On March 11, the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness held a hearing to discuss the integration of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) (P.L. 105-220), and the Rehabilitation Act (P.L. 93-112), both of which are up for reauthorization this year.
Approved by Congress in 1998, the WIA consolidated employment and training programs, requiring states and localities to establish a centralized, one-stop delivery system that would provide federally funded employment and training services.
The Rehabilitation Act authorizes programs that provide vocational rehabilitation services to help persons with disabilities train for and find jobs and become independent members of society. The Act also includes provisions that focus on rights and protections for persons with disabilities.
Subcommittee Chair Buck McKeon (R-CA) noted that both the WIA and the rehabilitation programs have been successful. Through the WIA, “states and local areas have created comprehensive services and effective one-stop delivery systems,” he stated. The vocational rehabilitation system “has succeeded in achieving its purpose of providing more control to the individuals its serves,” he continued.
Ranking Member Dale Kildee (D-MI) expressed concern about some of the proposed changes for the WIA. “WIA and the one-stop centers are young, and just starting to show success,” he said. “Funding for this program is paltry,” he continued, stressing his opposition to a proposal to block-grant several programs. “We should have a separate line-item for one-stops and a dedicated funding stream for people with disabilities to make the transition to work,” and we should also improve access to training and jobs for “low-income families, minorities, and women,” he stated.
The subcommittee heard testimony from the administration, the business community, and advocacy groups on the reauthorization of both Acts.
Assistant Secretary of Labor, Emily DeRocco, described the changes recommended by the administration. “Currently, the WIA Adult, WIA Dislocated Worker and Wagner-Peyser funding streams finance similar services targeted to similar populations,” she said. “Combining these three funding streams into a single formula grant would result in streamlined program administration at the state and local level and the reduction of current duplication and inefficiency,” she recommended.
Additionally, she said that funds for the WIA youth program “are spread too thinly across the country.” Consequently, the administration is proposing “reforming current WIA youth programs by focusing resources on out-of-school youth through a Targeted State Formula program and Challenge Grants to cities and rural areas,” she added.
Thomas White of the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce urged the subcommittee to encourage more business involvement in job training programs. “Our communities, our states and our nation are far more competitive and productive when we design and operate a workforce system that includes business and government as full-fledged partners,” he said. As an example, he cited a Ford Foundation initiative entitled “Women in Electronics” that received recognition from the White House in 1985. “This public/private collaboration under the JTPA Private Industry Council helped welfare recipients develop the academic competencies and occupational skills to secure good-paying jobs” with companies such as IBM and General Electric, he explained.
Bettie Shaw-Henderson of the Michigan Department of Career Development and Rehabilitation Services highlighted some of the successes of the vocational rehabilitation program. “In FY2001 alone, the public VR program served more than 1.2 million eligible individuals with disabilities of which 233,000 entered or re-entered the world of work,” she said. “These same individuals earned $3.4 billion in wages and paid $977 million in federal, state, local, Social Security and Medicare taxes,” she added. Ms. Shaw-Henderson urged the subcommittee to increase and continue mandatory funding for Title I of the Rehabilitation Act, which “provides some guarantee of resources for this successful job placement program.”
Steve Savner of the Center for Law and Social Policy cautioned the subcommittee about making changes to the WIA, stressing that “we have only about two and one-half years of experience with the new system.” He pointed out that, since 1998, “there has been a dramatic decline in the number of adults and dislocated workers receiving training services as compared to the number who received training under JTPA and steps should be taken to increase training services.”
He also commented on the administration’s proposals to consolidate three distinct funding streams and provide new broad waiver authority to governors and the administration. “The proposal for a new consolidated adult block grant undermines congressional guidance regarding the balance between resources for low-income adults and for dislocated workers,” he said. “The proposal for a broad new waiver authority jeopardizes basic protections built into current law which cannot currently be waived including nondiscrimination and non-displacement provisions, basic procedural protections for those seeking services, and the role and funding for local authorities to design systems that work most effectively in their communities,” he added.
