California Community College - Local Workforce Investment Board Partnership

Removing Barriers For LWIB/College Partnership

A 2012 law mandated that local workforce investment boards (LWIB) spend 25% of their est. $400M budget on training. While there are some robust relationships between LWIBs and colleges, LWIBs largely spend these funds with private trade schools. The California Workforce Investment Board (CWIB) State Leadership Group -- a coordinating body of state agencies on which I serve -- had identified it a public policy to foster better working relationships between the workforce system and our community colleges in order to better use public funds. Field feedback identified the Employment Training Provider List (ETPL) as a barrier to partnership, with many community colleges unable to provide training because of the lengthy application process required to qualify. In the August CWIB meeting, a new policy was adopted to make college programs with 70%+ placement rates automatically ETLP-qualified. This action, accompanied by the national directive enabling LWIBs to procure cohorts from colleges, clear the way for local/regional partnerships. The implementation details are being put in place. One Regional Consortia -- such as the one under SDICCCA -- is already working to form MOUs with their LWIBs to take advantage of this future opportunity. LWIBs associated with your region can be found under the Interactive Map within the Doing What MATTERS web site. LWIBs have also prioritized their sectors (found here).

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