Congressional Testimony

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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.