among the companies that use
worker-training programs.
Fractured. Scattered. Bottlenecked.
That is the condition of Rhode Island’s work force development system, according
to a number of state business and government leaders, including Gov. Don Carcieri.
And they say it’s time for a shakeup.
Funding for job training, adult literacy programs and other work force initiatives
now flows through a number of agencies – from the Department of Labor &
Training (DLT) to the Department of Education and a slew of nonprofit groups.
Some business, labor and political leaders say the dispersion of programs
makes it difficult to craft a clear strategy for work force development, which
they say is crucial to attracting new businesses and helping existing companies
find skilled workers.
“We don’t have a work force development system,” said George Nee, secretary/treasurer
of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, at a Sept. 12 meeting of the Economic Policy Council.
“We have a lot of components, but there is no one entity that can speak for
work force development that anybody pays attention to,” said Nee, who is a member
of the state’s Human Resource Investment Council (HRIC). “How do we coordinate
this and create a comprehensive strategy?”
The Carcieri administration wants to revamp the system by reinforcing the
HRIC’s role as the primary authority over work force development programs in
the state.
The EPC, chaired by Carcieri and comprised of 23 business, government and
academic leaders, has begun devising a plan to beef up the HRIC’s clout. Elements
include downsizing the 26-member council while appointing more powerful members.
The governor appoints HRIC members.
The EPC also would like to create one position for the HRIC director, rather
than splitting that role with the director of the DLT (now Marvin D. Perry),
which legislation now requires.
Kip Bergstrom, executive director of the EPC, said that dual position historically
has taken focus away from the HRIC’s mission. He said the council plans to draft
legislation needed to make the changes and introduce it in the General Assembly
next year.
Perry said he is aware that some changes could be in store at the HRIC, and
that separating those two director positions “makes sense.”
“If HRIC is going to be the primary agent for work-force development, it really
needs to have a full-time director,” he said.
Coordination at issue
The Legislature created the HRIC in 1992 to coordinate the state’s
work force development system. It is funded through the Job Development Fund,
generated through a tiny fraction of the state’s employment payroll tax.
The fund generates $8 million annually, much of which goes directly to Rhode
Island businesses to help train workers.
But that revenue is just one vein in a complex web of state and federal funding
– a mix so disparate that it seems no state agency can say definitively how
much money is spent on work force development programs in the state each year.
The Community College of Rhode Island, for example, offers programs for companies
to upgrade their workers’ skills. Two regional Workforce Investment Boards use
federal dollars to train unemployed people. The state’s Department of Education
runs school-to-work initiatives. Nonprofit groups such as Dorcas Place teach
adults to read and write.
Somewhere along the line the HRIC has lost the handle on how all these programs
should be coordinated, some say.
“Part of the problem is different funding sources that send money into the
state have different requirements and regulations,” said Michael Kennedy, an
employment and training administrator at the HRIC. “If the Department of Health
gets some money to train employees, it’s hard for the HRIC to say ‘you’ve got
to do it this way.’”
Some people get lost in the shuffle as a result of the thicket of programs,
Bergstrom said.
“If you take somebody with below 8th grade literacy and try to move them to
and through CCRI, they’ll probably go through four or five different providers,”
Bergstrom said. “That’s a lot of hand-offs, and oftentimes people don’t get
all the way through.”
But Lee Arnold, the former director of the DLT, who retired shortly after
Carcieri took office, disputes the notion that the system is too frayed.
“The system is diverse for sure, but that reflects 40 years of federal government
involvement in work force activities,” Arnold said. “I wouldn’t characterize
it as fractured or broken. But every governor has the prerogative to look at
it anew.”
In fact, Arnold said the structures of the HRIC and the Workforce Development
Boards have been seen as a national model for helping businesses train existing
employees.
Arnold said he has always advocated that the state’s Economic Development
Corporation have its own line item in the state budget for worker training,
rather than relying solely on funds from the HRIC.
Adult literacy a key ‘bottleneck’
There does seem to be some consensus that the state needs to do a
far better job teaching low-income adults to read and write.
A Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) report issued earlier this
year predicts that by 2010, one-fifth of the state’s work force will consist
of low-income young people from inner city areas – most of whom speak English
as a second language and attend failing schools.
At the EPC meeting, RIPEC Executive Director Gary Sasse indicated that the
fate of those workers – and a key element of economic development – rests largely
on the strength of the state’s work force development system.
“Somebody needs to grab control and serve direction to this program,” he said.
“We’ve been talking about this for several years now.”
The Legislature OK’d an additional $1.4 million this year for adult literacy.
But as the state provides more funding to relieve that bottleneck, it will create
others, Bergstrom warned.
More and more people will move “downstream” to training programs at CCRI,
for example, or employer-based programs offered by the HRIC, and eventually
those programs will need more resources, Bergstrom said.
Kenneth Payne, the state Senate’s policy advisor, said CCRI is a critical
link in the system, because Rhode Island has a growing number of workers whose
skills have become obsolete from foreign competition or other factors. CCRI
offers programs to retrain them for new jobs in growing areas such as high-tech
manufacturing.
“CCRI is not just a staging area for kids who didn’t quite make it into a
four-year school, as it once was viewed,” Payne said. “It’s really transformed
itself into a prime player on job training.”
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