Category: State Government Projects

The Florida Department of Education retained Evergreen Solution’s to evaluate the performance of the Florida Ready to Work (RTW) Program. Established in 2006, the Ready to Work Program is a statewide workforce education and economic development program. The goals of the Florida Ready to Work Program were to provide students and jobseekers with a standard credential that certifies their workplace readiness and ability to succeed on the job; save employers time and money by taking the guesswork out of the hiring process; help educators and workforce development partners prepare today’s students and jobseekers for tomorrow’s jobs; and help attract businesses with high-wage jobs to Florida which would grow Florida’s economy.

Evergreen Solutions conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the program throughout the State of Florida which involved visiting sites to obtain data and performance information from RTW shareholders. These shareholders, including job seekers, site administrators, and employers, provided real time feedback on how they felt the RTW Program was performing. In addition to administering surveys and conducting onsite visits, Evergreen Solutions analyzed data collected through the program, such as courseware utilization, performance of those taking assessments, employment rate for those with Ready to Work certifications, as well as overall success rate in varying geographic areas around the state.

In March 2009, Evergreen Solutions launched a comprehensive Operations and Process Review and Assessment of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Human Resource functions for the State of Nebraska. In addition to conducting the review, Evergreen Solutions also assisted with the implementation of our proposed recommendations.

Our team worked for approximately seven months through the four-phased study. Each phase was designed to meet the state’s objectives. Phase one, Project Initiation, included the finalization of the work plan and collection of data. During phase two, Environmental Scanning and Stakeholder Involvement, Evergreen Solutions’ consultants analyzed and evaluated different business processes, conducted interviews, and identified organizational obstacles or barriers to service delivery. The third phase, Development of Department Structure and Service Delivery Strategy, included tasks to meet the state’s objectives to identify opportunities and strategies for improving the service delivery process, as well as identified processes that can be streamlined, and conducted a cost-benefit analysis of services. Finally, in phase four, Development of Department Structure and Service Delivery Strategy, our consulting team created an overall implementation plan and delivered recommendations for the functional and process transitions.

The State of Nebraska’s DHHS has six divisions: Behavioral Health, Children and Family Services, Developmental Disabilities, Medicaid and Long-Term Care, Public Health, and Veterans’ Homes.

In October 2008, Evergreen Solution began a project with the Program Evaluation Division of the North Carolina General Assembly, as part of the Appropriations Act of 2008, to conduct a Policy Analysis of Education Governance in North Carolina. This analysis included a review of the State Board of Education, the State Superintendent of Education, and the Department of Public Instruction.

The study included, but was not limited to:

• analysis of the roles of agencies and individuals;
• analysis of governance structure;
• review of oversight and accountability;
• peer state education agency size and output comparison;
• analysis of Department of Public Instruction organization problems;
• analysis of Department of Public Instruction accountability and quality; and
• best practices assessment of similar organizations.

The study concluded with a comprehensive report and implementation plan, multiple presentations to the General Assembly, and draft legislation.

Nationally, the meals of more than two million students who are eligible for free or reduced price breakfasts go unserved. While this is a problem nationally, Florida is one of the states with the highest percentage of eligible students who are not consuming the free or reduced price meals they are eligible for, especially in secondary schools.

The purpose of Evergreen Solutions’ contract with the Florida Department of Education, which concluded in August 2008, was to study the reasons for this lack of participation in Florida’s 67 school districts. The scope of services includes designing tools, strategies, and preparing for the use of effective, tailored market research for secondary students, staff, and parents.

Evergreen Solutions, in association with Five Points Technology, provided the Florida Department of Health outsourcing services to fulfill the Department’s Public Health and Medical Preparedness and Response Consultant position.

As a function of this agreement, the consultant:

• reviewed the relationship of other community providers as well as local Emergency Management Plans.
• assured that exercises and plans were in keeping with practical aspects of the problem being addressed.
• attempted to formulate a building block approach to disaster planning that allowed for public and private entities to achieve success and not be overcome by the scenario.
• promoted the integration of rumor control into public information operations.
• worked with the projects’ already established local and state committees to obtain consensus on the planning.
• worked with project managers to obtain final approvals from the SWG and the DSOC, as appropriate.
• advised, when appropriate, the ongoing information exchange with other response partners, in particular hospitals, long-term care, fire/rescue, law enforcement, and education.
• worked with exercise design consultant in development of scenarios.

Evergreen Solutions maintained outsourcing contracts with other municipal government organizations.

The Florida Department of Management Services (DMS) retained Evergreen Solutions to create a statewide workforce strategic plan. The purpose of this project was to develop a strategic planning document with recommendations that served as the State’s roadmap for human resource policy guidance for the next five years. This roadmap assisted DMS in providing innovative, world-class human resource services designed to recruit, retain, reward and recognize a high-performance workforce for the State of Florida through 2012. The Strategic Plan was created to address three critical components: workforce design, compensation and benefits, and workforce training and development.

To generate a comprehensive understanding of stakeholder perspectives, Evergreen Solutions interviewed state-level leaders, engaged employees through focus groups, and conducted trend analysis. In addition, Evergreen Solutions administered an electronic survey statewide and that generated feedback from more than 20,000 employees across all departments and agencies. This research assisted Evergreen Solutions in creating meaningful action-driven recommendations.

Evergreen Solutions was also retained by the DMS to conduct a Best Practices Review of its internal human resources operation. A multi-faceted, multi-level approach was utilized that included focus groups, interviews, peer review, process analysis, best practices, benchmarking, and gap analysis. Based on data from each of these tools, a variety of operational commendations and recommendations were made.