Sen. English to push broad workforce education legislation

Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, will present a package of workforce education bills that will reorganize the state’s career education programs under the Department of Career Education, create a $10 million Office of Skills Development, and do away with the service territories that restrict recruitment efforts by the state’s two-year colleges.

Legislation addressing the workforce changes is expected to be introduced late Thursday or on Friday. The bills will beef up the Department of Career Education and place many of the state’s career education efforts under the department. That department will coordinate what she said is a fragmented, disorganized system that doesn’t do a good job accounting for millions of dollars in state and federal funds.

English, the chair of the Senate Education Committee, met weekly during much of 2014 with state education and economic development officials after switching her vote from no to yes on the private option during last year’s fiscal session.

“We identified probably $150 million worth of training programs going on out there that nobody has any idea what ever happens,” she said.

She said when Whirlpool closed its last offices in Fort Smith, the U.S. Department of Labor spent more than $2 million that can’t now be accounted for.

“We have no idea what ever happened – who got trained, why, where they are, did they get a better job, did they find a job? Well, we have millions of dollars like that,” she said.

The Office of Skills Development will be funded with about $10 million cobbled together by Gov. Mike Beebe after she switched her vote on the private option, she said. It will set up an incumbent worker training program where current smaller employers can apply for competitive 50-50 grants. English said it will help smaller companies without adequate resources to upgrade employee skills.

Another part of the legislation would do away with the service territories limiting community colleges from recruiting outside their own geographic regions.

“It’s called competition, and if you’ve got the best HVAC program or the best whatever program, you ought to be able to go out and recruit people to come to it,” English said.

English spent her career in economic development and has made workforce development her legislative priority. Those efforts dovetail with a push by the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce to emphasize the issue. Earlier this week, Chamber CEO Randy Zook told Talk Business & Politics that the Chamber plans a multi-million campaign to raise awareness about the issue.

English said many of the needed changes require more of a change in mindset than a change in legislation. K-12 public education and higher ed are a significant part of the state budget, but she said they don’t coordinate well, and there’a large student population in the middle that doesn’t fit into either.

“My goal is to get everybody to start talking together,” she said.

She also said business leaders need to play a bigger role as a component of continuing career education. English is proposing a board of 10 private industry sector representatives who will give guidance to state officials on what industry needs are throughout the state.

“We need to be responding to their needs,” English said.

She also emphasized that Arkansas has to send a signal of confidence to new companies it’s recruiting that the state will help them with workforce training in the beginning and throughout their growth in state.

“We need to tell industry that not only are we interested in them coming here, but we want to be able to tell them we want to help them grow their businesses, and we have to help grow the businesses we’ve already got,” she said.