Governor's Workforce Policy Board
Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, September 27, 2000

At 10:20 a.m., Chairman Michael Summers called the meeting to order and welcomed those present.

In attendance: Donna Maria Alvarado, The Honorable John E. Barnes, Jr., Richard H. Brown, Dr. Deborah Bingham Catri, Roderick G. W. Chu, The Honorable Martha H. Dorsey, The Honorable Linda J. Furney, Linda L. Gentile, Patricia A. Grischow, Ann B. Higdon, Ed Jackson, Joan W. Lawrence, Douglas Lay, Peggy Mativi, J. Luke McCormick, James B. McGregor, Sr., The Honorable Darrell W. Miller, Curtis E. Moll, Jr., Robert L. Rabe, Jacqueline Romer-Sensky, Jodie L. Stearns, Peter S. Strange, Chairman Michael P. Summers, Stu Vosler, Paul Worstell, Dr. Ron D. Wright, and Bruce A. Wyngaard.

Absent: Carol L. Ball, Dr. Joseph J. Christen, The Honorable Robert A. Gardner, The Honorable Bill Harris, Robert A. Hill, Jr., The Honorable Nancy Hollister, C. Lee Johnson, David W. Johnson, Alan A. Mayne, The Honorable George M. McKelvey, Kyle McKnight, Keith Molihan, Patricia A. Moss, Patricia R. Nowak, Bradley R. Ohlemacher, John W. Partridge, The Honorable Vicki D. Pegg, David C. Phillips, Robert F. Reichert, Myron Robinson, Gary L. Schaeffer, Ernest L. Sullivan, Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton, Rebecca S. Tracey, Lee Wilkins, Robert C. Winzeler, Jr., Jacqueline F. Woods, and Dr. Susan Tave Zelman.

Chairman Summers began his remarks by thanking Board members for their hard work.

He said that he did a lot of thinking over the summer and developed a list of those items that constitute the Board’s role. Items listed were:

• create a big vision. The Board has already accomplished this;
• set strategic goals;
• support the work of the local boards;
• build strong consensus among the private sector members and communicate this consensus to government executives;
• look ahead;
• marshal resources for the Board’s goals;
• create an honest and realistic scorecard to measure against the Board’s goals;
• keep things moving forward;
• identify misalignment with the Board’s goals and create strategies for alignment;
• provide peer-to-peer communication among board members;
• recognize the Board’s social obligations to improve skills, especially among those in the lowest economic tier; and
• believe in the Board’s goals and vision and "make them ours. "

After reviewing the meeting agenda, Chairman Summers announced the Ohio Department of Job and Family Service (ODJFS) Director Jacqueline Romer-Sensky had empowered the Governor’s Workforce Policy Board to direct spending of the Workforce Investment Act’s (WIA) 15 percent " set aside " funds. This new authority will allow the Board to target $10 million annually to Board priorities.

The chairman also announced the Operations Committee will evaluate Ohio’s One-Stop systems and take the lead in how to best target the 15 percent set aside funds and to set parameters.

To begin discussion on the Board’s proposed objectives and goals, Chairman Summers told the full Board that the Business Caucus, along with representatives of organized labor and veterans, met the previous evening to reconcile those objectives and goals submitted to-date. The discussion that evening led to modification of the Business Caucus’s proposed objectives and goals to include those submitted by organized labor and veterans.

The chairman then asked the Board to consider these proposed objectives and goals as " starting points " in the discussion process. He asked each committee to take one of these and to begin refining them during the scheduled committee sessions. The modified objectives proposed to the full Board were as follows:

I    Objective 1 (Chairman Jim McGregor)

Link learning with career opportunities to meet business needs within the context of the local economies.

Goal 1: Identify $100 million to fund teacher externships over the next five years.

Goal 2: Working with educators and parents, business will lead in the development of a career exploration plan for K-12 students.

II    Objective 2 (Chairman Joe Christen)

Create significant alignment of workforce resources and development with economic needs and desired objectives of the local community.

Goal 1: Each local board will identify the top 10 industry clusters particular to their community requirements.

Goal 2: Identify and plan for human resource needs to support the success of those industries. Creation and dissemination of a planning template.

