The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) establishes performance accountability indicators and performance reporting requirements to assess the effectiveness of local workforce development programs. The WIOA State Porta provides the number of clients served per state. In 2017, the District served roughly 15,000 under the WIOA, 8,000 through a state apprenticeship program and 3,000 through University of the District of Columbia Community College's Division of Workforce Development. From 2009-2017, the District was designated as an “at risk” employment agency by the federal Department of Labor. Such a designation indicated that the Department questioned the capability of the District's workforce programs to employ local residents. And, the Department of Labor's “at risk” designation also suggested CSOSA clients referred to the District's employment programs would have been unlikely to have received WIOA, TANF, or SNAP training in a timely fashion to meet CSOSA's client accountability contracts.
TopBackground: Wioa And The Wagner–Peyser Act
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) establishes performance accountability indicators and performance reporting requirements to assess the effectiveness of States and local areas in achieving positive outcomes for individuals served by the workforce development and education systems’ six core programs. These six core programs are the Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth programs, authorized under WIOA; the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) program; the Employment Service Program authorized under the Wagner–Peyser Act, and the Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) program.
The Wagner–Peyser Act of 1933 established a nationwide system of public employment offices known as the Employment Service. The Act was amended in 1998 to make the Employment Service part of the One-Stop services delivery system. The One Stop delivery system provides universal access to an integrated array of labor exchange services so that workers, job seekers, and businesses can find the services they need in one stop and frequently under one roof in easy-to-find locations.
Employment Services focuses on providing a variety of employment related labor exchange services including but not limited to job search assistance, job referral, and placement assistance for job seekers, re-employment services to unemployment insurance claimants. The services offered to employers, in addition to referral of job seekers to available job openings, include assistance in development of job order requirements, matching job seeker experience with job requirements, skills, and other attributes, assisting employers with special recruitment needs, arranging for Job Fairs, assisting employers analyze hard-to-fill job orders, assisting with job restructuring and helping employers deal with layoffs (Excerpted from US DOL Employment and Training Administration Website n.d.)
The Vocational Opportunities for Training, Education, and Employment (VOTEE) unit refers clients for job training. VOTEE has a partnership with Department of Employment Services DOES and the Community College of the District of Columbia to provide job training. Thus, the Department of Employment Services (DOES’) job training capacity indicates CSOSA’s job training recidivism reduction implementation fidelity. Twenty percent of the total supervised population (4,102 of 16,407) was 25 years old or less (CSOSA, 2018a), and thus, at the very least 4,102 (if not more) would have been interested in receiving job training.
The Department of Employment Services (DOES) is the District’s workforce development agency, and responsible for providing District residents with critical employment readiness and job training services. The agency oversees Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act programming, Unemployment Insurance, the Marion Barry Summer Youth Employment Program, Project Empowerment, L.E.A.P. Career Connections, and additional supportive programs for veterans and senior citizens (DC DOES, 2018).
IF the Department of Employment Services (DOES) is able to provide WIOA, TANF and SNAP job training programs to the majority (80-90%) of its local residents in need of it THEN, most likely, probation and parole clients referred by CSOSA caseworkers will be able to receive the same type of job training. However, IF DOES is unable to provide WIOA, TANF and SNAP job training to the majority (80-90%) of its local residents THEN, most likely, probation and parole clients referred to DOES will not be able to obtain job training either.
Starting in 2009 Department of Labor designated DC DOES as “at-risk” and it remained on the list until fall 2017 (DC DOES, 2017). Thus, CSOSA clients referred to DOES would not have been able to obtain WIOA, TANF and SNAP job training.