[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 21, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     ADDITIONAL COSPONSOR--S. 1951

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, today I asked Senator Moynihan to include 
me as a cosponsor of S. 1951, the Reemployment Act of 1994. I 
wholeheartedly agree with the intent of this legislation--the 
consolidation and coordination of a variety of worker retraining 
programs.
  However, I have some concerns about this legislation as it is 
currently drafted. I have outlined some of those concerns in a letter 
to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. I ask that the letter be printed in 
the Record. The Governor of the State of Montana, Marc Racicot, has 
established a Reemployment Act Task Force to track this bill. The 
Governor has come up with a preliminary set of concerns that he 
outlined in a letter to me. I ask that this letter also be included in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                    Washington, DC, June 20, 1994.
     Hon. Robert Reich,
     Secretary, U.S. Department of Labor,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Bob: First of all, on behalf of the hundreds of 
     dislocated mill workers in Western Montana I would like to 
     thank you and your Department for your rapid response to 
     their critical need for Trade Adjustment Assistance funds. 
     The former Champion and Crown Pacific workers have gone 
     through a very difficult period and it has been reassuring to 
     have the U.S. Department of Labor on their side. I am 
     personally grateful for your attention to this issue.
       As we discussed, the confusing and critical needs of these 
     mill workers are a perfect example of the need for 
     coordination and streamlining of various retraining programs 
     and the Reemployment Act of 1994. I would like to take this 
     opportunity to let you know that, despite concerns I have 
     about the proposal as it's currently drafted, I intend to 
     cosponsor this important legislation.
       One serious concern I have about the Reemployment Act is 
     the cost. It is my understanding that the Administration's 
     proposal advocates an $5.5 billion increase over current 
     spending for FY 1995-1999. Although the need for effective 
     job training programs is critical to prepare Americans for a 
     dynamic economy, during difficult financial times is 
     troubling.
       As I also mentioned, I have heard several recurring 
     concerns expressed by individuals and officials in Montana 
     about the workability of the Department's proposal. These 
     problems relate to the potential problems associated with 
     implementing the bill in a rural state facing serious 
     economic challenges and changes. Specifically, the 
     administrative structures proposed in Title III of the bill, 
     the One Stop Shop Center, appear to be duplicative of 
     existing structures and could limit our state's ability to 
     provide services effectively.
       We are fortunate in Montana to have a big, beautiful state 
     that often functions like a small town. We work together, we 
     cooperate and we design service delivery systems that work 
     for us. As the Reemployment Act moves through the legislative 
     process, I will work to see that it includes enough 
     flexibility to allow that cooperation to continue, both in 
     Montana and in other rural states.
       I have enclosed more information regarding Montana's 
     concerns including a letter from Governor Racicot and a 
     letter expressing the concerns of the Vocational Education 
     community. I appreciate your review of this material. As I 
     mentioned, Montana has formed a volunteer Reemployment Act 
     Task Force and this group is prepared to provide comments on 
     the bill as it progresses.
       Again, Bob, I want to thank you for your outstanding help 
     with the TAA funds. It is very important to many in Montana. 
     I look forward to working with you on the Reemployment Act.
       With best personal regards, I am
           Sincerely,
                                                       Max Baucus.
                                  ____