Goal 3: Define a measure of alignment to align at least 50% of workforce development resources with top 10 economic development priorities.

Goal 4: The promotion of quality training linked to good jobs. (Labor Objective 1)

III    Objective 3 (Chairman Ernie Sullivan)

Upgrade and seek continuous improvement of knowledge, skills and abilities of incumbent workers to both increase competitiveness of Ohio businesses and the economic security of Ohio’s workforce.

Goal 1: Seek in the next biennial budget $100 million to be used to assist employers with providing training for incumbent workers. Training will be directed at portable skills.

Goal 2: Implement a business-led Baldridge based provider quality evaluation system for programs targeted to incumbent workers.

Goal 3: Recognize and leverage the mandated training and funding for veterans in Ohio. (Veteran Objective)

[Labor’s Objective 4: The enforcement of state and local procedures and requirements for WIB composition, which help to insure full public participation in the planning and implementation process. See Labor’s letter dated September 15, 2000]

IV    Objective 4 (Chairman Stu Vosler)

Ohioworks.com is the industry standard for job matching.

Goal 1: By the end of 2001, 100,000 Ohio employers will be registered on Ohioworks.com

Goal 2: Increase the use of and customer satisfaction with Ohioworks.com

* Performance Evaluation Committee (Chairman Dave Phillips) will address labors objective 3: To create a statewide assessment system that provides state and local workforce boards with information needed to help weed out the bad programs from the good and to assist WIA customers in making informed choices about job placement, training and service options. (See Labor’s letter dated September 15, 2000).

** The Operations Committee (Chairman Luke McCormick) will address the One-stop issues and Board Affairs.

There was general discussion on each of the proposed objectives. This discussion included suggested language changes and the comparison of proposed funding levels for certain goals.

During the discussion, Chairman Summers asked Bruce Wyngaard to provide comments regarding his thoughts about the proposed objectives and goals. Chairman Summers also noted that previous comments from the agricultural community were not included in the draft objectives and goals, and therefore, asked Jodi Stearns to make some comments.

Wyngaard stated there was good dialogue at the Business Caucus meeting, and that there were parallel and mutual interests between those items submitted. He further stated that participants of the Business Caucus meeting did a good job of melding the objectives and goals.

Stearns told the Board that finding large quantities of workers for the agriculture industry is very important and needs to be addressed. She said Ohio is competing with other states for workers and other industries are luring away workers that Ohio’s agriculture industry recruited to the state.

Following these comments, Chairman Summers again stressed the proposed objectives and goals are not complete and need additional work.

ODJFS Director Jacqueline Romer-Sensky stated that her role in the state budget process made her feel uncomfortable with the specific dollar figures included in the proposed goals. She further stated that she didn ’ t want her vote for the " spirit " of the proposed objectives and goals to be construed as meaning that she supports the specific dollar amounts contained in them. Chairman Summers responded that her affirmative vote would be interpreted as being in support of the " spirit " of the proposed objectives and goals.

Douglas Lay made a motion to accept the proposed objectives and goals. Stu Vosler seconded the motion. The motion passed with Rep. John Barnes abstaining.

Ohio Board of Regents (BOR) Chancellor Roderick G. W. Chu presented information to the Board regarding the BOR’s request for funding of a new workforce development initiative.

Chu said this new initiative conforms to the Board’s goal of finding " breakthrough " ideas for improving Ohio’s economy and workforce. The initiative is designed to:

• achieve breakthrough results to secure Ohio’s future economic growth;
• improve student and teacher achievement through K-16 collaboration; and
• better educate more Ohioans by increasing core support.
• The three workforce-related components of this plan are:
• The IT Guarantee (funding request: $9 million in 2002 and $23 million in 2003);
• The Jobs Challenge (funding request: $27 million in 2002 and $32.8 million in 2003); and

The Ohio Plan for Technological & Economic Development (funding request: $150 million each year).

Elements of this plan include: providing for the continuous improvement of incumbent workers ’ skills; providing free information technology training to Ohio’s workforce; creating new skill assessment centers; and supporting research, development, and commercialization of new ideas, products, and services.

Chancellor Chu concluded his presentation by saying he wants the BOR’s plan to be in alignment with the Board’s goals, and that the Board has a choice to make its voice heard.

