WIA Reauthorization Concerns Regional Planners
By Ken St. Onge
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2004 – Last Sunday, after almost four years, Marisol Morales won her battle to get off welfare and find a job.
“I didn’t only do it for myself, I had to do it for the boys, too,” said the single mother of a three-year-old son and the caretaker a five-year-old nephew she is in the process of adopting. She had been on welfare since her son was born. After two months on the staff at Habit Management Institute in Lawrence, she was excited to receive her final welfare check.
Morales credits her success to the Valley Works Career Center on South Union Street in Lawrence. As part of the center’s structured work program she finished her GED, earned certificates in phlebotomy and medical office management and worked in a training program at Habit Management for two months before being hired in October.
Valley Works in Lawrence, like its sister center in Haverhill, is one of 39 centers across the state and nearly 2,000 nationwide that form the backbone of the government funded American workforce development system.
Congress established one-stop career centers in 1998 under the Workforce Investment Act, which combined more than 60 job training programs into single locations where three kinds of people – youths, disadvantaged adults and workers who have been laid off–could receive training best suited to their individual needs. Keeping with that idea, Congress designated three separate funding streams for each group
As early as next year, that could all change – but few know how and some local administrators are concerned what the changes could bring. Although the programs were designed and funded by Congress to treat groups of workers differently, some members of Congress – backed by the President – would like to revise those guidelines and let governors determine how to spend the money.
The Workforce Investment Act expired in 2003 and Congress failed to reauthorize it before adjourning earlier this month. After separately passing alternative versions of the bill, the House and Senate failed to reach a compromise, leaving it to be reintroduced in the new Congress.
Although the program continues to be funded, there is a growing disagreement over how best to do so. That controversy is likely to resurface if the bill is introduced next year.
House Republicans, led by Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), favor consolidating the three separate funds into a single block grant to the states to be spent under the discretion of their governors. McKeon sponsored a bill to make those changes in May 2003, which passed, 220-204.
McKeon, said his spokesman, Vartan Djihanian, plans to reintroduce the bill with only a few small changes early in the next session.
In the Senate, Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.) introduced a bill that would leave the original structure intact, saying it provides greater flexibility to local economies, which have needs that can vary greatly within a state. The Senate passed the bill, and the competing versions were sent to Senate and House negotiators in November 2003.
The White House favors the single block grant approach, saying it would eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and save money that could be spent on more training, said Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman.
Some congressional scholars see the single block grant proposal as a first step toward scrapping the program
“Once a program is block-granted, one of two things happens, sometimes both,” said Margy Waller, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, “Either Congress loses interest because they don’t control how the dollars are spent or they get uncomfortable with the fact they’ve given so much authority to states and local government.”
Under the current system, funds are distributed in Massachusetts according to a federal formula that takes into account the growth of the region’s population and workforce. Congress allocates money into three separate streams for each of the three categories of workers.
That money goes to the Massachusetts Department of Career Services, which distributes it to the state’s 16 regional Workforce Investment Boards. Under the McKeon bill, those funds would have been consolidated and the governor would have been free to designate each of the funds for any relevant purpose in a region.
“If they change the funding, I think the concern is that someone is going to lose somewhere,” said Stephanie Powers, CEO of the Washington-based National Association of Workforce Boards. “We don’t know how that’s going to play out because every state will be different in how it uses the money.”
“I think the conventional wisdom here in Washington is that consolidation is always next to cutting funding,” she said.
The Merrimack Valley Workforce Investment Board runs the two Valley Works Career Centers. The board’s 39 members decide how best to train workers to fit the region’s available jobs.
“It could make the funding streams more difficult in terms of how you would allocate money because right now it comes down in separate money and we service people through separate categories,” said Arthur Chilingirian, executive director of the
Department of Training and Development, the regional entity that administers the board’s funds.
“My sense of it is that the president thinks that by going to a block grant, you cut administrative costs and you bring more training into the programs,” Chilingirian said. “But I’m not sure how that’s going to work.”
It has been the lack of funds, rather than the structure of the program, that remains the largest obstacle in helping customers of the center, he said. The board receives 84 percent of its money from the federal government and, including emergency grants to assist workers dislocated by major closings such as Lucent’s local plant, the budget has decreased over the last four years.
“We’re not sure at the local level how it will impact,” Chilingirian said. “But there definitely could be a change in the way the funding stream would be. If it comes block granted it’s definitely going to change the way business would be done.”
The region faces a range of workforce problems, said Shaw Rosen, executive director of the Merrimack Valley Workforce Investment Board. Those problems reflect the local economic conditions, she said, such as bringing in first-time workers and youths who need assistance in developing skills to re-employing workers laid off because of recent closings.
The centers’ programs are focused on preparing workers for available jobs in the region, she said, and that task is often a challenge since no single worker faces exactly the same circumstances.
Methuen natives Robert Pomerleau, 58, and his wife, Mary Pomerleau, 53, faced the challenge of re-entering the workforce after being laid off when Lucent closed its plant in North Andover in 2002.
Robert Pomerleau had been an employee there for five years, having spent 18 months as a consultant before being hired. His wife had been at Lucent for 32 years.
“I was providing PC support to about 700 Bell labs employees before I left,” said Robert, who now works as an instructor at Northern Essex Community College and has a small consulting business.
“The psychological support was as important as anything I received,” he said of his re-training experience.
At the center, the Pomerleaus attended workshops and went through mock interviews. They were both certified in Microsoft Office, which Robert now teaches. Mary also was certified in medical terminology. She ultimately found a job at a CPA firm in North Andover by answering a newspaper advertisement.
“It’s kind of scary getting back out into the market when you have not had to look for a job for 30 years,” she said. “Seeing other people who are in the same situation as you kind of helps also. You don’t feel like you are all by yourself.”
Although it is too early to tell what impact consolidation of the three funding streams might have on regional entities, planners are concerned that it could diminish local control
“That’s where the rubber hits the road, and we need flexibility to meet the local needs,” the National Association of Workforce Boards’ Powers said. “Nobody goes to the statehouse looking for work and nobody goes to the statehouse to hire.”
“It certainly will depend on the governor,” Rosen said. “Economic development happens locally. The importance of preserving the role of a regional board is very important.”
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