Political Quotes

“Right now we have taken the 63 Federal job training-retraining programs back in the late 1990s and ran them into three funding streams to the States. What we propose to do in this bill is to reduce that to one funding stream. This idea of we are block granting this to the States and giving full discretion to the governor is just not true. Under the bill, we require that half of the funds go directly to the local boards. Of the half that stays at the State, the State must use 50 percent of that money to assist and provide services to local boards. So when we begin to look at how this program will be enhanced, at least 75 percent of the money will be spent by our local boards. The other 25 percent is given to the governors based on their need to react to unemployment problems, sudden unemployment problems somewhere else in the State where additional assistance may be needed. In the bill we also provide much more local control by our local boards. Our vision when we started this was to give local businesses and local community leaders the ability to control what happens in terms of how these monies are spent and the types of services that are provided. I do believe that it is going to result in not only better services, but better outcomes for our workers.”