                                           Office of the Governor,


                                             State of Montana,

                                         Helena, MT, May 20, 1994.
     Sen. Max Baucus,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Baucus: We are pleased to send you comments on 
     the proposed federal Re-employment Act of 1994. Montana is 
     perhaps unique in our willingness and ability to work 
     together in common purpose within our job training community.
       Background: On April 18, a one day statewide forum on the 
     proposed Reemployment Act was held in Helena. This forum was 
     sponsored by the Montana Job Training Coordinating Council, 
     the Concentrated Employment Program and Balance of State 
     Private Industry Councils, and the Department of Labor and 
     Industry. Approximately 250 people attended from across the 
     state and representing a broad range of interests including 
     job training, welfare, education, apprenticeship, 
     unemployment insurance, and labor market statistics.
       The goal of the forum was two-fold: to provide those in 
     attendance with an overview of the Act and to develop 
     consensus comments for our Congressional delegation. As 
     Governor Racicot stated in his invitation to attend this 
     forum, ``Where Montanans speak with unity is where we can be 
     most effective with our Congressional delegation to help in 
     their deliberations on this key legislation.''
       The overview of the Act was provided by Niall Rogers from 
     Region VIII, who participated on the DOL team responsible for 
     drafting the legislation. Breakout sessions were then 
     conducted to develop consensus and report back in three 
     areas:
       (1) Title I Comprehensive Program for Worker Reemployment 
     and Title II Retraining Income Support and Flexibility in 
     Unemployment Compensation.
       (2) Title III One-Stop Career Center System.
       (3) Title IV National Labor Market Information System and 
     Title V Reinvention Labs for Job Training for the 
     Economically Disadvantaged.


