Congress Proposes New CR, Does Not Include WIOA Reauthorization

Dec. 19, 2024 — Late this afternoon, Congress released a new draft of the Continuing Resolution (CR) to continue funding the government through March 14. This new bill does not contain A Stronger Workforce for America Act (ASWA), which would have reauthorized the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) through 2030. (Note: This is a reversal from the initial CR released earlier this week, which included ASWA, after the CR was criticized by conservative members of Congress and President-elect Trump for the many extraneous provisions that had been added, effectively killing the proposal.)

The new CR includes a two-year debt ceiling suspension — a key request from President-elect Trump — along with a slew of other spending priorities sought by Congressional Republicans.

It is unclear if this newly released CR has the necessary support in Congress to pass. If it is adopted, it will likely mark the end of further consideration of WIOA reauthorization this Congress.

Our public policy team is continuing to engage with this process closely and will keep members informed of any further developments.

Dec. 18, 2024 — Yesterday, Congress released the legislative text of the Continuing Resolution (CR) to extend funding for the current fiscal year until March 14, 2025. The bill includes a number of pending pieces of legislation, including A Stronger Workforce for America (ASWA), which reauthorizes the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) through 2030. The inclusion of ASWA in this bill is an important milestone for our nation’s public workforce system.

We remain concerned about certain provisions in the bill and their impact on local boards’ ability to fulfill their missions – such as the redesignation process and expanding the Governor’s set-aside allowance. However, we are pleased to see several changes within the proposal that have been made since the bicameral bipartisan Committee agreement was announced a few weeks ago. These changes include:

• The 50% training mandate has been adjusted so that Supportive Services and Career Services can be calculated as up to 10% of Title I funds, giving boards more flexibility in meeting this mandate.
• ASWA increases youth work experience obligations to 40% but does not include an employer matching requirement.
• Extended implementation timelines in serval programmatic areas.

While not aligned to NAWB’s recommendation to fund local and state workforce boards at the level needed to fully meet demand, we note that this authorization would increase in funding over current levels.

Should the CR complete the legislative process and the WIOA system be reauthorized, we stand ready to work with the Department of Labor and other workforce development stakeholders to inform ASWA’s implementation.

NAWB President and CEO, Brad Turner-Little,   made the following statement in response to the Congressional committee leadership’s bipartisan, bicameral agreement to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).

The new bill, which we provided an initial summary of, is currently being considered on a fast-track procedure in the Senate.

“Since WIOA’s reauthorization in 2014, workforce development boards (WDBs) have sought to meet the evolving needs of employers, jobseekers, and the local communities that they serve. It is laudable that lawmakers have reached consensus on legislation to make significant updates to the nation’s public workforce development system, including improvements that recognize the vital role that WDBs play in strengthening local economies.

Since the initial release of a new bicameral and bipartisan WIOA reauthorization agreement last week, A Stronger Workforce for America Act (ASWA), the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) has spent time analyzing this proposal and engaging with our members to understand how the bill would affect ongoing operations, service delivery, and the ability of WDBs to serve jobseekers and employers alike throughout the nation. Through these discussions, it has become clear that there are aspects of this legislation that conform with NAWB’s vision for the future of the public workforce system, while there are other significant components of this agreement that will be challenging to implement at best and could undermine WBDs’ ability to meet their mission.

ASWA would renew the law for five more years, sending a powerful signal that the public workforce system authorized by this legislation is critical to wider efforts in preparing and sustaining the skilled workforce needed for America’s wider success. NAWB is pleased to note that many of the organization’s recommendations have been incorporated into this legislation. These include clarifying local WDBs’ authority over local budgets; increased flexibilities to serve incumbent workers; improvements to cost-sharing requirements for one-stop centers, including flexibilities for the sharing and pooling of these resources; increased professional development opportunities for local staff; allowing for marketing and outreach efforts on behalf of the system; allowing WDBs to serve as one-stop operators when meeting certain conditions; a new emphasis on skills-based hiring; and dramatic improvements to data collection and subsequent reporting to make the public workforce system more transparent and responsive to the needs of workers and employers.

While NAWB appreciates these and other aspects of the agreement, the legislation unfortunately continues to advance provisions that our organization does not support, including a new systemwide mandate for training and an overly prescriptive work experience requirement for youth funding which we believe runs counter to local autonomy and flexibility. While we appreciate the agreement’s recognition of the important role supportive services play in the success of worker skills development, we continue to call on Congress to ensure that any new requirements reflect the realities facing the populations WIOA is structured to prioritize.

NAWB’s members have made clear that increased state-level set-asides will mean fewer resources will be available to local WDBs to implement these and other aspects of this legislation with fidelity. In conjunction with the proposed local workforce area redesignation provisions, NAWB’s members have also made clear that there is a strong potential that aspects of the public workforce system will need to close, staff laid off, and business services significantly curtailed under these new operating constraints.

Taken together, we remain deeply concerned that these aspects of the agreement will make it more difficult for the public workforce development system to serve jobseekers and employers alike moving forward.

We are grateful to have heard from so many of our members who provided thoughtful and meaningful perspectives as part of NAWB’s analysis of this legislation. They are the true experts, working every day with local community partners, elected officials, businesses, and jobseekers. We recognize the extremely challenging environment that workforce boards will be in whether this bill is enacted during the final days of the 118th Congress or if current law remains in place for the time being.

In either scenario, NAWB remains committed to working closely with the incoming administration and new Congress to ensure that the public workforce development system is responsive to the needs of workers, learners, and businesses, and can fulfill the significant workforce development needs of our nation now and in the future.

This will certainly be among our top priorities during Workforce Advocacy Day, scheduled for April 1-2, 2025 in Washington, DC. NAWB members need to share their expertise with members of Congress to ensure that the workforce system has the necessary resources to serve their local communities.”

Learn more about NAWB’s work on WIOA.