Printer-Friendly Version
Statement Of Raymond J. Uhalde Acting
Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration
and Stanley Seidel Acting Assistant Secretary for Veteran's Employment
and Training Before The Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education Committee on Appropriations United States House
of Representatives
May 23, 2001
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, we
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to present the Department
of Labor's Fiscal Year (FY) 2002 Budget as it relates to the Employment and
Training Administration (ETA) and the Veterans' Employment and Training Service
(VETS).
Secretary Chao has established six goals for the Department that are
reflected in our 2002 budget.
These goals are:
- to train and develop the Nation's workforce;
- to ensure the safety and health of every workplace;
- to guarantee an honest day's pay for an honest day's work;
- to fight discrimination;
- to protect workers from coercion and intimidation; and
- to make sure workers' pensions are protected.
Today, we will address the Department's budget for training and
developing the Nation's workforce.
Employment and Training Administration
The Administration's Fiscal Year 2002 budget request for workforce
preparation, employment services, and unemployment insurance totals $10 billion
under current authority -- a decrease of $503 million from the comparable
amount in FY 2001. It includes $9.1 billion for discretionary programs and
$879.7 million for mandatory programs. This request will allow us to build upon
the framework of the bi-partisan Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 to
develop a revitalized, customer-focused system that provides workers with the
information, advice, job search assistance, education, training, and support
they need to get and keep good jobs, and that provide employers with skilled
workers.
Implementation of the Workforce Investment Act
Before I discuss the details of the Administration's request, I want to
bring you up to date on implementation of the Workforce Investment Act. WIA
required fundamental system-wide changes in service delivery, the make-up of
eligible service providers, and new customer service requirements. There has
been tremendous change at the State and local levels since enactment of WIA: 44
percent of the States changed the boundaries of their local service delivery
areas, 55 percent established new State Workforce Investment Boards, and 62
percent established new Local Workforce Investment Boards in each of their
local areas. Additionally, many new One-Stop Career Centers have been
established For example, in the six States within the Philadelphia Region, 82
percent of One-Stop Career Centers did not exist prior to January 2000. To
date, all States have built the foundation for implementation of WIA through
the establishment of State and Local Workforce Investment Boards, the
designation of local workforce investment areas, and the development and
approval of five-year State and Local strategic plans.
As you can imagine, much innovation and progress is occurring at the
local level. Some Local Boards have used their strategic role under WIA to
emphasize economic development and bring jobs to their area. For example, the
Northern Tier Workforce Investment Area on the northeastern border of
Pennsylvania has created the Five Star Jobs Program to provide opportunities
for businesses to expand, while also improving the quality of life for area
families. The Program encourages the growth of technology-related jobs that
provide family sustaining wages and medical benefits. It provides them with
priority training assistance for their new hires and existing workers. Thus far
100 "Five Star Jobs" have been created or retained.
The Workforce Board of Northern Cook County is partnering with other
Local Boards in the Chicago metropolitan area to create an action agenda for
building the area's information technology workforce. WorkSource in
Jacksonville, Florida, has received grants to fund its economic development
activities, which include providing companies with employee and wage data to
help them identify the best sites for their businesses.
The WIA has also given boards in rural areas the opportunity to focus on
their unique needs. Workforce Essentials, Inc. covers a nine-county area in
central Tennessee. It provides customized products to support the workforce
needs of business and industry that are not currently available from other
businesses in the area, such as driver training, drug testing, and employee
assessment. Since July 2000, Workforce Essentials, Inc. has served over 52,000
job seekers through a wide variety of career center partners, such as
vocational rehabilitation, TANF, and veterans' services. In Montana, Workforce
Investment Boards are working with partners throughout their communities to
identify their community's workforce and economic development assets so they
can better market their communities to employers.
Through their youth programs, Local Boards also work to prepare at-risk
youth for careers and adulthood. The Local Workforce Investment Board in
Memphis, Tennessee partners with over 70 employers and community agencies, the
University of Memphis, churches, the local police department, and many others
to serve economically disadvantaged youth at five sites and six satellite
centers. Teens gain work experience by running their own businesses, including
a soup and sandwich bar and a recording studio. As of April 1st of this year
the program has served over 1600 young people.
