MonticelloLive

Arkansas’s economic success in the 21st century will depend upon our ability to create, attract, and sustain an educated and skilled workforce and to provide an environment that supports innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. Workforce development plays a key role in our ability to accomplish these goals. Yet, we face dire cutbacks at the hands of the federal government.

Workforce Centers across our State function as part of a larger network of state and federal programs that provide support training and retraining for unemployed and underemployed Arkansans. Yet, the federal Department of Labor let us know in January that it would be rescinding funds for the Workforce Investment Act by $250 million nationwide. What is worse, we didn’t get the breakdown of cuts to states until March 26, when we learned that $4.3 million for Arkansas programs would be eliminated. This is not just a funding cut; it is a rescission of funds, meaning that the loss of monies is retroactive to those already committed to workforce-training programs going back six months before we were even told.

Thursday, the Department of Workforce Services and the Arkansas Workforce Investment Board were forced to begin presenting the reduction amounts for each of the ten Local Workforce Investment Areas in our State. This is a staggering blow to our economic-development initiatives.

This situation reflects a gross failure of authority in Washington. The Bush administration and Congress decided to withhold monies that were already committed. Virtually every penny of the money the federal government is taking back was already obligated for training contracts with colleges and institutions to help unemployed and underemployed Arkansans get jobs. Bills are going to come due and the funds allocated to pay them will have disappeared in one fell swoop.

This rescission could result in Arkansans losing the training services promised to them. It could mean the temporary closing of local workforce offices or forced employee furloughs and layoffs there. It is anticipated that more than 1,900 individuals will either receive fewer benefits or no benefits at all. Some locations will no longer provide summer youth-employment programs, programs aimed at getting kids off the streets and into careers. It will certainly impose a long-term, negative impact on the confidence of workers, employers, and potential employers in workforce-development programs all across Arkansas.

Washington just can’t get its priorities in line. The monies depleted for these workforce-development programs in Arkansas could be paid for by what we are spending in Iraq in the next 24 minutes. I support our troops; that is not an issue. But the Bush administration is rescinding funds for programs that help our returning veterans get job skills to re-enter the workforce, helps workers who’ve been laid off gain new skills for new jobs, and helps the underemployed and unemployed obtain better jobs and get off taxpayer assistance.

The timing of this rescission couldn’t be worse. Amidst predictions of national economic downturn, the federal government cuts the very kind of workforce development that is vital to spurring the economy. Who was thinking about the plight of the laid-off worker in Searcy or the 18-year-old, high school graduate in Stuttgart when bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., decided to pull back support for workforce development?

I am working with our Congressional Delegation who have committed to work aggressively, however possible, to help right this situation.

Although the Bush Administration put the future of Arkansas’s workforce at-risk, I will continue to strive for a close integration of education and economic-development policies to provide a focus on lifelong learning so Arkansans who want a better job can get one.

To find out more about this rescission and what it means for our State, call the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services at (501) 371-1085.