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SCOPE OF WORK - ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT .09 FUNDS PROPOSAL Project Description / Overview The Kittitas County Chamber of Commerce proposes to serve as a countywide economic devetopment implementation partner, focused on business sustainabitity, workforce avaitabitity, and tong-term tatent retention in a rurat economy. LocaI economic growth in Kittitas County is increasingly constrained not by business interest, but by workforce avaitabitity, skitts atignment, and retention chatlenges. Employers across sectors consistentty cite ditf icutty finding and keeping workers as a primary barrier to expansion, service detivery, and succession planning. Addressing these chattenges requires coordinated, emptoyer-informed action across business, education, worKorce systems, and localgovernments. The Chamber is uniquely positioned to lead this work. With daity trusted retationships with emptoyers across jurisdictions and industries, the Chamber serves as a front-line connector-translating business needs into coordinated economic devetopment and workforce strategies atigned with county-led priorities. Statement of Need Kittitas County's economic vitatity depends on the sustainability and growth of its existing businesses, the abitity to attract and retain talent, and effective coordination across jurisdictions and systems. As a frontier rurat county with muttipte municipatities and unincorporated areas, economic devetopment chatlenges are often fragmented requiring coordination, consistent engagement, and implementation capacity that extends beyond any singte entity. Locat businesses face a range of interconnected cha[[enges, including workforce avaitabitity and retention, regutatory navigation, infrastructure and ptacemaking needs, access to capital, and changing market conditions. Smatt and mid-sized emptoyers often tack the internaI capacity to navigate these chattenges independentl.y. Without coordinated support, these barriers can timit business expansion, reduce competitiveness, and stow economic growth. At the same time, economic development efforts must atign across business, education, workforce, and government partners to be effective. Gaps in communication, duptication of effort, and timited shared capacity can reduce impact and strain pubtic resources. A trusted, countywide organization is needed to engage emptoyers consistentty, identify emerging issues earty, and hetp transtate county-ted priorities into actionable, on-the-ground solutions.