An important part of the legislation was the requirement that all
customers be able to access workforce development information and programs at
One-Stop Career Centers. At NOVA in Sunnyvale, California, the One-Stop Career
Center has worked to address the unique needs of the Silicon Valley. For
example, there is a Patent and Trademark library and a program to provide
refugee assistance on-site. Last year NOVA served over 1,000 businesses and
7,000 job seekers.
We are continuing to increase knowledge and recognition by the public
and businesses of the quality services that are available through the workforce
investment system. We call it "America's Workforce Network" because it offers a
network of services and because it is created and maintained by a network of
partners-federal, state, and local governments, businesses, workers,
educational organizations, and community- and faith-based groups. This
"co-branding" lets our customers know how and where to easily access the
information and services for which you have provided funding, while allowing
States and localities to maintain their own identity and ownership.
The WIA reforms are occurring across the country, requiring
collaboration with employers, State and local governments and partners
representing many federal and other programs at the local level. Yet, as
expected, there are some specific system and program issues that have surfaced
as implementation challenges at the State and local level.
In addition to establishing new service delivery areas and State and
local Boards, reforms such as the One-Stop service delivery system, Consumer
Reports to help customers make informed choices about training, and Individual
Training Accounts to purchase that training, are breaking new ground in
workforce development. However, they also take tremendous time and effort to
implement. As a result, States and local areas are spending available resources
more slowly than anticipated.
Based on actual and projected expenditures for the remainder of PY 2000,
it appears that States and local communities will carry over $1.7 billion into
PY 2001, about $600 million more than the amount normally carried over. The
decrease in our budget request for FY 2002 is directly related to this
carryover. Carried into FY 2002, these unexpended resources will enable us to
serve the same number of participants in FY 2002 as in FY 2001 despite the
reduced request.
In addition to launching an independent study of WIA implementation, DOL
has undertaken a detailed analysis of the progress of WIA implementation and
State underexpenditures. In general, we have found that those States that were
early implementers of the WIA changes are expending their resources more
quickly. For example, the State of Texas implemented WIA one year early -- in
July 1999, and worked to quickly implement the strong accountability system
established under WIA. Local Workforce Investment Boards in the State are
responsible not only for WIA and Welfare-to-Work funds, but also for Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamp Employment and Training
programs, child care funding, and other programs. Texas provides comprehensive
services to employers and residents through over 140 One-Stop Career Centers,
plus another 90 satellite offices.
There are other reasons for under spending. For example, some local
areas have moved slowly to establish Youth Councils to make decisions about
at-risk youth service delivery. Some areas have been very cautious in putting
such reforms as Individual Training Accounts (ITA) and eligible training
provider lists in place. Some have set arbitrary time requirements for a
sequence of core, intensive, and training services. Others have focused on
making lower cost core and intensive services available to a larger, more
universal population seeking work or career advancement. These reasons also
contribute to low expenditures and low enrollments in more expensive,
longer-term training services.
The Department of Labor has moved in a proactive, partnership approach
to help States, based on the analysis of State underexpenditures and progress
in WIA implementation. This effort includes strengthening Departmental
financial management monitoring to better track obligations, cash draw downs,
and expenditures. With much of the governance structure in place and many
service delivery system elements in place or soon to be so, we are confident
that customer services will increase and thus, expenditure rates will begin to
increase significantly.
We are partnering with States and local communities to help them think
expansively and design a customer-focused, comprehensive one-stop delivery
system that makes Congress' vision under WIA a reality. Over the next several
weeks, DOL will convene a series of workgroups comprised of Federal, State and
local staff, to address key implementation issues. We believe it is important
to maintain an open process to ensure that the results are practical and useful
to States and local areas.
Highlights of The FY 2002 Budget Request - ETA
Secretary Chao has expressed her hope that every worker have the
opportunity for a fulfilling and financially-rewarding career. The employment
and training activities funded by this request will help ensure that workers
receive the training and support they need to choose and progress in their
chosen occupations.
