OVERSIGHT HEARING ON JOB TRAINING PARTNERSHIP ACT Part 2 FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 1985 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES, Montebello, CA. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in the city council room, Montebello City Hall, Montebello, CA, Hon. Matthew G. Martinez presiding. Members present: Representatives Martinez and Hayes. Staff present: Eric Jensen, acting staff director; Genevieve Galbreath, chief clerk/staff assistant; and Dr. Beth Buehlmann, Republican staff director for education. Mr. MARTINEZ. This is the meeting of the Subcommittee on Employment Opportunities, which has oversight over the JTPA Program. The purpose of this meeting is to find out from those people who are actually involved in the implementation of JTPA just how the program is working and what we can do in ways of improving the program. Through this testimony we'll hopefully find some of the answers to the questions that have been asked at other hearings, and which probably will be raised here again today. I'm pleased to welcome all of you to this subcommittee meeting. It's the second oversight hearing on the Job Training Partnership Act this year. This morning's hearing will focus on the local and State-level implementation of the act, and we are fortunate to have with us some State and local officials from throughout the State of California. These people have had a direct involvement with the program's implementation and know first hand of its problems and success. The concerns of today's witnesses will help us, those of us on the subcommittee and those of us in Congress, in determining the progress of JTPA. As chairman of the subcommittee, I'm extremely concerned that our Nation's economically disadvantaged workers receive the resources necessary to compete in today's labor market. In the past 2 years, thousands of individuals have been placed in unsubsidized employment as a result of this act. Of this number, 90 percent were economically disadvantaged. Here in my district, where Hispanic unemployment is more than 50 percent higher than the national average, and where the Hispanic dropout rate (1) has surpassed 50 percent, the services offered under JTPA cannot be underscored. In the face of the threatened budget cuts in Job Training Programs, an effective implementation of JTPA has become increasingly more important. Currently only a very small percentage of those eligible for the program are being served. It is necessary that we in Congress continue to monitor the progress of JTPA in order that the Act's mandate of serving our Nation's unemployed is fulfilled. As a former State assemblyman and mayor of Monterey Park, I am aware of the vital role which you on the local and State level play in the implementation of the program. We look forward to hearing your testimonies which will help us evaluate JTPA's progress in assisting those most in need gain unsubsidized employment. We have today with us the very honorable Senator Bill Greene, a very good friend of mine. After I left the State Assembly I had five bills pending in the Senate, Bill presented the bills on the floor and got them out for me. I thank him for that effort because those were important bills. [Discussion off the record.] Mr. MARTINEZ. All right, Bill. I want to ask that immediately following your testimony that you join us up here on the panel. Senator GREENE. Thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. MARTINEZ. With that, why don't you proceed? STATEMENT OF STATE SENATOR (CALIFORNIA) BILL GREENE Senator GREENE. Congressman-Mr. Chairman, let me thank you very much. It's a distinct privilege to be here, and particularly appearing before the committee which is chaired by yourself, and as you say we made history, and it was exactly 46 days after you had been a Member of Congress that I-well, I guess you got it in your first paycheck. Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes. Senator GREENE [continuing]. That the Governor signed your bill, and it was a distinct honor, and one time I thought I ought to take your name off and put my name on these bills, but then I decided not to harm-I will tell you this: I did brag about it in my newsletter to my district, so-and Congressman Hayes, let me welcome you also to California. I really feel a very closeness to this body, because my Congressman formerly held the seat that you now hold. He is now Chair of the parent committee, and I might also say that you and I came into politics with Congressman Dymally, and I guess I would have to say Dymally and now State Treasurer Unruh are responsible for my political being. I've always patterned myself or attempted to pattern myself after Congressman Hawkins, after Gus. In fact, it's because of that and my own feeling, and of course the district that I represent that I focus most of my legislative work into this area. And not only do I feel close to this law, where one section of the law was borrowed from our State law, but I also was involved many years ago in-I guess it's the very opposite, in some of the— well, when we first started talking about full employment, at that time I was a staff person. And Gus Hawkins had not yet gone to Congress. He was running for Congress, and we used to sit around at night and talk about the rights that accrued to individuals, and all of a sudden we hit on the idea, you know, having a job for anyone that follows the system, for anyone that takes the route that the system outlines, and after you go through that cycle you then have a right or an opportunity for gainful employment. And of course that culminated in the Full Employment Act, and you know, it's really a coincidence how you can see the peripheral history, because full employment figure was first introduced in Washington by former President Harry S Truman, and I was born and raised in Kansas City, MO. So you know, I see a lot of parallels running throughout this entire series of events, and I really feel very close to the thinking of this body, and of course the membership and the leadership of it. Let me start by saying that my remarks here for the record will be from my posture as chairman of the Senate Committee on Industrial Relations, which I chaired since 1977. I went to the Senate in 1975, replacing Mervyn Dymally. In 1977, I was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Industrial Relations. The following year, and all of this will tie together, I was on the Finance Committee when I first went to the Senate. I then was made chairman of one of the subcommittees of what at that time was the Senate Finance Committee. We are now the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, and that is something that I'm also proud of, because my Industrial Relations Committee was the first policy committee in the Senate to be authorized to do continual and ongoing oversight. That authorization not only coming from the Democratic body, but with the concurrence of my Republican members as well, we then developed that idea to some degree and that now is the practice of the Finance Committee, and I also am proud that I contributed something to that transition because it's something that we need. And we're now split into a Committee on Appropriations, which handles new funding, and then the subcommittees, which have the budget, handle the budget, or Budget and Fiscal Review, and that