                            recommendations

       Generally: It is safe to say that participants at our forum 
     were stunned at the amount of detail and micro-management 
     contained in the 250 page draft bill. While it is a most 
     assuredly admirable undertaking to attempt to legislate for 
     every possibility in every community and state in America, 
     our consensus was that it is not possible to construct a 
     detailed floor plan that will fit the terrain in New York 
     City and also in Miles City, Montana. We strongly encourage a 
     backing away in law from the ``how'' a program is operated 
     and more emphasis on ``what'' the program accomplishes. If 
     that is not feasible, then consider a rural exception for 
     states like Montana, allowing us to design a streamlined 
     delivery that works for us. We simply cannot afford the 
     overhead these job training programs are causing by requiring 
     a different delivery system for each. We would prefer to 
     streamline overhead and direct more funds to citizens.
       Montana is working to promote community based design and 
     delivery of all human service programs into integrated 
     systems of which job training programs are one component. 
     With our total population of only 800,000, our definition of 
     local and community are much different than envisioned in the 
     Act. Again, we need the flexibility to keep job training 
     programs a partner in this bigger effort.
       Additionally, we are concerned about effective competition. 
     (We refer here to the request for proposal selection process, 
     not to offering choice to consumers. We strongly believe in 
     the value of good customer service and enjoy the 
     ``competition'' to provide good service. Our experience, as 
     an administrative entity and as service providers, has 
     indicated that competition for dollars between service 
     providers who are providing similar services inhibits 
     coordination and cooperation on behalf of the customers. The 
     proper way to deal with poor service is through the 
     monitoring and evaluation systems not through the funding 
     process. We see no point in considering an operator with poor 
     performance for additional funding, they should be eliminated 
     by the monitoring process.) We believe that the four-year 
     competitive process to choose career center and one-stop 
     operators set forth under Title I Section 118 and Title III 
     Section 313 is disruptive and divisive. When these systems 
     are in place and the operators are performing well, we 
     believe they should be allowed a certain security to conduct 
     business without the added encumbrance of a bidding process 
     every four years. We do believe that these systems should be 
     held accountable to reasonable standards of performance 
     through monitoring and evaluation processes.
       We also believe that putting a well coordinated (including 
     an electronic network) delivery system of program operators 
     out to bid every four years is not only disruptive at this 
     level, but is also not cost effective. Please realize that we 
     base this concern on experience; Montana has been bidding 
     every one to two years all along and is trying to move away 
     from this frequent to bring about better coordination and 
     stability. If mandatory selection frequency is inevitable, 
     not less frequent than seven years would probably be adequate 
     in Montana, with opportunity for waivers under certain 
     conditions such as community consensus. There simply aren't 
     many operators in most of our communities. We note that, of 
     all the federal programs that come to us, only job training 
     seems obsessed with competition for funding. Competition 
     really cannot take the place of effective quality control, 
     enforcement and results.
       (1) Titles I and II--Comprehensive Program; Retraining 
     Income Support:
       Prior to talking about concerns in specific sections of the 
     law, we would like to point out that several of the items 
     listed below (including paragraphs number 1, 2, 3) are good 
     examples of too much detail that we suggested should be 
     eliminated in our introductory paragraphs. If they cannot be 
     eliminated or greatly reduced, then we present the following 
     concerns with the realization that different sections of the 
     country may have very different concerns about the same 
     issues.
       Section 119, Limits.--The proposed limits discriminate 
     against economically disadvantaged citizens who have not been 
     recently employed and therefore probably have few resources. 
     Likewise, training limited to $4,750 per participant will not 
     be sufficient for those with fewer skills to obtain high 
     technology employment. Additionally, the two year training 
     limit may not be sufficient to attain the higher skills 
     necessary for long-term employment. Generally, the imposed 
     limits seem arbitrary and undefensible.
       Worker profiling information should be available to career 
     centers as soon as possible so that clients can be steered to 
     the appropriate services. All others should receive immediate 
     testing and assessment to determine client needs and goals. 
     Only then should a client be assigned to either Basic or 
     Intensive Services.
       16 Week Window for Enrollment.--Similar to the two year cap 
     on training, those with few skills may have to spend more 
     than sixteen weeks in basic and remedial skills training 
     before they are ready for enrollment into actual job 
     training. If the Individual Service Strategies are to be the 
     foundation tools for further training, this time period may 
     be too short. We suggest that time limit extensions be 
     allowable, with justification in the ISS.
       Pell Grant Exclusion.--We suggest that participants who 
     receive Pell Grants should not be penalized amounts 
     commensurate with their Cost of Attendance (COA) in available 
     funds for training under the proposed legislation. However, 
     service providers should be held accountable to coordinate 
     resources for their clients.
       Section 152.--Pre/post Placement Percentage (as a 
     performance standard).--Montana urges care be taken that the 
     Pre/post Placement Percentage standard does not compare 
     directly with the former wage, since wage trends for upgraded 
     employment are not always higher than previous wage 
     experiences.
       Technical Assistance.--We recommend that technical 
     assistance and capacity building be made available before 
     performance failure occurs.
       Three-year Income Support (Section 204).--This limit may 
     work against those with less than 3 years of tenured 
     employment. This provision will limit these participants with 
     lower personal reserves to 52 weeks of unemployment 
     compensation. Additionally, this provision makes no mention 
     of start-up help for those wishing to enter self employment.
       Performance Standards.--Montana questions why this program 