Youth Programs
The Department administers a variety of service interventions to address
basic and intensive education, training, career preparation and job needs of
primarily low-income youth. We also serve youth who are still in school and
need to prepare themselves for the world of work. The goal of these
interventions is to help young people get jobs that will provide a career path,
to help them to complete or advance their education, or to provide job and
work-readiness skills that prepare them for the rapidly changing labor market.
Youth Activities: The youth formula program provides funds to
every area in the country to operate a comprehensive array of services that
focus on developing the potential of young people to successfully transition to
adulthood, post-secondary education, and careers. The Administration is
requesting that $25 million in 2001 funding for Youth Opportunity Grants and
$20 million appropriated for the Safe Schools/Healthy Students program be
reprogrammed to this year's youth formula program. The 2002 budget request for
Youth Activities is $1 billion, or $147 million below the revised 2001 level.
In spite of the decrease in funding, it is projected that our system will serve
721,000 participants, the same level as in FY 2001, due to the carry over of
unexpended funds.
Youth Opportunity Grants: Youth Opportunity Grants target
high-poverty urban, rural and Native American communities with sufficient
resources to cause a substantial drop in youth unemployment in these
communities. The Grants offer resources to help young people acquire the skills
and experiences needed to grow into successful adults and good citizens. We ask
for $250 million for Youth Opportunity Grants to address skills training and
job placement in these communities. Twenty million dollars of the request will
go to the Rewarding Youth Achievement Program, which will provide youth living
in high poverty areas with extended summer employment opportunities and the
opportunity to earn an end of summer bonus as a reward for academic
achievement. In addition, $10 million is requested for Migrant Youth activities
to provide employment and training assistance to youth in families engaged in
migrant and seasonal farm work. In total, the requested amount for Youth
Opportunity Grants will serve an estimated 58,100 youth, the same level
anticipated for FY 2001.
Job Corps: We request nearly $1.4 billion for Job Corps-the same
as the FY 2001 appropriation. This funding level, combined with savings from
unplanned delays in opening new centers, will be sufficient to cover normal
inflation increases. This level will support an enrollment level of 72,900 new
students at 121 centers. Three new centers will open in PY 2002.
Responsible Reintegration for Young Offenders: The Administration
proposes a reprogramming to combine the appropriation of $55 million with $20
million reprogrammed from the Incumbent Worker program. This will allow us to
provide $75 million in two year grants to help young offenders find employment.
The initiative builds on lessons learned through smaller pilot projects started
in FY 1998 that were developed in partnership with the Department of Justice.
Our experience is that these new partnerships to test innovative approaches
require significant planning time; the proposed funding level will help us
ensure that States and local communities prepare to reach this population.
Over two years, this large scale initiative will link 18,800 offenders
under age 35 with essential services such as education, training, job
placement, drug counseling, and mentoring, that can help make the difference in
their choices in their futures, and in order to reintegrate them into the
mainstream economy. By developing models showing how we can work effectively
with the criminal justice and substance abuse and mental health care systems,
we hope to expand services in FY 2002 to the young offender population through
our State and local mainstream workforce delivery systems.
Adult Programs
The budget request for adult programs under WIA and under the Older
Americans Act is $2.4 billion. This is a decrease of $257 million below FY
2001, but we expect to serve the same number of participants as in FY 2001 due
to the availability of unexpended carryover funds.
Adult Employment and Training: Formula grants to States provide
employment and training assistance to low-income adults. The FY 2002 request is
$900 million, $50 million less than in FY 2001. Under the Workforce Investment
Act, all adults can receive core employment-related services, with intensive
and training services targeted to those who need additional help to obtain and
retain employment. These funds, in addition to unexpended carryover, will
enable the new workforce investment system to serve about 396,000 adults, the
same level anticipated for FY 2001.
The Department is pleased to implement the reauthorized Community
Service Employment for Older Americans Program as part of the Older Americans
Act Amendments of 2000 that were overwhelmingly supported by Congress. We are
working closely with States, grantees, and other interested parties as we
implement the program. The Administration requests $440 million, which will
support 92,000 subsidized part-time jobs for low income Older Americans in
2002.
