“To amend the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to establish a State innovation demonstration authority.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section replaces the workforce flexibility plan authority, which allowed states to waive specified statutory and regulatory requirements under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), Wagner-Peyser Act labor exchange services, and certain Older Americans Act programs for up to 5 years, with a new state innovation demonstration authority. Under the new authority, states may apply on behalf of the entire state, a selected local area, or a consortium of local areas to receive, as a 5-year consolidated grant, the state's or local areas' annual allotments or allocations for WIOA youth workforce investment activities (secs. 127(b)(1)(C), 127(c), 128(b)-(c), 133(b)-(c)) and adult and dislocated worker employment and training activities (secs. 132(b)(1)(B)-(2)(B), 132(c)). (Thus, recipients may use the funds flexibly to pursue innovative reforms aimed at better outcomes for jobseekers, employers, and taxpayers, subject to broad waivers of all statutory and regulatory requirements in WIOA subtitles A (workforce development system) and B (youth and adult activities), except for performance accountability and reporting, local or state board membership (if retained), and priority of service for public assistance recipients.) The Secretary must, within 180 days of approving the first project, contract with a third-party evaluator to rigorously assess each 5-year demonstration project by comparing participant employment and earnings outcomes—including for specified subpopulations—to non-participants in the state or local area and to prior WIOA waiver participants; identifying innovative practices enabled by the waivers; and submitting a report to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions within 2 years after the project's fifth year.