand you're also involved with heddle Career Services. In training. Can you share a little bit about that?

Unknown: 10:13

You bet. So one of our other business lines is under the umbrella of work stores, work sources in partnership with vocational rehab, State of Oregon, the Employment Department. And so our slice of the work source pie is that we provide, we don't do unemployment insurance. But if you are an individual who may be has experienced a layoff, we would work with that individual to help get them the skills or trained up for a new position, maybe you are underemployed and you want to change your career path. We do coaching, mentoring, computer skills, interviewing, mock interviews, whatever it is to be able to stand next to that employee to assist them in their job seeking. We also do a lot to support employers. So we provide on the job training, where we pay up to 50% of the employee's wages to assist with training and sort of add that extra support. In addition, if we have we do rapid response, when there is the unfortunate large layoff of a company, we go in and try to re employ those individuals into the community before the layoff even occurs. And then some of the unique things that this team has been doing is outreach to deer ridge. And that is the correctional facility that's in the Madras area. And helping to put individuals who are reentering the community with businesses that can assist them in reemployment helped them with the coaching of what it means to seek a job and keep a job. And in addition to that, we have a new mobile employment lab. And we are testing that out with Bethlehem in for individuals that are experiencing housing insecurity and working with Bethlehem in to either help individuals improve the positions that maybe they have, they want to have a promotion at work, or many of them are already in employment. But if individuals are not, we go through a process of really helping them to feel that support and help them to get the skills necessary to re enter the workforce.

Michael Sipe: 12:32

What a tremendous service for the employee for the employer and for the whole community. I suppose the for employers, because like employers need to know about this, right, I suppose the is the pathway just for them to go to the CIC website? Or are there other ways that employers can learn about this?

Unknown: 12:54

Sure, there's actually a WorkSource a website as well. And so or CIC, you bet. So under our services, it'll share with you about the workforce program. We have offices in each of the communities and we do a fair amount of remote right now outreach in terms of COVID related shut down of some of the facilities. So we just pivoted to more virtual or meeting and coffee shops. And so they could either reach out to me or go online to work source or go online to cic.org. And seek that information. We do a fair amount of outreach to a number of the employers too. So if there's a specific employer that has a need happy to connect with them and and feel whatever it is that that they might have.

Michael Sipe: 13:42

Fantastic. Well, this, the next topic I want to turn to is there's so much to talk about about CIC I like oh, let's talk about this. Let's talk about that. It's really difficult to figure out how to hone it down because of all the important things you're involved in. But the next topic is one I'm especially interested in. And that's alternative high school education. You brought this up to me when we were having coffee the other day, and it was really fired up about it. So talk to us about how CIC is making a difference with high school kids in our region.

Unknown: 14:10

You bet so that one is twofold. So we I won't speak much on our Youth Employment and Training program. But that's where we take 16 to 24 year old youth and match them up with mentors. And it's under it's called compass. That's the name of the program. And again, it's similar to on the adult side where we're doing some skill building, helping them with internships, getting them a paycheck, teaching them what it means to get a job most important, what does it mean to keep a job and help get them upright and into the employment and it's the workforce, and that couples nicely with our Alternative Education Program, which is in partnership with each one of the school districts. So we don't actively recruit students but these are the students that are either already dropped out or on their way to dropping out and we would for them to maybe be the hardest to reach, and possibly the hardest to teach. And so the youth that many give up on that's where we really shine we swoop in and help them with building resilience. We do individualized education with them, we help them to get credit recovery, we help them to get a GED or seek their diploma as well. So sometimes it might just be getting them back up, right and in the saddle and back to their school. But these are the youth that have already not been a good match for the alternative education, high schools through that public schools. And we can provide GED or diploma services for those that are even outside the age of 18. So up to 21. And so an individual who hasn't completed their education, and we know that the data shows that individuals that have completed GED or diploma, not only that sense of pride and success, but really in helping them establish a stronger path forward in their employment and career choices. And so last year, we although the numbers are not as large as prior to COVID, last year, we served 397 students, we were able to help 103 complete their GED and 115 complete their diploma, and then the rest were credit recovery.

Michael Sipe: 16:24

Well, that's so good, there's a little bit of a divergence, but I'm thinking about, I'm having so many conversations with regional leaders about the homeless issue. And one of the the observations that keeps coming up is the lower age demographic of, of the homeless population and the number of young people. And, and although this is not a definitive statement, and maybe you can, can speak to it, but but it would appear that some of the reasons for that are these kids that, that just didn't make it in high school, and there wasn't a safety net for them, or a place like CIC, that could could actually help them get back on track. And then they spiral into depression and addiction and so forth. And so, it sounds to me, like this alternative, high school education program actually solves a lot of things.

