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State board reviews workforce grants, apprenticeships and new labor‑market tools to guide program approvals
Summary
Officials outlined how Carl Perkins, Early Achievers, BFET and WorkFirst fund workforce education, described the Washington College Grant pilot for registered apprentices, and previewed a partnership with Employment Security to deliver standardized labor‑market information and user‑focused tools for program approval and rapid program changes.
Marie Bruin, director for workforce education, summarized the system’s federal and state workforce programs and how they support career training. Carl Perkins funding (about $13.9 million statewide) remains level‑funded and supports program innovation, faculty externships and comprehensive local needs assessments (CLNAs). The Early Achievers grant (about $6.6 million) supports childcare worker credentialing and wraparound navigation, and BFET and WorkFirst provide targeted supports for SNAP and TANF recipients respectively.
Bruin said Perkins remains an essential but modest resource and noted it can be paired with local resources and employer partnerships to scale faculty development and program start‑up costs. She described a comprehensive local needs assessment requirement and said colleges use performance and headcount measures in allocation formulas.
On apprenticeships, staff explained work to identify registered apprentices as students in the program inventory and to award the Washington College Grant to eligible apprentices; the system has awarded grants to roughly 185 apprentices so far as a pilot. Presenters emphasized that apprenticeships require employer‑sponsored jobs first, so employer capacity shapes program scale.
William Baldwin and Travis Delaney described a labor‑market information (LMI) project with the Employment Security Department and CREC to create consistent, user‑focused LMI tools and system personas (eight primary user types) so colleges can use a common data set to justify program approvals, identify high‑value short credentials, and reduce duplicative vendor subscriptions. The goal is to embed consistent LMI into program approval and faster program modifications.
