FACT: Federal regulations and policies are limiting the success of local workforce development programs!

Forbes released an interesting article, "Better Workforce Development Programs Are Undermined By Government Policy". LinkedIn limits how many characters you can include in a post, so I am sharing my opinion via an article. This isn't a traditional article and everyone has heard the phrase, "opinions are like....everyone has one", but here is my opinion. Let me know your thoughts, regardless of you agreeing or disagreeing with my opinion. Many of the social issues we have today are related to everyone's refusal to listen and understand someone else's opposing view. (Another one of my opinions.)

I will start by saying I enjoyed the article, but I can't say if the article is good or bad because it doesn't really address the core issue mentioned in its title. I need more details and information, and it could be a bit more relative. Let's start by reviewing the example Forbes used to substantiate, or highlight, their claim by examining a County in Northwestern Georgia whose public school system created an innovative program to address a skilled labor shortage while meeting the needs of a local businesses. The program had to delay its launch because it needed to receive approval from the State of Georgia's, specifically the Department of Education, because it needed to get a waiver to launch the program because it didn't follow "typical work-study" norms. This is a great "GENERAL" example that is relative to the title. This, I agree on.

My issue with the example Forbes used is, and a part of the bigger issue, that the example isn't an example of the traditional workforce development program correlating to the data the article sourced. Forbes sourced an article by The Hill about a United States Department of Labor report evaluating federal workforce programming's effectiveness, and the ineffectiveness of WIA. The report is about Unites States Department of Labor Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult and Dislocated Worker programming, but the example Forbes used was from a Department of Education funded in-school youth program, the complete opposite program model, funding source, and population served. This is a key issue: Most of the people talking, reporting, evaluating, and even funding WIA, now WIOA, funded programming have never worked in a program nor do they truly understand the intricacies of a WIA/WIOA funded programming. Knowing the intricacies of a funding source versus the intricacies of the program of a funding source are vastly differently. Different like the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean, different like Seinfeld and Living Single, different like MTV and BET, and for those who still don't understand, like Fox News and CNN different. If you know one it doesn't mean you know the other. This article is almost comparing comparing apples to oranges and increasing one of our public workforce systems biggest challenges, people not truly understating what a workforce system is and does. Initial solution, because problems without solutions are pointless: We need Congress, specifically congressional staffers, and many others to make an effort to understand what we do, and better yet, we need them to join the effort and become a member of their Local Workforce Development Board.

Back to The Hill, and the sentiment that federally funded government workforce development training programs are not effective, I think this is a broad statement that excludes many variables and detracts from the AWESOME programs across the Country. But....I agree with the articles core point that many programs aren't effective due to regulatory barriers. Excessive regulation is one of the issues that my colleagues and I took to the White House, Congress and the United States Department of Labor last year. We (Local Workforce Development Boards and Workforce Service Providers) can't effectively do our jobs because federal regulations, mainly the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and its predecessors, don't grant us the flexibility to be experimental nor the leeway to make necessary programmatic changes when needed. Below are a few examples:

1. WIOA has multiple titles that contradict each other but mandate partnership. WIOA pushes for WIOA Title I funded programs (Adult, Youth and Dislocated Workers) to dual enroll participants with WIOA Title II funded programs (Adult Education), yet you can be enrolled in a WIOA Title II funded program and be ineligible for a WIOA Title I funded program. How can we dual enroll and partner if our participants aren't unilaterally eligible for each funding source?
2. Government funded, and established in WIA and WIOA, State Workforce Development Boards can use WIOA "set aside" funds to fund workforce development programming in local areas with the same training providers, including large Community College who are traditionally the main source for occupational skills training. Additionally, they can not require participants of these programs to meet WIOA Title I eligibility. This leads to residents choosing to enroll directly with the training provider and not the WIOA Title I Service Provider. Meaning the WIOA Title I Service Provider can't expend their funds and are sometimes forced to return the funding allocated to them due to low enrollments. Why would we use the same funding source to create divisions in our local workforce systems? That's duplicating offerings and make our overall systems less effective, two items that WIOA was supposed to fix.
3. WIOA requires numerous eligibility documents for a resident to enroll while targeting low income populations. Unfortunately, the law doesn't account for low income populations being transient and not having the required documentation to be eligible. Additionally, acquiring the appropriate documentation can require these populations to expend funds that they cannot afford, and plainly, don't have. Yet, workforce programs and service providers aren't granted funding to help these resident acquire the documentation to enroll in their programming. Another question, are we truly able to serve the "hardest to serve" if we aren't provided the flexibility to address their barriers?
4. WIOA requires partnership and it is mentioned HUNDREDS of times in the law. Yet local WIOA funded programs, mandated to partner, managed by federal and state agencies haven't been able to utilized the long promised unified data entry system. State agencies have been promising this system to local systems for the past 30 years. I repeat, state agencies have been working on creating a unified system for 30 years and haven't provided a national local solution yet. This means locals can't effectively create a unified safety net that shares resource and provides wrap-around sources without dual data entry. Locals have to remove programmatic funding from programs and allocate them to other data systems such as Career Edge and Effort to Outcomes, and we can't leverage resources to better serve our community. We saw this issue with State Unemployment Insurance systems using codes that is 60 years old. Yes, data systems from the era of Dwight D. Eisenhower, check out the article from the Verge that talks about this. Again, we are using Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, era technology during the era of the 45th President of the United States. What?!?!?!?
5. Covid-19 introduced many issues for local businesses and residents yet their isn't a provision that allows for local WIOA funded programs to enact special measures to address immediate workforce development needs during state and national emergencies or disasters. The means, during times when our customers need us the most, we have to wait on the federal government to enact policies that allows locals to help those who need immediate assistance. This leads to those communities and populations who would immediately suffer and not survive a disastrous event to NOT SURVIVE a disastrous event.
6. The federal funding formulas and allocations, performance accountability systems and labor market collection data are years behind local and state systems. This means that local federally funded programs are operating with data and revenue allocations that are dated and not relative to current economic needs and trends. How can we serve the current needs of our community with resources, guidelines, and data that are at least 12 months behind?

Lastly, federal regulations prevent local workforce development systems from making immediate programmatic modifications that react to changes in the local economy and the needs of our customers, businesses and residents. This prevents change and innovation. As we talk about innovation, and include "out-of-the-box thinking", local workforce programs are sometime penalized for being innovative. When you do something different, break precedent, or set a new precedent locally, you are susceptible to additional scrutiny in the form of additional monitoring, possible grant findings and more meetings to explain why you are doing something that others aren't. Why are we scared to be innovative, and limiting innovation, in a time when the law includes the word "INNOVATION" in it's title?

I urge Congress, the United States Department of Labor, State Department of Labor, and local elected officials to play their role. Remove, or alter, regulatory barriers that prevent experimentation, innovation, and create strenuous barriers that prevent market competitiveness. Allow state regulators the flexibility to allow local workforce development areas and providers to be flexible. Also, stop penalizing creativity with monitoring, audits and meetings. Allow local providers and entities the flexibility to meet the rapidly changing needs of businesses and residents at the pace that they need them.

FINALLY, I 100% agree with the article when it says, "Ultimately, fewer barriers would lead to better training programs, a more skilled workforce, and a stronger economy." I couldn't agree more. Read the article, and the articles I tagged in this article, and let me know your thoughts!

Walter L. Simmons