Tallahassee Update

 

Washington Update – from the US Conference of Mayors

WIOA 

On Wednesday, July 9, the House passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA, H.R. 803) on a vote of 415 to 6 with no amendments. The legislation now heads to President Obama’s desk for his signature. The bi-partisan, bi-cameral bill overwhelmingly passed the Senate last week on a vote of 95-3. The legislation reauthorizes the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which expired in 2003, for 6 years - from 2015 through 2020 - and streamlines existing workforce development and job-training programs. It modernizes and improves critical job training programs that help workers attain skills for 21st century jobs. WIOA is a compromise between the SKILLS Act (H.R. 803), which passed the House in March 2013 and the Workforce Investment Act of 2013 (S. 1356), which passed the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee in July 2013. The legislation is crucial to providing access to training, education and workforce services for workers - regardless of ability and need.

Click here to read a summary analysis of WIOA.

Click here to read a side-by-side analysis.

Click here to read the House Education and the Workforce press release.
 

Performance Partnership Pilots

Performance Partnership Pilots (P3) offer an opportunity for states and localities to test innovative, cost-effective, and outcome-focuses strategies for improving results for disconnected youth. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 provides authority for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and the Corporation for National and Community Service to establish up to 10 pilots, which will allow a state, region or locality to propose pooling a portion of discretionary funds they receive under multiple federal streams while measuring and tracking specific cross-program outcomes.  Jurisdictions that participate in these pilots will commit to achieve significant improvements in educational, employment, and other key outcomes in exchange for flexibility in using discretionary funds across multiple federal programs. The application is expected to be rolled-out in late summer and pilots are expected to be awarded in late-fall.

Click here to read the P3 Consultation Paper to learn more.

Click here to learn more about P3.
 

Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce Act 

On Thursday, July 10, Senators Tim Kaine (VA) and Rob Portman (OH) introduced the Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce Act that would raise the quality of career and technical education programs across the country. The legislation would amend the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act to better meet the needs of a 21st century workforce and ensure students have access to the highest-quality CTE programs. The bill encourages apprenticeship programs and career and technical academies and will focus on aligning career and technical education curriculum with local, regional, and state workforce demands.

Click here to read Senator Kaine’s press release.
 

Appropriations

On Thursday, July 10, on a vote of 253-170, the House passed its sixth FY15 appropriations bill to fund the Department of Energy and Army Corps of Engineers. The $34 billion measure marks the halfway point in the House’s consideration of FY15 appropriations. The Senate has not passed any appropriations bills for the fiscal year starting October 1 due to a disagreement over amendments. A continuing resolution appears likely to keep the government running and to avoid a shutdown through midterm elections. The House is set to consider more appropriations this month.
 

Initial Jobless Claims

On Thursday, July 10, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued its weekly report on new filings for unemployment insurance and in the week ending July 5, the initial jobless claims were 304,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 315,000. The 4-week moving average was 311,500, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 315,000. The advanced seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.0 percent for the week ending June 28, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate.

Click here to read the full news release.

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Local

Program Year Ends and a New One Begins

This program year is already busy. We are currently in the process of closing out the 2013-2014 program year on performance, placement and financials. What we know so far includes:

1.      The Governor’s challenge to double the number of businesses served by our system was met. The “Race to Connect” initiative has set the foundation for improved business relationships the CareerSource system must have to show value. Thanks to Kara and her team for making this a success. Incentive dollars of $49,000 have been awarded by CareerSource Florida for meeting this challenge.

2.     The Kaiser Group/aka Dynamic Workforce Solutions also pushed hard to meet their target of over 8,000 placements in the region. That goal was also met and exceeded before the program year ended.

WIOA

With this new law, changes are going to roll through the system over the next two years. The President signed this into law two weeks ago. With all the congressional deadlock, the workforce system was extremely lucky and pleased to have gotten this law passed. Thanks goes out to Mayor Marks of Tallahassee and Sue Dick, President and CEO of the Greater Tallahassee Chamber/EDC for sending support letters at the time this bill was under consideration. It definitely helped.

Imagine Tallahassee

Currently Jim McShane, CEO, serves as a member of the Imagine Tallahassee committee.  The next step will be to support the penny tax extension that will be on the ballot in November. The county and city agreed with a 12% allocation for economic development/social service projects that Imagine Tallahassee proposed. The Human Capital project along with TCC’s regional center project would receive $5.2M over the ten year life of the grant. Refuge House and CareerSource Capital Region proposed a Socially Responsible Enterprise (SRE) model to assist individuals with barriers to employment by giving them an employment opportunity. Working with Tallahassee Community College who proposed creating an employment workshop that would deliver work experience and the ability to move to better jobs within the region.

Florida Trade Grant

Working with our partners, TCC and the Greater Tallahassee Chamber, we are providing an array of nationally recognized certifications at the TCC Manufacturing Training Center. For our region, this program will create the skilled job seeker pool that will help attract more manufacturing to the Tallahassee area. This is a 39 month grant and we are starting the second year. Certifications include the national manufacturing skills standards, welding certifications, quality and OSHA Safety certifications.

Startup Quest

In September CareerSource Capital Region will begin the second class for Startup Quest. This unique program is designed to give potential entrepreneurs the basic skill sets needed to start a business. This includes development a business plan and a marketing plan during the 10 week course.  To be considered for this program, you must be:

·       Unemployed or underemployed job seeker over the age of 18

·       Authorized to work in the United States

·       Possess a post-secondary degree (Doctorate, Masters, Bachelors or Associates)

·       Committed to the program in its entirety (including 1 year evaluation tracking period)

·       Veterans or their spouses are also encouraged to apply who are unemployed.

Since this is an academic experiential pilot program, 25% of the applicants will be randomly put into a control group and not be put into the class. They will however be eligible for all the services the CareerSource system offers to unemployed individuals.

To assist potential entrepreneurs, a group of local successful entrepreneurs serve as mentors to a group of about eight participants. The Mentor will lead the group, share their ideas and experiences, and choose the item or technology that the Universities or NASA have provided that have not progressed to the market. This experience is a simulation that requires a variety of skills and talents to be shared as a team to reach the goal of completing the business and marketing plans and making a presentation on week 10 in front of a panel of judges.

Then judges will listen to the presentations, review the business and marketing plans and choose the top three. Prize money will be awarded the winning team members.

If you have a desire to assist in this opportunity in serving as a mentor or a judge, contact Kara Palmer at kara.palmer@careersourcecapitalregion.com today.

Customer Self-Service

Our Career Centers will be sporting new Kiosks that will give our clients a new and more efficient way of logging into our system and scanning documents into their files. In regions that already have this system called ATLAS, the reviews show a reduction in wait time, paperwork and stand time in front of a copier/scanner. Overall this system will provide more quality time in our Career Centers for customers. We are excited to get this system working to the benefit of our clients.