Unknown: 17:18

When it's in concert with the individual, you have to have a willing partner. But for many of our youth, if you feel like you've been left behind, and maybe you come from a environment where you expect that we want to be that change, we want to help them see the value and the importance in themselves. And so that they can be, you know, taking whatever life has thrown at them and putting that to good use in their life. And, you know, it's, I think it's easy, you know, it's tough life is, is hard. And for some families, you know, it's, we have to recognize that they may need to work in order to be able to provide extra income into their families, and in family being very broad, because our youth come from a variety of backgrounds. But being okay with that youth is going to not be able to go to a traditional setting of a school, they have a job, or other complex needs. And so, and many of our youth come into our environment in need of a meal. And so when COVID hit, we were realizing that getting studies, paper studies out to the outward areas of our community goes back to the broadband issue, where you might note that government was able to give the federal government was giving hotspots and computers and all kinds of things. But just outside the boundary of bend, there are areas that don't have good broadband. And so it won't matter what you get them. And so we were delivering paper studies, and at the same time, recognizing that we also needed to deliver food. And so we just try to see the whole person and and then adjust accordingly.

Michael Sipe: 19:00

So it's great work. Let's change gears. You have a strong professional background in transportation, as you mentioned a little bit earlier, and CIC plays an important role in that area in our region. Can you give us just a quick overview?

Unknown: 19:15

Sure, you bet. So we are the largest transit provider in the state of Oregon, that is not a transit district. What does that mean? It means that we do not operate off a tax base that sort of just grows on its own and has a separate board that's under our umbrella. And so we provide a fully loaded transit service all across the region, including Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. And so we operate a call and dispatch center out of Redmond, we provide all the community connector. So if you're going from Prineville, Madras or independ that's cet cascades East transit. We also provide the services within the bend fixed route area. We provide the services in partnership with Mt batch and other, the federal government to provide access into our federal lands. And so if you are riding the bus up to Mount bachelor, that's us, if you have a floaty and you're headed down the river, and you want to ride that sauce. And so, you know, we also, this system, definitely a foundational piece as we look at economic development and our education and workforce, making sure that individuals have a safe, reliable and convenient transit system, I would say that we're not entirely there yet, mainly by virtue of right now workforce of being able to have access to drivers. But on the horizon, I think you will find we will be moving our system from less of kind of what we think of transit in the past of the bus arrives here at this time, to try to be more nimble, smaller vehicles, faster routes, in being able to provide a more sort of personalized, if you will, type of transit system in the future. So lots of lots on the horizon there. But transit is probably 70% of our budget. And our budget, overall budget is about 24 million.

Michael Sipe: 21:11

Well, this falls right in the category for me of who knew every time, every time I talk to you at all, there's these places that CSEC CIC. CIC operates. And you know, they just like they just sort of magically the services sort of magically there, except it's not magic, you're actually actually doing it. So. But you mentioned economic development just a minute ago as an area of focus. So how do you get involved there? So

Unknown: 21:42

we, in some communities, it would be a standalone organization, we are the the economic district for the region. So that's a the designation by the by the federal government, the Economic Development Administration, they there's an air there is a requirement for each area to be under a, an economic development district. And we are that. And so Scott Aycock, who also runs our community and economic development department is the director of our district in the area. So what does that mean? It means that we then with that designation, are required to have a comprehensive economic strategy. And that, that strategy, that economic development strategy is similar to the COVID economic development recovery plan, where you are looking at things like child care, workforce, transportation, all the things that are necessary to provide true economic vitality in a region. We do that in concert with partners, such as COC see OSU Latino Community Association, OSU Cascades, you know, you pick a partner, they're likely at the table EDCO is at the table. And so we that is the plan that allows us again, to be eligible for federal funding, and sometimes state funding. And so that helps us with it being able to be competitive for our state. The next piece is that we also have a business loan program. And so we provide through again, federal funding, some loans to organizations that maybe are not, they are new, or, you know, haven't had a lot of history behind them quite yet. And so they want to expand, they want to buy some equipment, and they're not entirely conventionally bankable. So we work really closely with the credit unions and the traditional banks. And we provide sometimes gap funding, we provide low interest micro lending. So it could be a $5,000 loan for a startup cake shop that just wants to be able to grow in some way. Or it could be$250,000. For another company that wants maybe it's a construction company that wants to expand. And then another really important piece that we do in that space is that we do a lot of rural community development. And so we have the richness of a lot of small communities in the Tri County area that don't entirely know they've got an idea, but they don't really know how to coalesce that into a project. Maybe they don't have someone who's going to be able to do the data collection, the community outreach, they might not know what grants are available, or even how to write the grant. And so we do a tremendous amount in that space of standing alongside our smaller communities and helping them to be prepared and do the planning and be competitive to either leverage their current resources or and additional resources to support their communities?

