House subcommittee holds workforce hearing.

On May 11, the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training hosted a hearing on “Removing Inefficiencies in the Nation’s Job Training Programs.” The hearing addressed the findings of a January 2011 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on federal training and employment programs, with a particular focus on state efforts to streamline administration and service delivery across multiple workforce programs and agencies.

The hearing featured testimony from Andrew Sherill, GAO’s director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, who noted potential overlaps between the Department of Labor’s Employment Service and Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult programs, and the TANF program under the Department of Health and Human Services. Sherill recommended that the agencies work together to educate states on the benefits and challenges of co-locating services and consolidating administrative structures between those three programs.

Also testifying were Larry Temple, Executive Director of the Texas Workforce Commission, and Van Royal, chairman of the Worksource regional workforce board in northeast Florida, who discussed their respective states’ experiences with workforce program consolidation; and Evelyn Ganzglass, Director of Workforce Development at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), who urged committee members to focus on better aligning and strengthening workforce programs to enhance service delivery.

This latest hearing is  the fourth House hearing to address the findings of the GAO training report; the Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Education and the Workforce Committees also held hearings on consecutive days in early April, all of which focused on potential savings from consolidating workforce programs. Given the recent threats to federal workforce investments - including the $1.1 billion in cuts to workforce programs under the recent Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 continuing resolution, and the possibility of much deeper reductions in FY 2012 – workforce development advocates should weigh in with their lawmakers and urge them to reject consolidation efforts or other structural changes that would result in drastic funding cuts for workforce programs or reduced services for U.S. jobseekers and employers.