     should use indicators for economically disadvantaged 
     populations when training programs already exist for this 
     target group (JTPA Title II; JOBS).
       (2) Title III--One-Stop Career Systems:
       Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs).--Montana feels strongly 
     that private sector involvement is a valuable component. 
     Similarly we do not like to see the role of Local Elected 
     Officials (LEOs) diluted. We urge flexibility within the WIB 
     for membership composition and voting privileges.
       In general, we urge that WIBs be kept both voluntary and 
     flexible. We believe that this bill creates a duplicate 
     administrative structure. The administrative entity/grant 
     recipient still exists under a unit or consortia of local 
     government while the WIB has its own staff as well. We urge 
     that the bill have one administrative entity/grant recipient 
     structure.
       The overall power and authority of the WIB must be further 
     clarified, especially as it relates to other programs within 
     the purview of job training (i.e., the Employment Service. 
     Within the state of Montana the Employment Service has worked 
     hard at having local offices become more like ``Community 
     Based Organizations'' and have been very successful at 
     building community support by being responsive to each 
     community's needs. Concurrently, the Employment Service sees 
     the change in the economy toward a more global economy. In 
     order to be responsive to America's needs to be globally 
     competitive the Employment Service needs to be at least a 
     national system and services like the Automated Labor 
     Exchange and America's Job Bank are being offered in every 
     Montana Job Service office and many other small communities. 
     For the Employment Service to be an effective tool in our 
     national economy we still need a coordinated federal system. 
     Thus we need a much clearer definition of the federal, state 
     and local authority.) While we support the idea of the WIB 
     having broad authority over all local training programs 
     (including Job Corps), the current bill makes the WIB answer 
     to its own operators instead of the other way around. We 
     recommend the WIBs have sufficient authority to match 
     whatever local level of responsibility is established.
       We concur that states and local service areas should 
     continue to improve coordination and communication. In 
     conjunction, Montana urges that coordination and 
     communication be a priority at the national level, especially 
     between the Departments of Labor, Education and Health and 
     Human Services.
       We suggest a reasonable transition period (at least one 
     year) be allowed to work out local authority, organization 
     and procedural issues. Major changes to any system can cause 
     upheaval; we believe a transitional period will ease growing 
     pains.
       Most-in-Need.--There appears to be a mixed message in 
     requirements for service to those most-in-need; this target 
     group may also be those least able to pay for services.
       Demand Occupations.--Training funds should be prioritized 
     by demand occupations in the area; funds should not be spent 
     on maintaining institutions, but rather on the actual 
     occupations identified as in demand in the community. We also 
     suggest flexibility by area for identifying demand 
     occupations. (An example: blacksmith may not normally be 
     considered a demand occupation; however, in Miles City, 
     Montana, there may be a demand for blacksmiths.)
       Quality Assurance.--We suggest that a process outside the 
     regular educational system be designed for quality assurance 
     for schools.
       Other Programs.--We believe that programs both in and 
     outside USDOL should be included in the legislation: Job 
     Corps; chemical dependency programs; mental health; Pell 
     Grant assistance; Vocational Rehabilitation; Adult Basic 
     Education. The waiver approach envisioned in the legislation 
     is too cumbersome and slow to be practical.
       Flexibility.--We urge legislation which allows one-stop 
     centers to have broad and flexible law and rules so centers 
     can best fit local resources.
       (3) Titles IV and V--National Labor Market System; 
     Reinvention Labs:
       a. Labor Market Information System:
       The system must focus on where the jobs are and will be, 
     and what types of training will be available.
       A bulletin board system is the future avenue for such 
     information. Existing electronic systems which are currently 
     up and working well should be kept in place. Updated 
     information is the most important aspect of a quality labor 
     market information system.
       We would urge that resources not be diverted unduly into 
     evaluation and oversight and that evaluation instruments be 
     developed with states and local involvement.
       Training and technical assistance to operate the system 
     should be a part of the proposed legislation.
       The system should be service-based as well as technology-
     based. It must apply to real-life situations.
       b. Reinvention Labs:
       We believe that the waiver process should be flexible 
     enough so that SDAs or areas or operators within an SDA could 
     be eligible to apply.
       The Secretary should be able to approve as many worthwhile 
     applications as the Department sees fit to approve. The limit 
     of 75 applications appears arbitrary and unnecessary.
       Section 283.--We would request that a waiver once approved 
     only be terminated for cause.
       With limited Title II funds, we urge that the labs be 
     funded from additional available funds rather than from Title 
     II base allocations.
       Summary: At the close of the forum, the hosting Councils 
     urged interested parties to join a Reemployment Act Task 
     Force. This Task Force will be coordinated by the Councils 
     and will continue to track the Reemployment Act throughout 
     the legislative process. The Task Force will serve to keep 
     the job training community informed as the legislation 
     progresses through Congress and to submit further comments as 
     necessary.
       We appreciate the goals of the Reemployment Act of 1994, 
     and we are grateful for the opportunity to comment on the 
     proposed Act early in the legislative process. Again, we wish 
     to emphasize that the comments in this letter represent where 
     many Montanans came together and reached consensus. We 
     appreciate your consideration.
           Sincerely,
     Marc Racicot,
                                                         Governor.
     Helen Kellicut,
                                         Chair, State Job Training
                                             Coordinating Council.
     Bob Francisco,
                              Chair, CEP Private Industry Council.
     Dale Kutterer,
     Chair, Balance of State Joint Council.

                          ____________________