includes ongoing and continual oversight. Let me say that in my posture as a subcommittee chairman I make the decisions in the Senate on $8 billion, $8.1 billion in fact, of the State's budget, this year $35.2 billion. One of my areas of charge is industrial relations, which includes all training programs, all jobs programs, even such as unemployment compensation, workmen's compensation. And my remarks here today are from that posture as a chairman of a Policy Committee and chairman of a Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, and will be from that posture, observations that we have made up to this point, and what our hopes are and what we think we see, and obviously dealing with things that even the legislature might do and hopefully maybe some hints to you. Let me say firstly that for many of the people in the audience, I think many of my remarks will be the first time they heard them. We understand from our research that there's quite a bit of discussion about us up and down State for various reasons. And I think that maybe my remarks will be informative, if not educational to some of the persons here. We at this time are not able to comment at all on how the Job Training Partnership Act is working at the local levels. We have not had opportunity to get into that. We have not had opportunity to extend our oversight into that, so my remarks will be limited only to that research and what we're able to glean from the State perspective. However, let me indicate that our interim study activity when we break in September will be to initiate our first oversight into what is happening in the SDA's, and what is happening with the local PIC's. So in view of the fact that we are not educated and equipped to comment on that, we hear some good reports, we hear some mixed reports and we hear some reports that have puzzled us, but I would not dare mention them because we had not looked into them ourselves and therefore are not qualified to comment on them. Here in California we're unique. We have succeeded in establishing a foundation in this area which fortunately-well, it isn't by mistake. As I said, Gus Hawkins, my Congressman, and I have been well tuned in for years to his thinking, and fortunately my thinking has gone along the same lines, we have in addition to just on our books work-sharing, employment training panel. We had, and we expect to return in some fashion, the California Work-Study Education and Training Act. In fact, JTPA and the direction of JTPA offers an opportunity to pull that in. Work-sharing on our books has tended to hold those people who are in the work force, who are in industries that are facing downturns where the reductions in work forces or what have you has tended to hold those individuals on the job, to hold them in their job capacities, to provide our employment community which has an experienced work force which is not very hard to be retrained at the next time that the economy turns up. So that is one category of policy that we have on the books. We additionally have what is known as the employment training panel. I might stipulate that we're very proud here in California, and I might say I'm the author of that bill, is we are the first in the Nation to take UI, unemployment compensation, funding and fold that back over into the system, fold those dollars back over into the system. It is not necessary to utilize any general funding in this regard except for the administration of the employment development department, which_administers that program. It's not necessary for us to utilize any Federal funding for this. Work-sharing stands on its own, and additionally training can be incorporated in that. To that degree it provides an interlock with the Job Training Partnership Act. Additionally, we have on our books here in the-we put that on the books in 1978 here in California. In addition to that, we have the employment training panel. The employment training panel does identically the same thing. We take those UI dollars and we fold them back into the system. Employment training panel funding, employment training panel programs are only for those persons who are just fresh out of the work force. They've had some acquaintance, they've had some longevity, they've had some earnings in the work force. That is to qualify for UI funding, rather than those people having to compete out in the general system of training, rather for those people to have to compete with new entrants. We have a closed-loop system which provides training for those individuals. That also can be interfaced with the Job Training and Partnership Act, specifically as it relates to the section which relates to dislocated workers. For economic disadvantaged it would not work. It's not intended to work there, because those persons in the main are where they have had some earnings in the work force where they have earned some UI credits, so obviously, to that degree there's an interlock. But if they are new entrants into the work force, if they are welfare recipients, if they're just out of school, if they're new here in the State we have no link up for them under the employment training panel, and obviously they would have to go the Job Training Partnership Act route. Additionally, here in California and temporarily off the books only, although the authorization is there, the California WorkStudy Education and Training Act, and that is where the employers can upgrade these skills of their employees while they are still employed by the employer. I'm proud and happy to say that in the initial buildup in Silicon Valley and the San Jose-Santa Clara area the statistics showed that close to 32 percent of the training, and specifically that which was provided by employers interfacing with community colleges or employers getting the community colleges to do the training in their stead, that was financed under the California Work-Study Education and Training Act. Obviously here in California we also have what is known as FESA. I know you're going to hear a great deal about FESA. There is confusion up and down the State as to the meaning of FESA. Let me indicate to you very simply and very succinctly, FESA stands for the Family Economic Security Act. This piece of legislation was offered by my then counterpart in the-you know him, Bill Lockyer. That was before Bill came over to the Senate, and when he chaired the assembly labor committee. The idea of FESA, I might stipulate also, which was drafted, and we moved it through in tandem, with your enactment of the Job Training Partnership Act. In fact, my staff, since the Lockyer was on the phone almost daily with Congressman Hawkins' office, with Senator Orrin Hatch's office, as we developed that. In fact, the last-minute language changes were made in the Family Economic Security Act, I think, on the Senate side, and I think no more than 8 or 9 days before you took your final floor action on the final markup of the Job Training Partnership Act. And our intent here, and what our scheme was, and what our foundation was, was to put more direct provisions into the law as relates to aid to families with dependent children, as relates to persons who are-have been or are on welfare who would be going into the Job Training Partnership Act. In fact, in that legislation we also enlarged the coordinating council, for example, to bring in additional membership, drafted to |