We also want to thank you for your support of last year's extension of
the Welfare-to-Work program, so that States and other grantees can continue to
serve new workers as they obtain employment and make new lives for themselves
and their families.
Retraining and Adjustment Services to Laid Off
Workers: The Dislocated Worker Employment and Training
Activities provide services to laid off workers to help them quickly return to
work. The FY 2002 request of $1.4 billion for this program reflects a decrease
of $207 million. Combined with the State unexpended carryover, however, this
request will support serving the same number of participants, 927,000 as we
anticipated in FY 2001.
National
Programs
For the Indian and Native American program, the budget includes a
request of $55 million, the same as the 2001 appropriated level, and will serve
about 22,200 adult participants. The 2002 budget request for the Migrant and
Seasonal Farmworker program is $76.8 million, also the same as the 2001
appropriation, and will serve about 41,000 participants.
The Workforce Investment Act authorizes certain activities to help
States and local communities succeed in building the workforce investment
system. A total of $63.5 million is requested for technical assistance, State
incentive grants, evaluations, and pilots, demonstrations and research, to
complete the work of the National Skill Standards Board, and Women in
Apprenticeship. These activities are vital to strengthen and improve the new
workforce investment system - demonstrating new approaches to solving problems
related to the workforce, conducting research, and evaluating what works.
Federal Unemployment Benefits and Allowances: This account
provides funding for the Trade Adjustment Assistance and NAFTA-TAA programs of
income support and training for workers adversely affected by imports from
anywhere in the world and shifts of production to Canada and Mexico. About
36,400 workers will receive benefits. The authorization for these programs
expires on September 30, 2001. Legislation will be proposed at a later date to
extend the programs. For FY 2002, $415.7 million is requested for TAA and
NAFTA-TAA. Of this total, $11 million is requested under current law and $404.7
million will be requested to extend the program.
Workforce Security
Programs
The State Unemployment Insurance and Employment Service programs play a
vital role in this country's economy by providing temporary income support to
eligible unemployed workers while they seek new employment or return to their
previous jobs, and by facilitating the match of job seekers and employers. The
revised FY 2001 level includes an increase of $14.9 million for the States'
Unemployment Insurance (UI) Programs for a projected workload increase. This
increase is being made available under the contingency provision contained in
the FY 2001 appropriation, which releases additional funds if workload goes
above the level specified in the appropriation. The revised funding level for
UI administration is $2.349 billion. The FY 2002 budget request of $2.4 billion
is $50.1 million above the revised FY 2001 level. The increase reflects
expected increases in claims workload under the current economic assumptions.
The Administration plans to examine the unemployment compensation program
carefully over the coming months.
The request for the One-Stop Employment Service (ES) is $796.7 million,
the same level as in FY 2001. The One-Stop ES provides no-fee services to
individuals seeking employment and to employers seeking workers. Also included
is $35 million for Reemployment Services Grants. These grants started in FY
2001 and provide funds through the ES for targeted, staff-assisted services to
UI claimants identified as having a high probability of exhausting their
benefits. These services will speed their reentry into employment and reduce
benefit duration and cost.
The FY 2002 budget request includes $134 million to provide employment
and related information through One-Stop Career Centers for America's Labor
Market Information System (ALMIS). The decrease of $16 million below the FY
2001 level will scale back funding for some 2001 initiatives to maintenance
levels. These investments support our efforts to provide more timely,
universally accessible quality information through the One-Stop system to our
customers-American workers and employers-through the core employment statistics
program, including support for and promotion of the electronic labor exchange
and lifelong learning, and to underwrite the measurement and display of
performance information under the Workforce Investment Act.
Work Incentive Grants: In conjunction with the budget's proposed
increase for the Office of Disability Employment Policy, we propose to continue
Work Incentive Grants at the FY 2001 level of $20 million. These are
competitive grants to partnerships of organizations in the States that help
One-Stops and the WIA system provide the full range of employment and training
services to people with disabilities, to ensure that they benefit from all the
New Economy can provide.
