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   Legislative Network Alerts

Alert Number 127       May 16, 2005       For Your Information

Senate WIA Bill Introduced

To: Members of the Legislative Network
From: Patricia Leahy, Director of Governmental Affairs

On Thursday, May 12, 2005, the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee introduced S. 1021, The Workforce Investment Act Amendments of 2005, which will be marked up at the full Committee (HELP Committee) level on Wednesday, May 18, 2005.

We are anticipating either a Substitute bill or a Manager's package of amendments to be introduced at the markup and are monitoring this situation very closely for any additional language providing further 'flexibility' or 'consolidation' of WIA partner programs. The new Senate WIA bill is based in large part on S. 9, the placeholder bill which was introduced earlier this year.

Below are just a few of the provisions of S. 1021 that affect VR:

S. 1021 DOES NOT INCLUDE WIA PLUS LANGUAGE, AT LEAST AT THIS TIME.

S. 1021 retains current law on the status of the Office of the Commissioner of RSA as a Presidential Appointment, confirmed by the full U.S. Senate.

S. 1021 does retain the graduated cap for VR's contribution to infrastructure funding, which includes a new provision for 'in kind' contributions.'
You may recall, the National Rehabilitation Association's position on infrastructure funding was -- and remains -- that there be a separate, fully-funded line item for funding the infrastructure costs at the one-stops and that the cost allocations/memoranda of understanding policy remain in place.

S. 1021 does NOT include the 'efficiency' measure of the Common Performance Measure, which NRA applauds.

S. 1021 contains extensive language enhancing transitional services to eligible children and young adults with disabilities, defining the age group from 16 to 22, but does not include additional authorizations of funds to do so.

S. 1021 provides for an additional 'core' service for IL Centers to include maintaining and/or transitioning individuals with disabilities to community-based living and transitioning students with disabilities leaving secondary education programs to assist students in achieving post-school goals. Regrettably, however, S. 1021 does not authorize the additional funds with which to perform this additional service.

We are attaching for your information links to the full text of S. 1021, as well as the Senate HELP Committee's summary of the new bill.

Text version:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.21&filename=s1021is.txt&directory=/diskb/wais/data/109_cong_bills

pdf version
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.21&filename=s1021is.pdf&directory=/diskb/wais/data/109_cong_bills

We will keep you advised as developments and additional information become known to us.

All information herein is current as of this time and date and could change quickly.

Summary:

The Workforce Investment Act Amendments of 2005 (S. 1021)

The Workforce Investment Act Amendments of 2005 is the product of an extensive bipartisan effort and input from the major stakeholders in job training, adult basic education, and vocational rehabilitation. The bill reauthorizes the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998, Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

I. Amendments to Title I of the Workforce Investment Act

The major themes of the WIA reauthorization provisions are:

• Increasing flexibility to meet state and local needs;

• Providing workers with the training they need to find new or better jobs;

• Providing employers with an appropriately trained workforce to compete in the global marketplace;

• Improving upon the existing One-Stop Career Center delivery system to ensure that it can respond quickly and effectively to the changing needs of employers and workers in the new economy and can address the needs of special populations, including individuals with disabilities;

• Strengthening connections of the job training system with the private sector, with post-secondary education and training, social services, and economic development systems to prepare the 21st century workforce for career opportunities and skills in high growth sectors;

• Removing barriers that have discouraged business involvement in workforce training, while finding new mechanisms to increase and improve business and industry influence in job training decisions in communities;

• Encouraging job training and employment services to be demand-driven and responsive to the needs of employers, both large and small; and

• Improving access to services in all areas, including rural areas.

Specific changes to WIA include:



• Reducing the number of required members on local workforce boards to reduce bureaucracy, and encourage business involvement in local job training decisions;

• Maintaining the ability of local workforce areas to agree upon equitable contributions from mandatory partners for infrastructure funding. If the local area cannot reach an agreement, the Governor would determine appropriate contributions (subject to certain caps);

• Involving the state workforce investment boards to provide a comprehensive state-wide workforce development system to serve all individuals;

• Increasing the emphasis on ensuring that individuals with disabilities have physical and programmatic access to workforce activities at one-stop centers and approved training providers;

• Maximizing the use of technology to improve access to services;

• Expanding services to the business sector to make the system more demand-driven and responsive to employers’ needs, including small employers;

