State Workforce Investment Board

July 31, 2015: 9:30 AM
France Perkins Room, Central Maine Commerce Center


State Workforce Investment Board Meeting
07/31/15

Present; Fred Webber, Richard Freund, Gail Senese, Mel Clarrage, Laura Boyett, Judy Plummer-Beale, Kevin Healey, Denise Garland, Meg Harvey, Edward McKersie, William Burney, Proxy; Ryan Bushey, Don Berry, Phone; Renee Kelly, Joanne Harris, Liz Ray, Scott Good, Terry Young, Yvonne Mickles Guest; Neil Cambridge, Elizabeth Rensenbrink SWIB Staff; Garret Oswald, Paul Leparulo, Cheryl Moran Fred Webber opened the meeting with welcomes and introductions.

Chairs Report ? • Fred Webber ? Garret and I will be attending the NGA (National Governor?s Association) Conference in Annapolis, MD the end of August. • Garret Oswald ? announced this meeting will be the last interaction under the WIA (Workforce Investment Act) Board. The next meeting will be under the new Act, WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act). The law does not require us to change the name (State Workforce Investment Board), but the change of the role (Development Board). New appointments have not been appointed yet. WIOA will not take action until the Board is seated. We are planning to change the next SWIB meeting to October 2nd. • Fred stated we are working with the Governor?s schedule and will keep you posted. • Garret provided an update of the WIOA Youth Meeting he attended recently in Washington, DC. He stated under WIOA there is a renewed focus on serving Youth. The focus will be on 3 key items; 1. Emerging challenge and opportunities for serving out-of-school Youth 2. Building capacity and plan of action for serving out-of-school Youth 3. Expanding leadership role of employers Texas is blending funds in a creative way. We need to understand that better. Garret stated that the Nation as a whole needs to do a better job on engagement however, Maine is doing well.

Training Expenditure Policy ? • Garret Oswald ? Annual goal ? In PY 14 each LWIB (4) will be asked to meet or exceed the 40% goal. Two out of the four were able to meet the requirement. • Joanna Russell ? stated Local Area 1 is more rural than Local Area 2. Due to the cost of on-going IT issues, rent, staffing, travel distance etc., hopefully the request for Waiver will be taking into consideration. Joanna also stated when a customer comes in not knowing what to do; they necessarily are not looking for training. • Jeff Sneddon ? reiterated, the customer just wants a job not necessarily training primarily due to transportation/childcare issues, which is common in the Workforce that we are dealing with now. He believes assessment will be more emphasized because the customer does not know where they are with their skills. • Joanna Russell ? stated, it will get harder trying to serve the hard-to-serve population. • Richard Freund ? LWIB?s have improved. He stated how the environment has shifted/changed. The challenge is people getting jobs. He supports in granting waivers due to cost. • Ryan Pelletier - Garret Oswald spoke in his behalf. Ryan was concerned with the overhead cost in staff because their area covers 9000 square miles. • Joanna Russell ? stated Ryan made a good point on cost and travel issues. This is unique to Maine. • Ginny Carroll ? stated this Policy is for one funding stream (40%). BES will review recommendations on waiver request. She highly recommends waivers due to shift in cost. • Kevin Healey ? stated there has been an improvement with soft skills in the Augusta area. Customers appear to be more prepared in writing resumes and job interviews. Result may be due to the schools/education. He stated he likes the goal set of 40%. • Elizabeth Rensenbrink - IT is in high demand in her area. As far as soft skills, she has seen improvement in past years. She also agrees technical skills are where there is a challenge.

Fred Webber asked for a vote on request for waiver.

Kevin Healey motioned. Mel Clarrage seconded. Vote was unanimous.

Eligible Training Provider List Policy (ETPL) ? • Ginny Carroll ? Providers need to deem eligible by the State. What is new under the WIOA environment, it will provide opportunity for customers to shop around. ETPL will be required to track every student in their program. The list will consist of high quality job producing providers, Colleges/Universities, Community College, sponsors of apprenticeship, Adult Ed post-secondary programs and OJT. Ginny noted the Providers have until December 2015 to reapply or stay on the list. Question is what are the minimum standards in order to effectively spend our money?

Fred Webber asked to create recommendation to new WIOA Board for clarification.

Meg Harvey motioned. Mel Clarrage seconded. Vote was unanimous.

Sector Partnerships National Emergency Grant (SP-NEG) ? • David Klein ? Joan Dolan provided a handout. The Grant involves employers and sector partnerships. The primary main focus is: 1. Healthcare 2. Manufacturing 3. IT But also allows us to look at areas regionally. The Grant is really designed to be driven by business such as: 1. Apprenticeship 2. OJT 3. Business related courses • Joan Dolan ? stated this is a wonderful grant. It allows us to do things that we have not done before such as incumbent training. • David Klein ? the grant is in effect starting July 1, 2015 and ends June 30, 2017. He stated he will provide a brief overview if time is allowed at the next meeting.

WIOA Vision/Mission Workshop ? • Garret Oswald ? WIOA provides opportunity to create a new strategy. It was a 3 day Workshop which was extremely well attended, received, beneficial and very diverse. Garret introduced Neil Cambridge (Facilitator) who produced a preliminary draft report. He also mentioned Paul Leparulo is the Project Manager for the Unified State Plan. • Neil Cambridge ? stated the group experience of that multitude was positive and a huge challenge. New relationship was established on how to connect with this new system. Deculpling from the past and culpling for the future. • Paul Leparulo ? mentioned about the challenge of taking information from the draft and putting it into WIOA regulations. He briefly went over the Matrix which displayed the different work groups and where we are right now. He stated how the 6 goals were collapsed into 2 goals. And how the Vision answers the question what kind of system do we want to have? Paul also mentioned as a State, WIOA allows making the law work for us instead of working for the law.
• William Burney ? commended Commissioner Paquette on her commitment during busy times. • Fred Webber ? was amazed how Neil was able to pull it all together. • Jeff Sneddon ? also commented on how well the Workshop was facilitated. • Gail Senese ? thanked Neil and Garret for putting together an abundance of so many stakeholders and everyone that was involved. • Neil Cambridge ? appreciated feedback and is willing to check in and assist with project. • Fred Webber ? questioned where do we stand compared to other states? • Garret Oswald ? stated being a small State and lack of funding, we could do better but we are not in back of the pack. He recommended quarterly meetings to re-visit with workforce development partners. He will welcome any participation forth coming.
• Fred Webber asked Neil for final thoughts. • Neil Cambridge ? stated he hopes that ?the room? (meaning the 3 day workshop attendees) will be a room of advocates. His advice is stay connected and figure out better ways to stay connected and that WIOA is not a system change, but a cultural change.

Fred Webber asked for meeting adjourned.

Kevin Healey motioned. Mel Clarrage seconded. Unanimous, meeting adjourned.

Next meeting TBA

Respectfully submitted by Cheryl Moran


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