Foreign Labor Certification: The Administration's request also
includes $26.1 million to cover State costs of administering the foreign labor
certification programs, the same as in FY 2001. The Department and the States
will complete the streamlining of, and eliminate backlogs in, the foreign labor
certification programs in FY 2002. Changes to accomplish this include
establishing an employer attestation process, streamlining the application
process, and establishing an audit function.
Program
Administration
Finally, our budget requests $161.1 million for ETA Program
Administration. This represents about 1.5 percent of our total request and is
60 FTE below FY 2001. The request includes two increases above 2001: (1) an
increase of $1,500,000 for procuring contractor services to provide specialized
financial and program performance management information to all levels of ETA
organizations; and (2) $715,000 increase in rent resulting from much higher
rent charges for the San Francisco regional office.
Program Performance and
GPRA
Important ETA performance information may be found in the Department of
Labor Annual Performance Report. I want to discuss the performance of a few of
our larger programs.
I am pleased to report that ETA achieved or substantially achieved all
of our GPRA performance goals. These goals include ensuring that unemployed
workers receive fair Unemployment Insurance benefits eligibility
determinations, and improving employment and wage replacement for dislocated
workers and Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) participants.
Performance under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA)program-the
predecessor to WIA-continued with strong outcomes for all major programs in
employment, wages and retention in PY 1999-the period from July 1, 1999 through
June 30, 2000, the most recently completed performance cycle. In PY 1999, 66
percent of disadvantaged adults who received services under JTPA Title II-A
were employed one quarter after completing program participation with weekly
earnings of $347-exceeding the performance goals of 64 percent employed with
earnings of $292. During the same time period over 80 percent of youth under
Title II-C were employed or obtained advanced education or job skills, compared
to a goal of 77 percent.
We also continue to be pleased with Job Corps' performance in PY 1999.
Eighty-eight percent of Job Corps Graduates were placed in jobs, the military,
or pursued further education. For those placed in jobs, the average starting
wage was $7.49 per hour. This exceeded the performance goals of 75 percent
placement in jobs or education with an average starting wage of $6.50 per
hour.
Another way that we measure our performance is through rigorous
evaluations of our programs. With this Subcommittee's encouragement and
support, we are conducting a long-term national evaluation of the Job Corps
program. I am happy to report that we have just received-in draft-the final
report of this evaluation.
In brief, the study finds that Job Corps works well. The average Job
Corps student receives the equivalent of about one school year of academic and
vocational training that he or she would not get without Job Corps. The program
increases the average earnings of participants and reduces their involvement
with the criminal justice system. It also has small beneficial effects on
welfare receipt and self-assessed health status. The study concludes that the
benefits to society of Job Corps exceed the program's costs.
ETA has revised its annual performance goals to reflect the changes
brought about by the Workforce Investment Act. We now receive quarterly instead
of annual performance outcome information from our grantees. Preliminary but
still incomplete reports from the first two quarters show we're making good
progress against our 2001 goals.
WIA performance levels are the product of individual negotiations with
each State to establish State levels of performance. Over the next few years,
the Department will continue to implement the performance accountability
provisions of the WIA and as data are collected, the WIA goals will be
regularly reviewed to ensure their appropriateness and rigor.
ETA also has undertaken a project to put in place data validity systems
to enhance the accuracy and reliability of program outcome data provided by
grantees. The approach focuses on promoting data quality throughout the
workforce development system by developing clear and consistent data
specifications, designing and testing efficient data validity systems, and
deploying these systems with training and technical assistance for grantees.
The project is expected to be substantially completed in 2002.
Veterans' Employment and Training
Service
The mission of the Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) is
to promote the economic security of America's veterans by reducing unemployment
and underemployment among veterans with service connected disabilities and
other targeted veteran groups, as well as providing the maximum employment and
training opportunities to all veterans and other eligible persons.
In the past year VETS expanded its efforts to reach out to the private
sector by starting initiatives designed to improve the economic status of
veterans and transitioning service members, while helping employers find
applicants with the skills they are looking for in today's labor market. Also,
VETS has been working with other federal agencies, States, labor organizations,
veteran service organizations, employers and others to ensure that the skills
and training acquired by men and women while serving their Nation are
transferable when they leave military service.