• Increasing the transferability between adult and dislocated worker funding to meet state and local needs;

• Creating more realistic and relevant performance measures to assess the effectiveness of local workforce areas in helping people find and remain in jobs with good wages and solid careers;

• Ensuring that individuals are placed in jobs, education, or training that lead to comparable pay;

• Revising reporting requirements for entities that wish to be job training providers, in response to complaints that current requirements discourage entities from participating as providers;

• Taking steps to improve coordination of all workforce programs, including requiring the co-location of employment service programs with WIA one-stops, and making the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program a mandatory partner at one-stop centers (unless the Governor of the State chooses not to make TANF a mandatory partner);

• Adding community-based job training programs for training in high growth, high wage, and high demand occupations; and

• Improving youth job training activities by directing more resources to those out-of-school youth who most in need of assistance.

• Enhancing assistance to youth, ages 16 to 21, who face barriers to employment.


II. Amendments to the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act

The major themes of Adult Education Reauthorization are:


• Holding States and eligible providers of adult education more accountable for student performance by measuring outcomes such as skill acquisition, entrance into postsecondary education, and employment;

• Improving adult literacy services, including workplace literacy services, services for adults with limited English proficiency, and services for those with learning disabilities;

• Encouraging the use of technology as a mode of delivering adult education;

• Providing quality professional development for adult education instructors;

• Strengthening the efforts of the National Institute for Literacy with respect to literacy for children, youth, adults and families;

• Encouraging linkages between adult education programs and postsecondary education; and

• Promoting the development and application of more rigorous research on adult education.

Specific Changes to the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act include:


• Establishing specific employment performance targets for providers of adult education;

• Requiring States to use a system of rewards and sanctions to hold eligible providers of adult education accountable for outcomes;

• Requiring States that fail to meet negotiated performance targets in adult education to submit a program improvement plan and, with the help of the Department of Education, refocus their efforts on strategies for attaining better outcomes;

• Allowing interested States to use a small portion of funds to develop adult education content standards and assessment tools;

• Requiring a certain portion of adult education State grants to go toward English literacy and civics education for immigrants with limited English proficiency; and

• Including the following as explicit allowable uses under an increased State leadership account (15 percent, up from 12.5 percent) in the adult education title: professional development, development of content standards and assessments, the use of technology, programs that link adult education and postsecondary education, and technical assistance.

III. Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 2005

The major themes of the Rehabilitation Act reauthorization are:


• Strengthening individual choice and transition planning for individuals with disabilities;

• Creating a stronger link between the Rehabilitation Act, the President’s New Freedom Initiative and the Olmstead Executive Order (13217: Community-Based Alternatives for Individuals with Disabilities);

• Increasing the opportunity to expand Vocational Rehabilitation and National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research partnerships with business/employers, school systems, and technology researchers, manufacturers and developers; and

• Improving coordination with other employment, education, and technology based programs such as the Workforce Investment Act, Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Act, Individual’s with Disabilities Education Act, and Assistive Technology Act.

Specific changes to the Rehabilitation Act include:

• Clarifying that the Individual Plan for Employment (IPE) of an individual who is receiving post employment services should be amended to reflect the individual’s post-employment goal, the scope of services, and the service providers selected by the individual;

• Strengthening transition planning through better interagency coordination between the State and local education agencies and State VR agency, in order to enhance the ability of students with disabilities to achieve post-school goals and outcomes;

• Amending Independent Living Centers’ list of core services to include maintaining and/or transitioning individuals with disabilities to community-based living and transitioning students with disabilities leaving secondary education programs to help students achieve post-school goals;

• Authorizing the Administration’s Vocational Rehabilitation Incentive Grants (VRIGs), a program created to improve the performance of State’s VR programs by encouraging VR agencies to adopt effective strategies to improve employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities under the VR program;

• Authorizing the Administration’s Telework Fund, an initiative designed to increase access to assistive technologies, expand educational opportunities, and increase the ability of individuals with disabilities to become self-employed and integrate into the workforce and daily community life;

• Expanding the involvement of business and employment providers for people with disabilities at all levels of government; and

• Increasing the involvement of business and employment providers, school systems, and technology research, manufacturing, and development firms in rehabilitation research efforts by including such entities on the Rehabilitation Research Advisory Council.


 
 
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