3. Strategic Goals and The FY 2001 Budget

The Department has determined that global approaches are needed to respond to the dynamic changes affecting the future workforce and workplace. Its FY 2001 budget proposal is therefore structured around a series of initiatives that integrate the efforts of the Department's component agencies to make more effective use of limited resources, eliminate duplication and overlap, and organize efforts around evolving real-world problems rather than around existing organizational structures and tools. These initiatives may support two or more of the three DOL strategic goals.

This Plan establishes performance goals for FY 2001 which will lead to the accomplishment of DOL's strategic goals, and describes the means and strategies DOL will use to achieve results, as well as contributing partners. Activities are logically clustered around the accomplishment of its strategic goals. There are also some instances where an agency's contribution to a goal is not apparent. The Women's Bureau, for example, provides expertise and guidance to all DOL agencies as they work toward accomplishing those strategic goals that relate to working women and their families. The Office of the Solicitor is another example which provides legal advice and support to its "client" agencies within DOL.

A summary of FY 2001 Performance Goals and Measures is included in Appendix A. A detailed break-out of DOL's Program and Financial (P&F) Schedule activities by strategic goal can be found in Appendix C, and a cross-walk of Congressional Committees to strategic goals is presented in Appendix D.

Each strategic goal consists of intermediate outcome goals which in turn contain specific performance goals for the fiscal year. Each performance goal or result is measured by an indicator which is used to assess progress toward goal accomplishment.

This section provides a summary of the linkage between the strategic goals and the Department's budget activities and expenditures, as identified in the P&F schedules. For each strategic goal, a brief description of major new initiatives in the FY 2001 funding request is provided.

The 2001 budget reflects the Department of Labor's commitment to provide assurance that all workers have the opportunity to find and hold jobs, under reasonable working conditions, with good wages, reliable pensions, health benefits, and opportunities to improve their skills.

For these purposes, the Department's FY 2001 budget proposals provide a total request for $39.7 billion in budget authority and 17,450 full-time equivalents (FTE). The request for discretionary programs is $12.4 billion in budget authority, which is $1.2 billion above the FY 2000 level.

3.1 Strategic Goal 1 – A Prepared Workforce

This budget request reflects one of the President's top priorities: investing in education and training to ensure that every American has the schooling and the skills to succeed in the increasingly competitive global economy.

The Youth Opportunity Movement program will provide investments that help young people make a successful transition to the world of work and family responsibility. Another initiative working toward this goal is the Fathers Work/Families Win program which will provide competitive grants to State and local Workforce Investment Boards to lift low wage workers into quality jobs by upgrading their skills. These are some of the initiatives in this budget that focus first on youth and then target the high unemployment, low skills, and lack of work experience among youth and adults in some of our poorest communities.

Opportunity Gaps and Untapped Markets

There are several programs included within the Youth Opportunities Movement to address the opportunity gaps and reach untapped markets in order to advance the goal to promote a prepared workforce.

Youth Opportunity Grants

The FY 2001 budget includes $375 million for Youth Opportunity Grants, an increase of $125 million above FY 2000. This program is intended to provide comprehensive, longer term intervention in the lives of primarily out-of-school youth living in inner cities and high poverty areas to help them graduate from high school, get jobs, and progress in the workforce. Of the total request, $250 million in competitive grants will be distributed to 25 to 30 high poverty areas for the third year of funding. An additional $125 million is requested in FY 2001 to fund the first year of 12 to 15 new grants to high poverty areas. This program will serve an estimated 85,000 youth in FY2001.

Responsible Reintegration for Young Offenders

Also included in the FY 2001 budget is an initiative for Responsible Reintegration for Young Offenders funded at $75 million to address youth offender issues. This is a new initiative and will build on work begun earlier including $13.9 million in FY 2000 demonstration funds. This large scale Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Pilot and Demonstration initiative will help young offenders under age 35 to successfully reintegrate into the mainstream economy by linking them with essential services such as education, training, job placement, drug counseling, and mentoring. Through local competitive grants, this program would establish partnerships between the criminal justice system and local workforce investment systems, complementing a similar program in the Department of Justice. An estimated 19,000 youth will be served.

Safe Schools/Healthy Students

Also included in the FY 2001 budget is $40 million for the DOL to participate in the next competitive round of Safe Schools/Healthy Students grants. This is an effort begun in FY 1999 in collaboration with the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice to promote healthy childhood development and to prevent school violence and alcohol and other drug abuse through a comprehensive, community-wide approach. With DOL's participation, the activities for the next round of grants can be expanded to include connections among high schools, post-secondary schools, alternative schools, out-of-school youth programs, and work-based learning programs, in order to reduce violent behaviors.

Job Corps

The Job Corps will provide intensive skill training, academic and social education, and support to an estimated 73,000 participants at 122 centers in FY 2001. The budget request is $1.4 billion, a net increase of $35 million above FY 2000. The additional amounts include increases of $13.4 million for the operations costs of new centers, and $12.9 million for teacher and other staff salary increases. These increases are offset in part, by a decline in new center construction and modernization efforts.