Chairman Summers asked Ernie Sullivan’s committee to review the plan.

Sen. Linda Furney expressed concern that there are four or five other committees and commissions currently looking at issues that overlap with the Board’s work and their appears to be no coordination, collaboration or discussion between the groups. After a brief discussion Chairman Summers asked ODJFS Deputy Director John Schuster to stay tuned with the other groups and keep abreast of their activities.

J.C. Wallace of the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) made a presentation on AdvanceOhio.

Noting that other states really haven’t looked at the functions of their workforce development systems, AdvanceOhio is a new model that looks at each employment sector and matches it to existing resources.

According to Wallace, this new model will help the State avoid " recreating the wheel " with regards to providing information on resources that help employers. AdvanceOhio will provide information on: strategic research, financial support for employers and students, industry-specific training programs and services, core education programs and services, career information, employee and student recruitment, and employee support services.

Wallace concluded his remarks by noting that AdvanceOhio will help better coordinate economic development and workforce development activities.

Chairman Summers asked that Board members break into new committees to discuss and begin work on each of the Board’s adopted objectives and goals. He also asked that constituent groups briefly caucus so they could coordinate having representatives in as many of the committee meetings as possible.

At 12:55 p.m., the Board recessed for committee meetings and lunch.

The Board reconvened at 2:47 p.m.

Book: Ohio ’s Workforce Agencies and Programs

ODJFS Director Jacqueline Romer-Sensky began the afternoon session by introducing the book titled Ohio ’ s Workforce Agencies and Programs . Director Romer-Sensky said the book identified most of the known programs and resources dedicated to employment and training, except for tax credits. She noted that $1.2 billion was spent on employment and training in 1999.

Ohio Department of Aging Director Joan Lawrence announced that Governor Bob Taft is sponsoring the Governor’s Summit: The Healthcare Worker Shortage Crisis in November. The purpose of this conference is to address acute worker shortages that are hampering the healthcare industry’s ability to provide adequate care in Ohio.

Peter Strange reported the following:

• transitional workers should be included in the strategy for incumbent training;
• the Board needs to start with the end goals in mind;
• employer participation and commitment are key factors;
• sustainability and worker participation are very important; and
• the Board needs to know where the new jobs are coming from.

Jim McGregor reported the following:

• incumbent worker training is much bigger than externships;
• the Board needs to see what programs currently exist before anything new is started;
• parental involvement is critical;
• AdvanceOhio helps tie everything together;
• the committee discussed Chancellor Chu’s presentation;
• the committee wants to see how the Board of Regents and the Ohio Department of Education work together; and
• the State needs to re-align how it spends resources.

Stu Volser reported the following:

• the committee discussed AdvanceOhio and how the State can give local boards a handle on this information; and
• there needs to be a realignment and amassing of resources; and
• the State should work with each industry association to conduct a gap analysis in each industry area.

Donna Alvarado reported the following:

• the committee received an update on Ohioworks.com;
• the committee will have two sub-committees, a users group and a marketing group;

Director Romer-Sensky and her staff will develop proposed standards of accountability to determine if the system is meeting customer needs; and

Director Romer-Sensky will provide periodic updates in enhancements, patterns of use, and how Ohioworks.com fits into the entire system.

Luke McCormick reported the following:

• the committee appreciated the input of Beth Winegar (WIA Local Area 7/41), who provided a local perspective on implementation issues;
• the committee discussed what kinds of data are needed to work on subsequent eligibility issues (i.e. what is the minimum amount of information needed to determine the quality of training?);
• the committee discussed that there needs to be some decision on outcomes for one-stop systems; and
• there is a need for cross-functional teams to move away from turf issues.

John Schuster, Deputy Director of the Office of Workforce Development, ODJFS, reported the statewide WIA conference for local board leaders was rescheduled for Thursday, December 14, 2000.

The event will take place at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus. Futurist Ed Barlow will be the keynote speaker and Dick Judy will serve as the luncheon speaker. The breakout sessions are still being developed.

Schuster was asked to put together packets regarding industry clusters for each local area so local boards can make decisions based on scientific information.

The next meeting of the Governor’s Workforce Policy Board will be scheduled for Wednesday, December 13, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The Board adjourned at 3:35 p.m.