The New York State Workforce Investment Board, the State’s 33 local workforce boards, and the individual program partners all support the goals set forth in the Workforce Investment Act for a comprehensive workforce development system. The years since implementation have shown that a comprehensive system is possible but takes time to develop and improve upon. Successes have been achieved across New York State and New Yorkers are committed to building upon these successes. Individual program partners have each made a contribution to this success and bring the diversity of customers and expertise to the system. The State and local boards support continued and expanded funding for each of these programs and for system participation. Continued funding helps ensure support for the one-stop system, one-stop centers and workforce training and will ensure that our state and nation’s workforce will remain competitive in the global economy.

Reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act provides an opportunity to build upon the initial WIA and the following principles would help further those goals:

1. Business-led boards are critical to the success of workforce systems. We encourage Congress to strengthen this commitment by permitting boards to focus their efforts on policy rather than through compliance-driven programmatic functions.
   • Support provisions in the House & Senate bills which strengthen the State Board’s role in setting policies around integration of services through the one-stop system.
   • Support provisions in the both bills which strengthen the business and education representation on local boards.
   • Oppose provisions in both bills which eliminate the requirement for one-stop partner program representation on local boards.

2. The power of business-led, demand driven boards lies in strengthening their roles and responsibilities separate from any one program in the WIA legislation. The legislation seeks to empower boards to bring cohesiveness to a workforce system, not to any one program, and the creation of a separate article in WIA would ensure a neutral system board with the responsibility of encouraging system service integration to both businesses and individuals and develop a common purpose across all partner programs, while ensuring the integrity of the unique missions of individual programs.
   • The House & Senate bills currently do not address this issue, which the State Board believes is important to carrying out the WIA mission.

3. The pace of change in today’s global economy continues to move faster and faster. Adequate resources must be available to upgrade the skills of New York’s current workforce that will still be working in 2010.
   • New York State has invested its WIA Title 1 Statewide Activities funds primarily in incumbent worker training. Local boards have leveraged their WIA Title 1 formula funds to upgrade the skills of employed workers as well. Resources at both the state and local levels are insufficient to meet the demand. To carry out the vision and mission set forth in the Act, as proposed in both the House & Senate bills, a federal commitment to provide adequate funding needs to be addressed as part of the reauthorization process.

4. System measures are critical to encouraging partnership and developing mutual system accountability. Current federal requirements create an undue burden on partner programs and prevent easy data sharing due to uncoordinated federal reporting requirements. Congress needs to create an environment to facilitate data sharing across federally funded programs to help states and localities engage in meaningful performance discussions.
   • Neither bill as proposed offers a means by which to measure performance and accountability across programs. New York State supports the work of the Integrated Performance Information Blueprint and support s including the IPI measures as part of the performance and accountability for the partner programs included as part of the initiative (WIA Titles 1, II, III, IV; Secondary & Post secondary Career & Technical Education; Trade Adjustment Assistance Act; and TANF).

5. Congress should provide state-level flexibility across partner programs to make the process of cost allocation easier without compromising the integrity of any one program. The one stop system and infrastructure deserves at least some dedicated funding beyond (but including) program partner cost sharing.
   • Support the proposed language on one-stop infrastructure funding in the House and Senate bills; New York requests that the House and Senate add a provision to this language to address constitutional concerns the current language would pose in NYS.
   • Oppose the consolidation of funding streams as proposed in the House Bill because the consolidation does not ensure adequate resources will be made available to carry out the expanded service requirements contained in other parts of the bill. Additionally, the consolidation proposed in the House bill would eliminate a dedicated funding stream for the unemployment insurance customer and put additional pressure on other mandatory partner programs to support this mission and customer without provision for adequate funding.
   • Support the position taken by the nation’s Governors which seeks language which would provide Governors with the option to coordinate WIA funding to meet the unique needs of their states provided there is a hold harmless provision to ensure that the federal investment in workforce and related programs is not diminished.

6. Youth are essential customers to workforce development systems and the Youth Council provides a means for creating a local youth workforce investment system within the context of the larger workforce investment system. Core services should be available universally to youth. This will require much better alignment of workforce and educational systems and we urge Congress to mandate education representation on Youth Councils.
   • Oppose the elimination of the requirement for a Youth Council as proposed in both bills.
   • Support current law which designates that 30% of WIA Title 1 Youth Funding be used to serve out-of-school youth. Oppose the proposed shift of a greater percentage of funding to serve out-of-school youth.
   • Support the current WIA Youth eligibility age of 14-21. Opposed the change in WIA Youth eligibility which increases the minimum age for services to age 16.

7. Low levels of literacy continue to be one of the biggest challenges in developing a 21st century knowledge workforce. Congress should press for strong linkages between Title 1-B and Title II programs in recognition of the importance workplace literacy represents to the needs of business.
   • New York State remains committed to supporting increased literacy levels across our State’s population and matches that commitment with a significant investment of state General Fund dollars. Although an appropriation issue and not a reauthorization issue, New York State opposes the federal budget proposal to reduce funding for the WIA Title II program by over 63%.

8. We support the current partnership of programs identified as part of a comprehensive workforce development system and believe the system could increase its value from inclusion of other federally-funded programs in this partnership. Partnership must be built at the federal level for success to be achieved at the state and local level. If business-led boards are to be charged with developing a system, their efforts need to be supported at the federal level.
   • Support the language in both bills which includes TANF as a mandatory partner program.