WIA Reauthorization

House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN) indicated one of the first legislative priorities of the Committee under the new Congress will be to resume efforts from last year to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 expired in 2003, but programs authorized by the act have continued to receive funds through annual appropriations by Congress.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce passed a bill last summer, H.R. 4297 the Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012; however the bill did not come before the House for a vote. The bill will likely be reintroduced in the coming weeks and will move through the Committee quickly.

The bill last year moved through the Committee last year by a vote of 23 to 15, and will likely face the same opposition from the House Minority on the Committee with many objecting to the consolidation of programs and funding, expressing concern the bill could shift resources from underserved populations.

The Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012 proposed consolidating funding from twenty-seven national and state-administered workforce programs, including: WIA Adult, WIA Dislocated Workers and WIA Youth, Job Corps, the Senior Community Service Employment Program, and a section of the Wagner-Peyser Act into a new Workforce Investment Fund that would be distributed by formula to states and local areas. 

In addition to consolidation of the 27 national and state-administered workforce programs, H.R. 4297 would have made the changes in the State Set-aside, eliminate the current state Local Veterans Employment Representative (LVER) and Disabled Veterans Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists and replace them with a Veteran Employment Specialist (VES) who would be hired by a local area, and repeal sections 1 through 13 of the Wagner-Peyser Act.