VETS has taken the lead in identifying military occupations that need
licenses, certificates or other credentials and is taking action to eliminate
barriers to service members' transition from military service to the civilian
labor market. We now have a new site in the Internet - UMET ("Use your Military
Experience and Training") at: http://www.umet-vets.dol.gov/. UMET provides
separating military personnel with information about those occupations in which
most active duty separations occur and identifies any gaps in experience or
training that may exist that need to be overcome to work in the civilian sector
in that occupation.
VETS also started an information technology project with the Computing
Technologies Industry Association, which is an alliance of about 10,000
companies using information technology that includes IBM, Gateway, Microsoft,
Novell, Best Buy and CompUSA. The project recruits veterans recently separated
from the military; assesses their interest and skill level for a potential
career in information technology; provides occupational skills training and
certification; and places these veterans into information technology jobs.
Three months after placement a follow-up occurs. We are planning to expand this
information technology certification project from three states, California,
Texas, Virginia to Florida and other States upon completion of a project
review.
The funds you provided in FY 2000 resulted in more than 496,000
veterans, including 31,000 service-connected disabled veterans, entering
employment with help from the One-Stop ES. Of these, our VETS-funded positions,
specialists under the Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program (DVOP) helped 139,000
veterans find jobs, of which 17,000 were service-connected disabled veterans.
Local Veterans' Employment Representatives (LVERs), the other funded positions,
helped 150,000 veterans and other eligible persons find employment. VETS'
support of the VA's Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment program
continued, resulting in 4,433 of their referrals being placed into jobs.
VETS is also trying to help DVOP and LVER staff serve veterans by
improving their information about job opportunities. VETS is seeking to
identify a larger number of Federal contractors and subcontractors and maintain
information on hiring sites and new contract information from the Commerce
Business Daily and the Federal Data Procurement System to make it available to
DVOP and LVER staff. Having access to this information helps increase job
development contacts and personal visits to contractors.
Funds you provided for Licensing and Certification pilots and efforts
enabled VETS to continue to fund and expand PROVET (Providing
Re-employment Opportunities for
Veterans). PROVET is an employer-focused job development and
placement program that focuses on screening, matching and placing job ready
transitioning service members into career-building jobs. Our Tennessee PROVET
has been very successful in that some wages at placements are close to $100,000
when annualized. A different PROVET approach has started in Texas for the
trucking industry. PROVET efforts are being expanded to other States.
The Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Project helped more than 1,800
homeless veterans into jobs with the funding provided in FY 1999. The Veterans'
Workforce Investment Program enabled 2,200 veterans to find jobs through
training programs. With the funding provided and the combined efforts of DVOPs,
LVERs, VETS' employees and federal contractor staff who helped facilitate
Transition Assistance Program (TAP) workshops throughout the Nation resulted in
more than 121,000 separating service members receiving intensive job-search
training.
Funds provided for Federal Administration supported TAP, USERRA,
Veteran's Preference, Marketing and grants' administration functions. VETS'
employees monitored our grants and provided technical assistance to our
grantees to attain maximum program effectiveness and meet our outcome goals.
They also received and processed veterans' reemployment rights complaints filed
under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA),
closing 981 complaints in FY 2000 and recovering over $1.3 million for
complainants from public and private sector employers. From the total closed,
886 (90 percent) were closed in 90 days or less. Additionally, they closed 346
federal veteran's preference claims during the year.
VETS' staff also administered the VETS-100 reporting system under the
Federal Contractor Program, and made available through the Internet information
on which Federal Contractors had filed the requisite VETS-100 to procurement
officials government-wide.
The funds provided for the National Veterans' Training Institute (NVTI)
resulted in the training of 1,569 veteran service providers. Also, NVTI
presented its Veterans' Orientation Program workshop in many States to One-Stop
Career Center staff and WIA service providers.
