wia

WIA Authorization – All the Drafts, All in One Place

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

The National Skills Coalition (NSC) has recently updated their extremely thorough and helpful Workforce investment Act (WIA) page with the 2013 Senate HELP Committee’s recently-released draft bill.

Of particular interest for adult education and adult literacy people:

NSC notes that while there are some differences between the 2011 and 2013 drafts, “the new staff draft has generally remained relatively similar to the 2011 draft.” That is consistent with what I’ve heard from others who have read through it (I have not read any of it other than Title III). NSC also reports that “it is our understanding that certain key issues—including potential consolidation language—are still being negotiated (and may or may not be included in a final draft of the committee bill).” That’s consistent with some off-the-record comments I’ve heard from people involved in WIA reauthorization going back to last year.

Witnesses Announced for This Thursday’s HELP Committee Hearing on WIA Reauthorization

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) will be holding a hearing on on WIA Reauthorization this Thursday, June 20 2013, at 2:30 PM.

It’s been widely reported that Senator Murray (D-WA) and Senator Isakson (R-GA) have been working on a bi-partisan WIA reauthorization bill, and that they are getting close to the finish line on a draft.

Here is the witness list:

UPDATE 6/18/13: The final witness was announced late yesterday; I’ve amended the post above accordingly. Also, the WIA bill itself may be released as early as June 25th. The hope is that they might get it passed out of committee shortly after the July 4th recess.

Senate Workforce Investment Act Reauthorization Proposal May Tie Funding to GDP

/ The Old Crank

Interesting post from Neil Bomberg of the National League of Cities:

Earlier this week and in a meeting with NLC, Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Johnny Isakson’s (R-GA) offices announced the framework for the Senate WIA reauthorization bill. NLC welcomed the good news that the bipartisan measure will likely retain the current state and local governance structures, including a strong role for local elected officials and business leaders with local workforce development areas based on local labor markets or economic regions rather than political boundaries. The Senators’ offices also indicated there will be an effort to move forward with “smart consolidation,” which means taking a measured and evidence-based approach to program elimination and consolidation, and to avoid consolidating programs simply for the sake of consolidation. Finally, the offices indicated an interest in basing workforce development funding on a percentage of the overall gross domestic product (GDP) with expenditures increasing during economic downturns expenditures so that unemployed workers are able to receive the assistance they need. (my emphasis)

That last idea (that I bolded) is new to me. Interesting.

A Little Bit of News About WIA Reauthorization in the Senate

/ The Old Crank / 3 Comments

The (very) little I know about any work going on in the Senate on a Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill this session is mostly on background, but what I do know is pretty consistent with what was reported by Neil Bomberg for the National League of Cities (NLC) a couple of weeks ago.

Unlike the House bill passed earlier this year, we know the Senate bill will be a bipartisan effort, and leads on it are Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA). According to NLC’s sources, Senators Murray and Isakson “are using last year’s Senate draft bill as the starting point for this year’s bill.” (I believe that is supposed to read “last session,” as the only recent Senate draft bill I’m aware of was released in 2011.) Although not perfect, most of my colleagues in adult education seemed to be reasonably happy with that older draft bill, while the recent House bill was universally panned.

There’s no timeline for the introduction and consideration of a Senate bill. NLC notes that it is unlikely that it would be introduced before June.