Michael Sipe: 25:04

Well, you know, as we get ready to wrap up here, I've got one more question about one of the services that you offer, which is regional resilience. And so I'm wondering how CIC is focused on the safety of our region, the vulnerability of Oregon to earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic action, and certainly forest fires. Everybody knows about. So how do you get involved in helping our communities be prepared for emergencies like that.

Unknown: 25:33

So in short, there are two things that we're stepping into one, folks may know that there's Senate Bill 762, which is legislative investment into fuels mitigation, and creating defensible space on private property. And so we will be applying for those funding on behalf of our region and a number of partners. And CIC is role one of the roles the main role will be a one person convening the region and supporting the partners in the data collection, the reporting to the state, so that we're not duplicating those efforts, and making sure that that body of work gets done. The other thing that we are doing is we're convening the regional a Regional Training Center. So its name is core three. So it is a center where so when the Cascadia happens, or a natural disaster, Central Oregon will be the FEMA staging area for the Cascadia and there is a lot of planning that goes into right now being ready to stand something like that up. In addition, we have wildfires, public health issues. And so this training facility will support the region, not just our police and fire professionals, but it'll allow them an opportunity to not have to go out of out of area for training, it will allow us to then turn that into a joint command center when we have issues. And, you know, all of us, you know, being prepared for Cascadia, this will be able to help us be have the infrastructure to be ready to respond to the state for a natural disaster of that scale. So those are ways. So we really are sort of the the engine under the hood, and helping others to be able to to, you know, kind of drive the vehicle?

Michael Sipe: 27:22

Well, as we get close to wrapping up here, I've have two final questions. One is Do you ever sleep?

Unknown: 27:29

Yes, but I walk and talk in my sleep. What does that say?

Michael Sipe: 27:33

Oh, my goodness, you know, it's, uh, as I mentioned early on in this, I think you probably know more about what's going on in Central Oregon, both what's working what's not working than, than any other person. And so I'm really grateful for your work there. If there was another problem area as if you didn't have enough to do if there was another problem area in Central Oregon, where you think the resources of CIC could be brought to bear and, and that you could bring value that you might not have had a chance to help with yet? Not that I'm trying to give you more work. But what would that be?

Unknown: 28:08

Well, so you know, in all of this is the world according to me. So take it for that. But you know, and we are toe in the water on this right now. But it really is a regional strategy around homelessness and housing. I feel like we're missing an opportunity to develop what a system would look like versus just project based decision making. There is a lot of money and good effort and leadership going into addressing some of these issues. But we're not basing that off at playbook of any sort. And things change rapidly. But we have learned over the course of years that if we don't have a sheet of music, or some sort of a playbook that we are all part of, we're going to have a fragmented decision making space and probably not align ourselves in a way that leverages our resources, whether that's intellectual capacity and brain work or our funding. And so it's my hope and goal to really harness that a bit. And help us to identify a regional strategy that allows her the uniqueness of each community to address their needs, but ties it together in a regional approach, because that's really how our region operates. In terms of salt solving issues.

Michael Sipe: 29:29

I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, and certainly is, as I'm in my learning phase here around a number of the regional issues. Certainly the homeless issue that that well meaning but fragmented, you know, decently funded but not a coordinated effort. It does make it hard because everyone's so well meaning, but I think your point about the fragmentation of that and the need for coordination is super important. It's been great having you on the show. I'm grateful for all the work you do to serve our region to make it this special place that it is. In addition to that coordination effort you were just talking about, one of my high points of our discussion is about the alternative high school program and how important that is. I sure appreciate your time and your message today. Tammy,

Unknown: 30:23

thank you so much for the opportunity, and really great to be with you this morning.

Michael Sipe: 30:28

You bet my guest today has been Tammy Baney. You can learn more about Tammy and CIC and cic.org. And I would urge you to go there. If you look at the scope of the activities that Tammy and her team are involved in. They touch every part of our lives in Central Oregon. And so go check out cic.org and get a better sense about the involvement of this great organization in our region. Thanks so much for tuning in.

Narrator: 30:57

Thanks for listening to cascade views with Michael SIPE. To find out more about Mike the upcoming election. The key issues he's focused on in his campaign to represent Central Oregon and Salem as a state representative. Visit www dot a voice for Central oregon.com that's www dot a voice for Central oregon.com You can get your own copy of Michael SIPE best selling book the Avada principle@amazon.com. And finally, please vote in the upcoming election. Your Voice Matters