Universal Reemployment

Because our changing economy often requires new skills of our Nation's workers, the budget continues the President's Universal Reemployment initiative path which aims to serve all dislocated workers in need of assistance by FY 2004. The initiative will provide all dislocated workers who want and need assistance the resources to train for or find new jobs; expand and improve the quality of employment services now available to all job seekers, enhance them for individuals receiving unemployment compensation; and ensure availability of the One Stop System, either in person or electronically, to help find jobs and training.

Among the programs to be funded in this effort are WIA Dislocated Workers employment and training activities, One Stop Career Centers, and Grants to States for Reemployment Services.

Dislocated worker employment and training activities under authority of WIA provides State formula grants, as well as a national emergency grant account, for retraining and adjustment services to laid off workers with a labor market attachment to help them return to work quickly. The FY 2001 request includes $1.771 billion for this program, an increase of $181 million above FY 2000 to support 984,000 participants. This increase is part of a build up which would assist all dislocated workers in need of these services.

The FY 2001 budget includes $154 million for new methods of providing employment and related information through One Stop Career Centers and its America's Labor Market Information System (ALMIS), an net increase of $34 million above FY 2000. Services include America's Job Bank that lists about 1.6 million jobs, and America's Talent Bank that lists over 500,000 resumes.

Also included in the Universal Reemployment initiative for FY 2001 is an additional $50 million for Reemployment Services Grants. These grants, made through the Employment service, will provide targeted, staff-assisted services to unemployment insurance claimants identified as having a high probability of exhausting their benefits. This will speed their reentry into employment and reduce benefit duration.

Incumbent Workers:

The budget includes a new employment and training assistance initiative for Incumbent Workers funded at $30 million in FY 2001 under WIA Pilot and Demonstration authority. The effort is intended to address the major job losses in the manufacturing industry where one half million jobs have been lost since March, 1998. Complementing activities carried out under the Universal Reemployment proposal, this initiative will boost skills and wages of non-management U.S. workers through competitive grants to States to train and upgrade the skills of incumbent workers and, through local partnerships, help firms with training, thereby preventing displacements before they occur. It is expected that the program will serve 20,000 participants.

Fathers Work/Families Win:

Building on the investments and partnerships begun under the Welfare-to-Work program, the FY 2001 President's Budget includes $255 million for a new initiative entitled Fathers Work/Families Win to assist low-income working families, including non-custodial parents, get training and services necessary to obtain better jobs, higher wages and remain off cash assistance. Of this amount, $125 million would support competitive grants for the Fathers Work component to help about 40,000 non-custodial parents, primarily fathers, obtain or retain employment and progress up career ladders, including upgrading their skills so they can support their children. The remaining $130 million of the request is for Families Win to provide resources for case management and skill training to help about 40,000 low income parents stay in jobs, move up career ladders, and stay off cash assistance. Of these amounts, $10 million will be set aside for Indian and Native American workforce agencies.

These competitive grants will be awarded to State and local Workforce Investment Boards to enable States and local communities to complement welfare reform efforts by focusing on work connections, work support activities, and skills training. The initiative addresses families with incomes up to 200 percent of the poverty level.

Disability Policy And Programs:

The Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities was created in 1998 to develop and recommend to the President, a coordinated and aggressive Federal policy to eliminate employment barriers for people with disabilities. The first Task Force annual report identified and recommended support of legislation to eliminate the barriers to health care for people with disabilities. The Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act signed into law in 1999, will substantially expand our nation's pool of skilled workers with disabilities by enabling millions of people with disabilities to take jobs without fear of losing their Medicaid and Medicare coverage.

In December 1999, the second annual report of the Task Force identified and recommended support for the establishment of a new Office of Disability Policy, Evaluation and Technical Assistance to be headed by an Assistant Secretary within the Department of Labor. This new office will initially subsume the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities in an effort to reduce duplication and enhance coordination of Federal employment programs for people with disabilities. ODPET will bring a heightened and permanent disability focus within DOL through policy evaluation, technical assistance and development of best practices. The intent is to integrate these tools into all existing DOL programs and services so that people with disabilities maximize their overall efforts to obtain the necessary skills and training to succeed in the increasingly competitive global economy.

In addition, the budget also continues the competitive grants enacted in FY 2000, totaling $20 million annually to be awarded each year by DOL to partnerships of organizations to provide incentives for broader systems -- building efforts involving coordinated service delivery through, and linkages across, the One Stop Career Center system established under Title 1 of WIA of 1998. This effort will promote coordination among members of such partnerships, in order to ensure that people with disabilities are better prepared to enter, reenter, and remain in the workforce.

Homeless Veterans Programs:

This request includes a plan to integrate DOL's Homeless Veterans Programs for (formerly funded within ETA) within the Veterans Employment and Training program. The budget includes $15 million, which is expected to provide employment and training services to an estimated 15,000 homeless veterans, with expected job placements of approximately 8,700.

Economic Indicators:

This request includes increases totaling $20 million for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to improve major economic indicators. For example, BLS will increase coverage of the service sector in the Producer Price Index (PPI), and will expand coverage by incorporating data from the construction sector of the economy. The request includes $4.3 million to develop a new time–use survey that will provide nationally representative estimates of how Americans spend their time in an average week. This will provide important and meaningful data in many areas such as the amount of time invested in the care of the young and the elderly in our society, variations between single and two-parent families, and time invested in skill acquisition.