Highlights of The FY 2002 Budget Request - VETS
The Agency's FY 2002 request of $211.7 million, which includes $186.9
million from the Employment Security account in the Unemployment Trust Fund and
$24,800,000 from the general fund is designed to promote the maximum employment
and training opportunities for veterans, and to protect the employment and
reemployment rights of veterans and other eligibles. These funds help support
the armed forces in recruiting, retaining and its ability to deploy military
personnel rapidly and effectively. In the Departmental effort, a key concern is
to make sure that veterans and others that have served in the armed forces are
not left behind in the civilian economy.
VETS' request includes five activities: (1) State Grants, which are
further divided between the DVOP and the LVER programs; (2) Administration,
which includes funding for the TAP for separating service members; the
investigation and resolution of USERRA claims from veterans, Reservists and
National Guard members; investigation of complaints filed by veterans who
believe federal agencies denied them the requisite veterans' preference in
applying for Federal jobs; and funding for VETS' grant administration
operations; (3) Veterans' Workforce Investment Program (VWIP) grants; (4)
Homeless Veterans Reintegration Project grants; and (5) NVTI, which provides
training to Federal and State employees and managers involved in the delivery
of services to veterans. The funds requested from the Unemployment Trust Fund
must also provide benefits to the employers that support the public employment
service system. Funds also are requested from general revenues for employment
and training programs for veterans under the WIA Veterans Workforce Investment
Program, which replaced the Job Training Partnership Act, and the Homeless
Veterans' Reintegration Project.
State Grants - DVOP/LVER
DOL requests a total of $158.9 million for DVOP and LVER
grants-to-States, the same amount as provided in FY 2001. Efforts will continue
to support and enhance Federal contractor and subcontractor identification and
targeting efforts and support of recently separated veterans through licensing
and certification efforts. VETS will place renewed emphasis on case management
services to disabled veterans and veterans enrolled in WIA training. VETS will
also start monitoring the retention in employment of veterans who enter
employment after registering for services by the public labor exchange
system.
The request for the LVER program is $77.3 million, which will support
about 1,233 positions and result in about 137,000 veterans helped into jobs.
LVER staff will get more involved in Transition Assistance Program workshop
efforts and will place more emphasis on customized job development for veteran
clients. LVERs will provide functional oversight of services provided to
veterans by the One-Stop Career Centers and other service delivery locations.
The request for the DVOP is $81.6 million, which will support about 1,385
positions and will result in another 127,000 veterans, including close to
20,000 special disabled veterans, getting jobs. DVOP staff will provide staff
intensive services, including case management to disabled and other veterans
with multiple employment barriers. VETS has asked states to monitor and curtail
overhead costs to enable maintaining the DVOP and LVER staff needed to provide
adequate coverage Nationwide.
VETS Administration
The request includes $26 million for the administration of the Veterans'
Employment and Training Service. This funding level is sufficient to support
250 employees. VETS' employees provide oversight for the DVOP and LVER, HVRP
and VWIP grants; investigate USERRA and veteran's preference complaints from
veterans.
Veterans' Workforce Investment Program
The Department is requesting $7.3 million for the Veterans Workforce
Investment Program (VWIP). We will compete most of the funds among States. The
rest of the funds will be used to provide specialized and targeted services and
also research and demonstration projects. Overall, VETS will process, award and
monitor up to 30 grants to various service providers, resulting in more than
2,240 eligible veterans getting jobs after receiving training and other
supportive services.
Homeless Veterans Reintegration Project
The request includes $17.5 million for the Homeless Veterans
Reintegration Project - a program to make sure that homeless veterans are not
left behind. The funds provided will support services to more than 18,000
homeless veterans and the placement of about 10,000 in jobs through competitive
grants and special projects such as stand-downs in partnership with the
Department of Veterans' Administration.
The National Veterans' Training Institute
A total of $2 million is requested for the National Veterans' Training
Institute (NVTI), which provides training to Federal and State employees and
managers involved in the delivery of services to veterans. The funding will
support more than 63 classes and enable NVTI to train more than 1,400 service
providers. The training institute is an extremely effective instrument for
significantly improving both the quality and quantity of services provided to
veterans. NVTI has proven efficient at quickly meeting new training needs as
they arise, such as with TAP, USERRA, veteran's preference, grants management,
and case management.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes our written testimony. We will be glad to
answer any questions you may have.
|